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'Mars Needs Moms' Review: Laughs Are Also in Short Supply

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Mar 12th 2011 6:00PM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical


In some other world, 'Mars Needs Moms' would have settled for being just a family-friendly intergalactic adventure, a sprightly adaptation of Berkeley Breathed's 40-page children's book rendered well in 3D. Instead, Simon Wells' take on the material is an odd duck: part anti-feminist, anti-authoritarian screed, part insufferable culture-clash comedy, and part suitable space shenanigans that are nonetheless stranded in the uncanny valley thanks to producer Robert Zemeckis' insistence on employing motion-capture animation for his every post-'Polar Express' project.
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'Take Me Home Tonight' Review: Topher Grace in That '80s Show

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Mar 4th 2011 11:00AM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical


After four years at M.I.T., Matt Franklin (Topher Grace) doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, and after nearly four years of sitting on a shelf, 'Take Me Home Tonight' isn't sure what it wants to be, either. Is it a knowing tribute to the "one crazy night" romps of the '80s? Is it an introspective coming-of-age dramedy that just happens to be set in the same era? The film starts out with big hair, skinny ties, and hit song after hit song after hit song, eager to capitalize on every possible pop-culture signpost early on before settling into a slack rhythm of sitcom setpieces interrupted by stale emotional conflict.
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'Just Go With It' Review: Adam Sandler Lies His Way Into Love

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Feb 11th 2011 9:35AM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical


It feels fitting that the soundtrack to Dennis Dugan's 'Just Go with It' consists mostly of mash-ups and covers. The film, a remake of 1969's Oscar-winning 'Cactus Flower' (itself an adaptation of a Broadway play, which was itself an adaptation of a French play), jostles between folly and genuine farce in a manner decidedly progressive for the likes of Dugan and his frequent collaborator, star Adam Sandler -- which is to say, it's better than their 'Grown Ups,' 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan' and 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry'. Make of that what you will.
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'Sanctum' Review: Short on Oxygen, Suspense and Sense

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Feb 4th 2011 9:30AM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical


It's easy to sit back and enjoy the adventure films of the 1950s, '60s and '70s with a detached regard today, but the question is: were they as corny then as they're often considered now? There's something hokey yet irresistible about 'Fantastic Voyage' and 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' as viewed through a CGI-jaded eye. Surely, someone must not have been so tickled by the transparent artifice of it all at the time. (Let's be fair, though: the bar for on-screen spectacle was on a whole different level back then.)

To be perfectly clear, 'Sanctum' is itself corny, and tremendously so. 2–3 servings of vegetables a day corny. Chief export of Iowa corny. And while it approaches its life-or-death dilemmas with an entirely straight face, the sense of peril is undone at nearly every turn by paint-by-numbers characterizations and cringe-worthy lines of dialogue. It's little wonder, then, why James Cameron ('Avatar') opted to tag along as an executive producer -- it's a project that encapsulates all of his worst tendencies and hopes to excuse them by way of some marginally effective 3D technology.
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Sundance 2011 Award Winners Include 'Like Crazy,' 'Another Earth,' 'Pariah'

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Jan 29th 2011 10:36PM
Filed under: Awards, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical


It was already announced yesterday that the sci-fi drama 'Another Earth' took home the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Now, here are the rest of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival award winners.

Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic:
'Like Crazy'

Grand Jury Prize, Documentary:
'How to Die in Oregon'

Audience Award, Dramatic:
'Circumstance'

Audience Award, Documentary:
'Buck'

World Cinema Jury Prize, Dramatic:
'Happy Happy'

World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary:
'Hell and Back Again'

World Cinema Audience Award, Dramatic:
'Kinyarwanda'

World Cinema Audience Award, Documentary:
'Senna'

More winners after the jump!
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'The Rite' Review: Anthony Hopkins Fights to Keep Demons, Cliches at Bay

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Jan 28th 2011 11:20AM
Filed under: Reviews, Horror, Cinematical


"What were you expecting, spinning heads? Pea soup?," Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) asks of both his young liege (Colin O'Donoghue) and the audience for 'The Rite,' which is no 'Exorcist' and it knows it. Heck, it even pales in comparison to 2010's 'The Last Exorcism' when it comes to weighing a skeptic's reasoning against displays of supernatural mischief. But for a good while, it's got a handsome sheen in its favor and it dares to evoke something resembling a nuanced performance out of Hopkins, before having him succumb to his recent scenery-chewing habits.

This movie is proudly "inspired by true events," of course; Michael Petroni's screenplay was "suggested" by reporter Matt Baglio's book, so make of that what you will. The real-life Father Gary Thomas has been replaced by young buck Michael Kovak (O'Donoghue), driven to seminary school by longstanding issues with his father, the mortician (Rutger Hauer) who embalmed Mommy when the time came. After four years of study, Michael decides that maybe he isn't cut out for the clergy, but after Father Superior (Toby Jones) suggests that his scholarship would be converted into substantial student loans should he leave, he sucks it up and heads off to the Vatican for a two-month crash course in the rituals of exorcism.
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'No Strings Attached' Review: No Strings, Fewer Laughs

By William Goss (Subscribe to William Goss's posts), Posted Jan 21st 2011 9:30AM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical


Comedy veteran Ivan Reitman hasn't directed a film since 2006's 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend,' and for his return to the director's chair -- 'No Strings Attached' -- he has opted to make what a friend of a friend told him a Judd Apatow romantic comedy was supposed to be. The film is crowded with plenty of snappy best friends and warmed-over pop-culture references, the screenplay flips gender roles to little emotional effect, and the chemistry between its two leads is limited to the fact that Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are both awfully photogenic beings.

We first meet Emma and Adam fifteen years ago, when they attended summer camp together and had already established their respective personalities -- he's the sensitive type, she's far more pragmatic. Jump ahead by ten years, where they reunite at a frat kegger and have grown into persons resembling Portman and Kutcher. She invites him to "some stupid thing" the following day, which turns out to be her father's funeral. (Any other movie would settle for the unlikely awkwardness of the situation alone. This one has Adam attending the funeral in a college hoodie, shorts and flip-flops.)
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