MOVIES
Review | Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire (R) ***
Desperate to overcome desperation
MOVIE CRITIC
Rene Rodriguez has been The Herald's movie critic since 1995. He studied film criticism and filmmaking at the University of Miami. Before being named movie critic, he was an arts writer for The Herald and also worked on the city desk.
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MOVIES
Review | The Twilight Saga: New Moon (PG-13) **
Bella's love-triangle test tries our patience
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'Precious' director pushes worst aspects of child abuse to screen
The first movie Lee Daniels directed, the 2005 drama Shadowboxer about a terminally ill assassin and her unusual relationship with her partner in crime, was largely derided by critics and virtually ignored by audiences, grossing less than $1 million worldwide.
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SCREEN GEMS
A look at the week ahead in the movies and TV
BIG SCREEN (PG-13) -- Sandra Bullock sets aside the ditzy romantic-comedy act for this drama based on Michael Lewis' nonfiction bestseller The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, about a homeless African-American teenager (Quinton Aaron) who is taken in by a wealthy white couple (Bullock and Tim McGraw) as part of a college-football recruitment program.
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SCREEN GEMS
A look at the week ahead in the movies and TV
BIG SCREEN 2012 (PG-13) -- Disaster magnet Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) returns to destroy our planet -- again. John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton and Amanda Peet are among the humans trying to make sense of the impending apocalypse. Remember when Irwin Allen made those star-studded disaster flicks in the 1970s? Those were awesome. Emmerich's, not so much. But they sure look awesome.
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DVD SCANS
DVD review | Hitchcock on Blu-ray's a thriller
No one can definitely say 1959's North By Northwest is Alfred Hitchcock's best movie -- how to choose? -- but from first frame to last, it may well be his most entertaining. The first of Hitchcock's pictures to appear on the Blu-ray format (Warner Home Video, $35), the film has been given a $1 million restoration, and to say it looks utterly fantastic on high-definition -- one of the most astounding Blu-ray transfers to date -- is probably an understatement.
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'The Box' filmmaker Richard Kelly pushes his viewers' buttons
Filmmaker Richard Kelly's initial encounter with Richard Matheson's fiendish little short story Button, Button -- about a cash-strapped couple offered a million dollars to push a button on a box that will instantly cause someone they don't know to drop dead -- came not on the page, but on TV.
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MOVIES
Review | Disney's A Christmas Carol (PG) ***
Classic Christmas tale retold with eye-popping effects
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MOVIES
Essay inspired an instant classic
Everything about An Education, the story of a 16-year-old girl's affair with a 30-year-old man in London in 1962, comes together in a way that gives the movie the feel of an instant classic.
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SCREEN GEMS
Coming this week at the movies and on TV
BIG SCREEN The Box (PG-13): -- After the spectacular failure of his ambitious second film Southland Tales, writer-director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) goes the simpler, high-concept route with this thriller adapted from a tiny Richard Matheson short story, about a married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) given a wooden box. Push its button, and you become instantly wealthy -- but someone, somewhere, drops dead. Would you do it? Come on, you know you would.
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DVD SCANS
DVD review | 'Orphan': Modest little picture's a frightful romp
A fiendishly clever twist on the ''evil child'' genre of horror films, Orphan (Warner Home Entertainment, $29 DVD, $34 Blu-ray) was unceremoniously dumped into theaters this summer with little promotion. But the movie, produced by Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment, which specializes in modest little B-pictures (House on Haunted Hill, Ghost Ship), deserved better.
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SCREEN GEMS
A look at the week ahead in the movies and TV
Michael Jackson: This Is It (PG) -- High School Musical director Kenny Ortega, who was collaborating with the singer on a series of London concerts, culls a concert film and cinematic memorial (with some sequences in 3D) from the hundreds of hours of footage taped during Jackson's rehearsals for the shows.
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MOVIES
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival: Reviews and schedule
The buzz on the film festival circuit is that the dearth of independent filmmaking caused by the recession has made festival programming increasingly difficult. But at the 2009 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the show will go on.
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MOVIES
Review | Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (PG-13) **
Too many monsters spoil the goth
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FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Review | Trucker (R) ***
Truck driver role is a star-maker for Monaghan
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FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Review | Queen to Play (Unrated) ***
Pawn becomes a queen in a tale of self discovery
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FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Review | Black Dynamite (R) **
Can't compete with the real thing
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FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Review | Timer (Unrated) **½
Clocks are ticking in sci-fi quest to find The One
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'A Serious Man'
Coen brothers' latest proves you can go home again
Even by Joel and Ethan Coen's bleak standards, A Serious Man would be an uncommonly pessimistic movie. The film tells the story of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a college professor in Minnesota in 1967 whose life is spiraling out of control.
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SCREEN GEMS
Coming this week at the movies and on TV
BIG SCREEN A Serious Man (R) -- Iconoclastic directors Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo) get personal with this comedy, loosely based on their middle-class Jewish upbringing, about a beleaguered college professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) who seeks advice from three rabbis on how to get control of his topsy-turvy life. As funny and bleak as anything the Coens have ever made, but without all the distancing stylistic tricks and irony.
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DVD SCANS
DVD reviews | 'South Park': Buy the Blu-ray for the extras
Ten years in the making, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have finally made good on their promise to record a commentary track for South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. The only catch is that the track is exclusive to the new Blu-ray release of the film (Paramount Home Entertainment, $30), and the movie's crude animation doesn't benefit much from the format's higher resolution.
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SCREEN GEMS
A look at the week ahead in the movies and TV
BIG SCREEN Law Abiding Citizen (R) -- An angry man (300's Gerard Butler) targets the Philadelphia prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) who orchestrated a plea bargain for the killer of his wife and daughter. Sometimes, words just aren't enough.
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DVD SCANS
DVD review | Director's humble comments accompany scandalous `Audition'
You never forget your first time watching Takashi Miike's Audition: For some people, it is the first and last Miike picture they ever see. The wildly prolific Miike's best-known (and arguably most disciplined) work, the movie scandalized film festival audiences when it was shown around the world in 1999, and the terrific new two-disc Audition: Collector's Edition (Shout Factory, $25 DVD, $30 Blu-ray) celebrates the movie's 10th anniversary with a truckload of enlightening extras.
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SCREEN GEMS
A look at the week ahead in the movies and TV
BIG SCREEN Couples Retreat (PG-13) -- Four married couples (among them Vince Vaughn, Malin Akerman, Jason Bateman, Kristin Davis and Jon Favreau) vacation on an island that specializes in relationship counseling. More than specializes, actually: The therapy is mandatory. The cast is promising, and Favreau and Vaughn co-wrote the screenplay, so the movie should be funny. But the trailer looks deadly.
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DVD SCANS
DVD review | 'The Girlfriend Experience': 'Little' Soderbergh flick's a big hit
One of the small experimental films (like Bubble and Full Frontal) director Steven Soderbergh often makes in between larger, big-budget projects, The Girlfriend Experience (Magnolia Home Entertainment, $27 DVD, $35 Blu-ray) was shot on the Red One digital camera filmmakers have been raving about and looks absolutely sensational on Blu-ray.
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