In Theaters
In Theaters — Latest
A+ |
**** |
+2|
Kids & Up
At the intersection of great animated films, great filmed stage musicals, and great fairy-tale romances, Disney’s
Beauty and the Beast stands alone. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, it is simply the quintessential Disney masterpiece, the perfection of everything that
Cinderella,
Alice in Wonderland,
Sleeping Beauty and
The Little Mermaid aspired to.
Read more >
At last, a horror film for disaffected Catholic traditionalists embittered against the Church for post-Vatican II changes; who see the Church itself, not just the larger culture, as compromised by modernism, and impeding orthodox clerics from carrying out true spiritual work.
Read more >
B- |
**½ |
+1-1|
Teens & Up
For
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who stars as a young solicitor named Arthur Kipps,
The Woman in Black is an opportunity to make a reasonably graceful break from the role that has dominated his life since childhood. For the new owners of England’s legendary Hammer horror brand, until recently dormant from the 1970s, it’s an opportunity to stake their claim to continuing in the tradition of Terence Fisher, Jimmy Sangster et al. For curious movie watchers, it’s an opportunity to see how Radcliffe does in another role — and how an old-fashioned haunted house story plays today.
Read more >
In Theaters — All
It’s been well over a decade since Steven Spielberg directed a family film. Now he has two out in the same week—both based on juvenile literary source material, and both European-set period pieces, redolent of nostalgia of one sort or another.
Read more >
A+ |
**** |
+2|
Kids & Up
At the intersection of great animated films, great filmed stage musicals, and great fairy-tale romances, Disney’s
Beauty and the Beast stands alone. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, it is simply the quintessential Disney masterpiece, the perfection of everything that
Cinderella,
Alice in Wonderland,
Sleeping Beauty and
The Little Mermaid aspired to.
Read more >
At last, a horror film for disaffected Catholic traditionalists embittered against the Church for post-Vatican II changes; who see the Church itself, not just the larger culture, as compromised by modernism, and impeding orthodox clerics from carrying out true spiritual work.
Read more >
D+ |
** |
-2+1|
Teens & Up
Little ones are “tougher than we think,” a penguin remarks in
Happy Feet Two, and you can tell director George Miller believes it. The animated sequel pulls few punches: It’s overshadowed by more darkness, menace, heartache and anxiety than any talking-animal picture I can think of since, well, Miller’s last family-film sequel, the execrable
Babe: Pig in the City. Neither the classic
Babe nor the original
Happy Feet contained any hint of the darkness of the sequels. Apparently Miller’s strategy is to soften kids up first, then drop the bomb.
Read more >
A- |
***½ |
+0|
Teens & Up
Brad Bird’s
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is so preposterously entertaining that it makes watching other recent Hollywood action spectacles feel like work. What in the last few years even compares to it?
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A- |
***½ |
+1|
Kids & Up
This is quite deliberately
not a reboot or reimagining or any such thing. Perhaps we can call it a revisiting. Like this summer’s charming
Winnie the Pooh (also from Disney),
The Muppets is a happy throwback, very much of a piece with material that my generation grew up with, eclipsing the lameness of recent direct-to-video efforts. Who would have thought two classic family franchises that have lain fallow for so long would be reborn in the same year?
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Here’s my 30-second take on
Twilight – Breaking Dawn: Part 1.
Read more >
It’s been well over a decade since Steven Spielberg directed a family film. Now he has two out in the same week—both based on juvenile literary source material, and both European-set period pieces, redolent of nostalgia of one sort or another.
Read more >
B- |
**½ |
+1-1|
Teens & Up
For
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who stars as a young solicitor named Arthur Kipps,
The Woman in Black is an opportunity to make a reasonably graceful break from the role that has dominated his life since childhood. For the new owners of England’s legendary Hammer horror brand, until recently dormant from the 1970s, it’s an opportunity to stake their claim to continuing in the tradition of Terence Fisher, Jimmy Sangster et al. For curious movie watchers, it’s an opportunity to see how Radcliffe does in another role — and how an old-fashioned haunted house story plays today.
Read more >