‘Invention of Lying’ has a simple, resonant premise but is made without rigor. Only intermittent ingenuity saves it from offensive laziness.
With the broad rubbing hornily against the observant, the clear-eyed ‘Adventureland’ views an awkward age with fondness and well-aged shame.
‘Flight of the Conchords S2’ shows what happens when your great ideas got used up the first time. Often amusing but random and kinda stupid.
‘Planet Terror’ – Not nearly bad enough to be a true homage; despite the charming scratches etc., it’s far too polished and winking to work.
In an admiring but fundamentally dismissive review, Matt Zoller Seitz argues that Children of Men’s subject matter necessitates a treatment more rigorous and pointed. The implication is that movies that recall real-world horrors have some responsibility to them, and I don’t necessarily buy that. A film shouldn’t trivialize suffering, but serious politics (and shameful history) shouldn’t be off-limits for entertainments. Plus: Casino Royale and Borat.
The temptation when writing about Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is to try something really clever.
The true subject of Albert Brooks’ Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is the fact that most people don’t find Albert Brooks funny. That sounds sour, and it sells the movie short, but it’s fundamentally true. Plus: V for Vendetta.
Sarah Silverman is no Snakes on a Plane, but the slapdash movie bearing her name suffers from the same problem: overexposure.
It’s admittedly unfair to want more from Slither than it’s willing to give, but I found the horror comedy from March too slight for the praise it got. Put simply: Slither lacked an agenda. Plus: Ginger Snaps, a horror-comedy hybrid that finds the right balance.
Two movies live in Shopgirl. One is a creepy but strangely touching May-December romance between Claire Danes and Steve Martin. The other stars Danes and Jason Schwartzman in a screwball comedy, with an intrusive, superfluous voice-over. The first of these movies is surprisingly good; the second sucks. Plus: Silent Hill, another schizophrenic film.