FilmStew.com: REVIEWSANDVIEWS

The "Shawshank" Replication

08/22/2008

The similarities of Death Race to a certain 1994 Best Picture nominee make the Legally Blonde flavorings of The House Bunny look like a boob job.

Something Rotten in Park City

08/22/2008

For our critic, sitting through the $10 million Sundance acquisition Hamlet 2 was the equivalent of suffering the slings and arrows of (an) outrageous fortune.

Ben Holds Five

08/15/2008

The hardest working sexagenarian in British show business has essentially morphed into his country’s version of Morgan Freeman.

A May-December Tap Dance

08/08/2008

Though Elegy has all the makings of one of those preposterous older man-younger woman Hollywood romances, it has been turned into so much more by a Brit and two Spaniards.

Good Golly Miss Molly

08/01/2008

A decade and a half after child actor T.J. Lowther tore it up opposite Kevin Costner in A Perfect World, another formidable pint-sized performer has come along to rock the Oscar winner’s world.

A Performance to Be "Revisited"?

07/29/2008

Since the Academy loves it when actress Emma Thompson dons period garb, even the fact that her latest highbrow film has come down the pike in summer may not be enough to dissuade them from remembering her come Oscar time.

The 20th Century Fox "Files"

07/25/2008

Another weekend, another News Corp. mainstream offering fastidiously kept on the down low. But in this case, it might actually backfire.

The Cracked Crusader

07/23/2008

Lurking beneath the chic business attire of Gotham City’s mayor is The Dark Knight ’s wonkiest superhero.

Licensed to Shrill

07/21/2008

Many things in the ABBA Broadway musical film adaptation had our critic muttering ‘Mamma Mia!’ to herself, but none more so than Pierce Brosnan’s leaky larynx.

From the Dead to the Undead

07/16/2008

Hoping to do for vampires with True Blood what he did for morticians with Six Feet Under, Alan Ball once again straddles the line between life and death.

The "Shutter" Stutter-Step

07/15/2008

When your movie is headed towards an eventual 07% rating on RottenTomatoes.com, it pays to delay that cumulative score as long as possible.

Magic on Mount Washington

07/10/2008

Critic Shelley Gabert explains how a recent screening of the documentary Surfwise was able to hang a perfect ten.

More Inconvenient Truth-Telling

07/02/2008

For his rallying cry against global warming, German filmmaker Werner Herzog bypassed the slide show in favor of a trip to Antarctica.

Help "Wanted"

06/27/2008

Wanted and The Promotion have something in common that is a little less obvious than the fact that they are both set in Chicago.

"Smart" Reverberations

06/20/2008

For anyone familiar with the older credits of co-stars Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp, it’s their performances that provide the true joy of Get Smart.

Bonded by a "Dance Crew"

06/19/2008

Though our critic does not rank Mario Lopez as one of the sexiest men alive, she can appreciate a TV genre that has the power to unite a niece and her aunt.

Nothing "Funny" About It

06/12/2008

Michael Haneke’s encore presentation of Funny Games bears the same message as his 1997 original: audiences are willing to put up with a lot when violence is branded as entertainment.

The Redemption of Roman

06/09/2008

Forgiven earlier this decade by both the Academy and his alleged victim, exiled filmmaker Roman Polanski now sees his infamous 1970’s rape case taken up by a filmmaker who was-is the same age as the latter.

The Christian Bale "Fear" Factor

06/04/2008

The makers of The Machinist and American Psycho are at it again, but this time their leading men are respectively Eric Roberts and Brandon Routh.

"Sex" and the Golden Oldie

05/30/2008

In between the years Sex and the City lynchpins Michael Patrick King and Darren Star were born, a Joan Crawford movie came out that looks today like a virtual blueprint of the pair’s HBO home run.