District 9
Starring Sharlto Copley, and David James
Extra terrestrials have landed in movie theaters again, and they're being welcomed by critics -- most of them, anyway. "This is the most imaginative science-fiction movie to come along in years," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News praises it as "a memorable, monstrous fable that's consistently gripping." Rafer Guzmán in Newsday describes it as "a refreshing blast of original filmmaking." A.O. Scott writes in the New York Times that the movie does not use a heavy hand in drawing similarities between the plight of the aliens who have landed in South Africa and the natives who once lived there under apartheid rule. "Instead, in the best B-movie tradition, they embed their ideas in an ingenious, propulsive and suspenseful genre entertainment, one that respects your intelligence even as it makes your eyes pop (and, once in a while, your stomach turn)." Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post calls it an instant sci-fi "classic." The Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert gives the movie three stars, apparently because he likes two-thirds of the movie. "But the third act is disappointing," he writes, "involving standard shoot-out action. ... Despite its creativity, the movie remains space opera and avoids the higher realms of science-fiction." Likewise Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer expresses disappointment that the movie "devolves into just another video-game shoot 'em up." And Kyle Smith in the New York Post writes off the entire second half, noting that in the end what you have is a movie that is "too tongue-in-cheek to be thrilling, not funny enough to be a comedy." RATING: R for bloody violence and pervasive language.
Love Happens
Starring Aaron Eckhart, Jennifer Aniston, Dan Fogler, Judy Greer, Joe
Anderson, John Carroll Lynch, Frances Conroy, and Martin Sheen
Dr. Burke Ryan is on the precipice of a major multimedia deal, but the
therapist who asks his patients to openly confront their pain is
secretly unable to take his own advice. Eloise Chandler has sworn off
men and decided to focus on her floral business. However, when she
meets Burke at the hotel where he's speaking, there is an instant
attraction. But will two people who have met the right person at
exactly the wrong time be able to give love another chance? As each
struggles with the hurt of love and loss, they realize that in order to
move forward, they need to let go of the past. And if they can, they'll
find that, sometimes, love happens when you least expect it. Not
universally liked by reviewers: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch gives it a
high rating, "Although the film begins promisingly, it proves to be
little more than a soap opera." Stephen Holden says, in the New York
Times, "The vital signs in Love Happens, a movie that feels likes a
laboriously padded outline, are faint." NPR was very disappointed, "If
that's the best Hollywood screenwriters can do, maybe they should sign
up for a self-help seminar. Nothing focuses the mind like a little
firewalking." RATING: PG-13 for some language including sexual
references.
Fame
Starring Asher Book, Kristy Flores, Paul Iacono, Debbie Allen, Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, and Bebe Neuwirth
If audiences react the way critics have to the remake of the 1980 version of Fame, Leo the Lion will have to go back into hibernation at MGM. The first movie to be released this year by the struggling studio is being pummeled in virtually every major review. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times comments that "the new Fame is a sad reflection of the new Hollywood, where material is sanitized and dumbed down for a hypothetical teen market that is way too sophisticated for it. It plays like a dinner theater version of the original." Many of the critics observe that the movie looks more like a remake of High School Musical than the original movie. Lou Lumenick in the New York Post suggests that it ought to have been titled Lame rather than Fame and describes it as "a desperate, cynical -- and most likely unsuccessful -- attempt by a dying studio to stave off oblivion by jumping on the High School Musical bandwagon, exploiting one of its legacy titles in ways that dishonor the original." And Michael Sragow concludes in the Baltimore Sun: "The only unpredictable thing about this movie is the all-encompassing totality of its banality." RATING: PG for thematic material including teen drinking, a sexual situation and language.
The Informant
Starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Melanie Lynskey, and Joel McHale
What was Mark Whitacre thinking? A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Whitacre suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company's multi-national price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion. But before all that can happen, the FBI needs evidence, so Whitacre eagerly agrees to wear a wire and carry a hidden tape recorder in his briefcase, imagining himself as a kind of de facto secret agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, their lead witness hasn't been quite so forthcoming about helping himself to the corporate coffers. Whitacre's ever-changing account frustrates the agents and threatens the case against ADM as it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is real and what is the product of Whitacre's active imagination. RATING: R for language.
9
Starring Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, and Crispin Glover
The time is the too-near future. Powered and enabled by the invention known as the Great Machine, the world’s machines have turned on mankind and sparked social unrest, decimating the human population before being largely shut down.But as our world fell to pieces, a mission began to salvage the legacy of civilization; a group of small creations was given the spark of life by a scientist in the final days of humanity, and they continue to exist post-apocalypse. With their group so few, these “stitchpunk” creations must summon individual strengths well beyond their own proportions in order to outwit and fight against still-functioning machines, one of which is a marauding mechanized beast. While showcasing a stunning “steampunk”-styled visual brilliance, 9 dynamically explores the will to live, the power of community, and how one soul can change the world. RATING: PG-13 for violence and scary images.