‘Sixth Sense’ writer-director M. Night Shyamalan returns with another promising but ultimately disappointing paranormal thriller, this time concerning mysterious crop circles that appear around the world and, more importantly, in Mel Gibson’s backyard.
Writer-director Alexander Payne finds the perfect representative for his special brand of mid-life despair, sending the always-wonderful Paul Giamatti on a bachelor’s wine tasting road trip with old college buddy Thomas Haden Church. Vintage Payne.
With more of an epilogue than a sequel, Dreamworks manages to squeeze a few more drops of humor out of William Steig’s beloved ogre, but like Mike Myers’ Scottish accent, the story is getting thin.
DreamWorks tears a page out of Pixar’s book and presents a goofy, scatologically funny Ogre-Knight success story which is not quite as clever as the ‘Toy Story’ films, but still features some first-rate vocal performances by Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and John Lithgow, as well as the requisite mind-blowing animation.
Writers Edgar Wright, who also directs, and Simon Pegg, who also stars, have taken the zombie genre and injected it with just the right amount of goofiness to make a surprisingly funny and clever zombie horror parody, with just a smattering of romantic comedy.
It turns out that Hong Kong’s highest grossing comedy is actually pretty darn funny. Writer-director-star Shephen Chow tweaks the kung-fu action genre with his story of a martial arts master applying his skill to the titular sport. As is usual for Hong Kong comedies the acting is way over-the-top but, somehow, that’s what makes it work.
Jackie Chan turns up his irresistible cuteness and teams with the irresistibly odd Owen Wilson in a convoluted tale which allows for much of his standard brand of chop-socky.
I want to say that ‘Shakespeare in Love’ is a near-perfect romantic comedy, but I can’t find a flaw to make it near-perfect.
At once random, predictable and nearly insulting reworking of the perennial 70s blaxploitation private eye.
An interesting premise – the actor playing the infamous ‘Nosferatu’ is actually a vampire – grows stale over the course of E. Elias Merhige’s dark comedy, despite an eerily on-target performance by Willem Dafoe.
