Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

Joshua

Eschewing supernatural hysteria

By BRETT MICHEL | July 11, 2007

2.5 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Joshua.

Why didn’t Patricia Highsmith begin chronicling the dubious deeds of Tom Ripley at a younger age –– say, nine? Perhaps it’s because she knew how improbably the portrait of an artist as a young sociopath would read, talented though he may be, when he’s been capable of wiping his own ass for barely five years. But then, Joshua Cairn (icy newcomer Jacob Kogan), the Bad Seed at the center of George Ratliff’s Manhattan-set thriller (Rosemary must be a neighbor), is so precocious that he likely bypassed diapers faster than he’s skipping grades. Ratliff’s new spin on an old yarn wisely eschews supernatural hysteria, favoring the very real fears of unexceptional parents (finely unhinged work from Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga) pushed past the bounds of sanity by an exceptional prodigy who maybe also pushed his Christian-nut-job Grandma down a set of stairs, something sure to please fans of Ratliff’s documentary Hell House.

Related: Fateful Departed, Dots and dashes, Review: Frost/Nixon, More

Fateful Departed
No wonder the cops and the feds can’t catch Whitey Bulger: they’re too busy beating the shit out of each other. Watch the trailer for The Departed (QuickTime) Whitey wash: Scorsese, Damon, and DiCaprio honor The Departed. By Brett Michel
Dots and dashes
Just about any list of the greatest character actors working today would include David Morse. And with good cause.
Review: Frost/Nixon
Dick gets off easy in Frost/Nixon
Review: Iron Man 2
Maybe I’m just relieved that it wasn’t in 3-D, or maybe actor Justin Theroux (frequent David Lynch collaborator and co-scripter of Tropic Thunder ) is just a better writer than the law firm of scribes that pasted together the original, but Jon Favreau’s sequel to his creaky adaptation of the rusty Marvel standby Iron Man restores my lack of faith in superheroes.
Die Another Day
How often do you get a second chance at making a first impression? In Hollywood, it’s likely never.
Idol pleasures
It’s easy for me to say, because I don’t have to put butts into seats, but wouldn’t it be great if a local repertoire house programmed a series of adaptations of the late British novelist Graham Greene?
October lite
We expected the vampires, the werewolves, the zombies, and the homicidal maniacs. Same thing with the android doubles, the alien abductors, the sexually abused pregnant teenager, the Apocalypse, and the post-Apocalypse. But kids' movies?
Review: Gentlemen Broncos
Having peaked with his debut, Napoleon Dynamite , Jared Hess has settled into being a family-friendly John Waters — which is redundant, since Waters is already rated PG-13.
Review: The Informant!
The Informant! opens with a segment that sounds as if it had been culled from Food, Inc.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The performances never falter, and even James Horner's heavy-handed score can't dim the film's unfathomable, unshakable ending.
Review: G-Force
A hero named Darwin and a convoluted plot about "global extermination" are the first clues that director Hoyt Yeatman isn't taking the cute route with his cast of animated guinea pigs.
Less

Topics: Reviews , Sam Rockwell, Patricia Highsmith, Tom Ripley, More

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/17 ] Festival Ballet Providence presents UP CLOSE ON HOPE @ Black Box Theater

[ 02/17 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

[ 02/17 ] Mary Poppins @ Providence Performing Arts Center

ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL

REVIEW: THIS MEANS WAR | February 16, 2012
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.

REVIEW: THE VIRAL FACTOR | January 17, 2012
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.

REVIEW: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE | January 17, 2012
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."

REVIEW: THE DIVIDE | January 10, 2012
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."

REVIEW: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL | December 20, 2011
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.