http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/index.html http://media.miamiherald.com/images/logos/rss_sitelogo.gif http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/index.html 140 25 News, sports and entertainment from MiamiHerald.com en-us Copyright 2009 MiamiHerald.com Movie Reviews 60 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:54:32 EST http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss McClatchy Interactive's PubSys miamifeedback@miamiherald.com http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/top-story/story/1341303.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/top-story/story/1341303.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:00 EST ''You're not the first monsters I've met,'' the 18-year-old Bella (Kristen Stewart) yawns at a pack of werewolves. They are fairly impressive creatures, these wolf-men who run around shirtless a lot, turn into giant wolves when angry and seem to own matching sets of magical pants that reappear when they transform back into their human selves. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341304.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341304.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:00 EST ''Every day I tell myself something's going to happen,'' the eponymous heroine thinks early on in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. ''I'm going to break through, or someone is going to break through to me.'' To say that she eventually gets her wish -- sort of -- doesn't spoil a thing: This bruising, harrowing movie would be impossible to sit through without at least a hint of light at the end of its astonishingly dark tunnel. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341295.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341295.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:00 EST Uplifting. Heartwarming. Schmaltzy but effective. The Blind Side is a feel-good true story of interracial adoption and gridiron glory. The project could have been designed by scientists synthesizing the crowd-pleasing-movie genome. Bullock + football + Kumbaya = Ka-ching! http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341682.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341682.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:00 EST There are loads of references to other sci-fi movies in Planet 51: E.T., The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Wars, even to a cute little mutt with a head shaped like the monster from Alien that squirts acid urine. The movie, about a far-flung planet of green aliens whose civilization resembles 1950s malt-shop and doo-wop America, is also crammed with subtexts about the era's paranoias, from UFO invaders to McCarthyism. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341301.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1341301.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:00 EST In the well-behaved documentary Earth Days, wizened, Woodstock-era veterans of the environmental movement recount how conservationists and the counterculture steered Spaceship Earth in a new direction. Yet there's little that's new in the retelling, except mellowed musings on Environmentalism 2.0. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1329228.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1329228.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:00 EST The first time the sun destroyed the Earth in a Hollywood movie this year came at the end of Knowing, when our planet went up in smoke in a matter of minutes. The sun is at it again in 2012, although we are not going down so quickly this time. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1329503.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1329503.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:00 EST Once upon a time (in 1966) in a galaxy far, far away (Great Britain), rock 'n' roll was king (except on the traditional airwaves). Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart -- you could hear them all on local radio stations. But the fresh new sounds of the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks were nowhere to be found. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1329258.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1329258.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:00 EST (Untitled) is a comedy for anyone who has ever stood before an abstract painting or sculpture or witnessed a performance of interpretive dance and music, and thought ''I could have done this.'' The question of what, exactly, constitutes art is at the center of director Jonathan Parker's satire of the New York gallery scene. The movie simultaneously mocks the vacuousness of the avant-garde and celebrates the spirit with which the artists pursue their sometimes pointless, futile passions. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317463.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317463.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:00 EST Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival: The 24th annual event moves into its final week of new features, documentaries and shorts from around the globe plus parties, seminars and films for kids. Filmmakers are featured at many of the events; through Nov. 11; Cinema Paradiso, 503 SE Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale (unless otherwise noted); $10, $8 seniors and students, $6 FLIFF members (unless otherwise noted) A $25 donation is suggested at some of the screenings and is tax deductible. See website for details and to confirm schedule. 954-525-3456 or www.fliff.com: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317455.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317455.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST ''More of this is true than you would believe,'' warns a title card at the start of The Men Who Stare at Goats, although the ever-reliable ''I know this sounds crazy, but . . .'' would have worked just as well. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1318141.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1318141.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST Could there possibly be anything left to gain from yet another adaptation of Charles Dickens' tale about crabby old Ebenezer Scrooge and his life-changing encounter with three ghosts on Christmas Eve? In the case of Disney's A Christmas Carol, the answer is a surprising, resounding yes -- at least so far as the IMAX 3D version goes. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317454.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317454.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST You've heard about close encounters of the third kind, of course, the extraterrestrial meetings that involve contact, presumably of a benign nature. The fourth kind involves a more invasive sort of contact: alien abduction, possibly including those uncomfortable probes about which the true UFO believers are always so nervous. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317461.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317461.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST The name Moritz Bleibtreu means little to American moviegoers, so imagine the volcanic early Jack Nicholson. Bleibtreu plays Andreas Baader, a volatile West German thug who led a terrorist gang called the Red Army Faction. His struggles to smash the state seem like the temper tantrums of a gun-slinging infant. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317458.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1317458.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST How do you pad out a six-page short story that strives to be nothing more than a clever little morality tale into a feature-length film? By throwing in lots and lots of stuff -- practically everything but zombies. Check that: We've got two hours to fill here. Bring on the zombies, too! http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305916.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305916.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT As a film, Michael Jackson's This Is It is fairly straightforward, a series of musical numbers shot during rehearsals for the spectacular 50-show concert Jackson planned to stage at London's O2 arena but didn't live long enough to perform. As a cultural artifact, though, it's something more compelling: the final act of a pop legend, all the more powerful if you were one of the kids who bought ABC on a 45, danced your way through high school to the beat of Off the Wall, huddled around a TV in your college dorm to watch the MTV premiere of Thriller and wondered in later years: ``What happened to his face?'' http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305908.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305908.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a 16-year-old growing up in the London suburb of Twickenham in 1961, is always the first in class to raise her hand with the answer. She is fluent in French and studying Latin; she plays the cello and is familiar with all the pre-Raphaelite artists (Rossetti and Burne-Jones are her favorites; Holman Hunt, not so much). http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305921.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305921.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT The central figure -- we can't call him a hero -- of this sports drama based on reality is the late English soccer team manager Brian Clough, who ranks with Jake LaMotta and Ty Cobb as one of the least lovable pro sports stars. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305912.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1305912.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Early on in Francis Ford Coppola's shimmering, mesmerizing Tetro, a young man on his way to meet up with his eccentric older brother walks down a stark, shadowy street, past a graffiti-defaced wall. The setting is Buenos Aires, not Tulsa, and the score is grand and symphonic, not percussive and spare. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1306404.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1306404.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) works the night shift in an underground Staten Island parking lot. He mans the booth and the electronic arm that lets drivers in and out. He's 35 and lives at home with his mother. He has one buddy. And he doesn't have a girlfriend. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294344.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294344.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT In an ironic twist, Mira Nair's big-hearted yet by-the-numbers biopic of Amelia Earhart never -- unlike the famous aviatrix -- takes chances. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294789.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294789.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT We learn all sorts of interesting things in this amusing and socially insightful Chris Rock-guided tour into the care and culture of black hair. Rapper/actress Eve demanded her first relaxer at 9. Actor Ice-T was in 10th grade when he wore curlers to school (and was gangster enough to get away with doing so). Poet Maya Angelou waited until she was a bit older -- 70! -- before delving into the world of what one young African American calls ''the creamy crack.'' http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294353.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294353.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT You don't have to be a fashionista to enjoy Coco Before Chanel, director Anne Fontaine's engrossing look at the life of Gabrielle ''Coco'' Chanel before she became a brand name. The movie is the latest entry in a growing wave of films revolving around the fashion industry (Ridley Scott is currently talking to Angelina Jolie for a movie about the Gucci empire). But Fontaine's primary focus is not clothing but people -- specifically the role of women in a strict, buttoned-down society that had clear delineations toward how they should look and behave. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294382.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294382.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT A textbook example of how trying to please everyone ends up pleasing no one, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is a Frankenstein's monster of a movie, all stitches and seams and disparate parts. Based on the first three volumes of Darren Shan's 12-book series, the movie was intended to be a franchise launcher -- a cross between Harry Potter and Twilight with a bit of comic-book pow and a smattering of gore thrown in to lure older teens. You can imagine how the Universal Pictures marketing department must have salivated over that pitch. How can it possibly miss, right? http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1293283.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1293283.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT ''Please. I need help,'' Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) pleads in A Serious Man, the 14th -- and best, and most heartfelt -- film by Joel and Ethan Coen. But there's no help to be found. Larry, dutiful husband, caring father, responsible college professor and all-around mensch living in Minnesota in 1967, is about to discover that everyone is out for himself, and woe to those who assume other people really care about you. Even God can't be bothered. He's busy, you know? http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294365.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/1294365.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT ''This is a new Miami!'' a partygoer tells Ivan (Adrian Mas), a Cuban balsero who recently arrived in the city. ''You can do whatever you want!'' Those are words Ivan takes to heart -- and then some.