[8] Writer/director Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt) takes us on a trip through California wine country with two middle-aged college buddies in Sideways, based on a novel by Rex Pickett. Paul Giamatti plays a divorced junior high school teacher suffering from depression and anxiety whose dream of becoming a published author is about the only thing keeping him going. Thomas Haden Church is a somewhat …
[7] Colin Farrell stars as a free-spirited young man who enters into a romantic triangle with a woman (Robin Wright) and his boyhood friend (Dallas Roberts). A Home at the End of the World, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham (The Hours), takes us through three decades in these characters’ lives. The first quarter of the movie shows us how Farrell’s character was shaped …
[6] A selfish senator forces his closeted gay son to be the poster boy for his re-election campaign. Meanwhile, an AIDS activist plans to publicly ‘out’ the son during a college campaign stop. Trouble is, the senator’s son and the AIDS activist start to really fall in love. Poster Boy is ambitious in its storytelling, juggling multiple characters and subplots. While it loses focus a …
[5] Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern play one couple, Naomi Watts and Peter Krause play another. Both couples are friendly, especially Ruffalo and Watts, who sneak away every possible moment to have sex with each other. Dern’s no dummy, though. She knows her husband is cheating with her friend — and it’s driving her nuts. Krause knows, too — but he’s just grateful someone else …
[8] Don Cheadle stars as Paul Rusesabagina in the true story of a Rwandan man who saved over a thousand lives by harboring refugees in his hotel during the Hutu slaughtering of the Tutsi in 1994. Hotel Rwanda takes about ten or fifteen minutes to set itself up before it becomes a non-stop terrifying fight for life. Once the Hutu begin killing his friends and …
[7] Director Jay Roach and cast return, adding Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Steisand to the mix, for this sequel to Meet the Parents. In preparation for their big wedding, Ben Stiller and Teri Polo need for their parents to meet each other. We got to know her parents — Robert DeNiro and Blythe Danner — in the previous movie. The sequel brings all the characters …
[7] Christian Bale stars as a factory machinist eaten away by paranoia as he suffers a year of insomnia. After an accident at work in which Bale is partly responsible for another man losing his arm, Bale suspects his coworkers are conspiring to get him fired. There’s a man he’s talked to that no one else has ever seen or heard of. There are mysterious …
[7] Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams star as young lovers from different social backgrounds whose relationship is torn apart by interfering parents and World War II. When they reunite many years later, she’s engaged to another (James Marsden), but their feelings for one another remain. The Notebook, based on the book by Nicholas Sparks, essentially boils down to, “Which boy will she choose?” But it …
[6] Robert Redford gets kidnapped, leaving his wife Helen Mirren home with their adult children to try and figure out what the hell is going on. The Clearing divides its time pretty equally between Redford’s and Mirren’s storylines. Redford’s kidnapper is played by Willem Dafoe, who walks him into the woods and claims to be taking him to a cabin where the real bad guys …
[6] Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) gets locked in a London subway station overnight and soon discovers she’s not alone. Someone, or something, is after her. Creep is a simple but solid indie horror thriller. It’s not terribly original, but director Christopher Smith (Triangle, Severance) is capable of building tension and conjuring some spooky atmosphere. And when the ‘monster’ is revealed, it’s not a let-down …
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