We all like children, and — at least in our capacity as moviegoers, book-club members and consumers of true-life melodrama — we seem to like them best when they’re abused, endangered or dead. Nothing else is quite so potent a symbol of violated innocence, a spur to pious sentiment or a goad to revenge as a child in peril. This is hardly news (Charles Dickens made a nice living trafficking in the suffering of minors), but for some reason the past decade has seen an epidemic of cinematic and literary crimes against the young.

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In his directorial debut Repo Men, Miguel Sapochnik is going for something unusual-- or at the very least, something only familiar in an offbeat, screwball kind of way. For while the movie takes place in your typical bleak future and has the standard caustic attitude toward the promise of a brave new world, Repo Men is funnier, bloodier and weirder than most post-apocalyptic tales.


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Inkheart is a scattered collection of ideas, most of them cavalierly mixed together and barely fleshed out. Director Iain Softley's adaptation of Cornelia Funke's 2004 best-seller is a fantasy film built from spare parts - deliberately so, as it involves a hero known as a "silvertongue" who, by reading aloud, can bring fictional characters and objects off the page and into the real world. Shortly after the birth of his daughter, bookbinder Mo Folchart (Brendan Fraser) unintentionally transports villains from the titular swords-and-sorcery novel into our universe, and sends back in their place - because this supernatural gift is of a tit-for-tat variety - his wife Resa (Sienna Guillory). Determined to set things right, he sets out to find a copy of the rare "Inkheart," a quest that years later leads him and pre-teen daughter Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett) to Europe. There, they discover not only the highly sought-after paperback but also trouble in the form of Dustfinger (Paul Bettany), a fire-dancer who, eager to return to his book world, hands Mo and Meggie over to chief "Inkheart" scoundrel Capricorn (Andy Serkis), who's using silvertongues to make himself rich, collect famous literary creatures (a tick-tocking crocodile, winged monkeys, a unicorn) and usher into our dimension the monstrous Shadow.

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The moon may be new and the director may be different (Chris Weitz takes over the reins from Catherine Hardwicke), but otherwise, the second installment of the "Twilight" saga remains, for better or worse, exceptionally faithful to its 2008 beginnings.

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The spoof (aka broad parody) sub-genre is a schizophrenic beast. At its best, the spoof can treat you to something as sublime as Airplane!, as mindlessly amusing as the Scary Movie series, or as stunningly worthless as Epic Movie. But the spoof remains the comedy sub-genre for filmmakers who are also movie geeks. Basically, you need to have seen a lot of Airport movies to write Airplane!, and you need to have some solid experience with blaxploitation movies to produce something like Hollywood Shuffle, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, or this newest arrival: The slightly overlong but consistently giggle-worthy Black Dynamite, which aims to do to Shaft and Superfly what The Naked Gun did to police procedurals.

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A few weeks ago, I went down to visit my parents for a long weekend, which, as usual, meant Mom and I rented a hefty stack of movies, many of them, shall we say, somewhat risky. (Note: not risqué, as one does not rent such films with one’s mother unless one is weird). Usually while I watch these movies with Mom, I take notes so I can remember them all later, and usually the ones I take the most notes about are the ones like this one — the hilariously bad ones.

Why? Because they are the most fun to write about, naturally, and also because every two minutes while I’m watching them, I think about how much I want to tell you guys about the ridiculous thing that one guy just said. Or the crazy-bad special effects I just saw. Or the insanely obvious lack of a scientific adviser on deck. OMG, my peeps, SO BAD!



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It's a given in horror movies that imperilled characters stay put in the sort of scary places that, in reality, they would vacate instantly. Thus, in The Grudge 3, Max, the resident manager of a Chicago apartment block does not grab his two sisters and flee when a murderous wraith takes up residence.


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The production notes for Lucy Walker's excellent documentary, though not the film itself, include a celebrated quote from Eliot's "The Waste Land" ("What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow/ Out of this stony rubbish?" etc) that throws light on the work of Vik Muniz, the New York-based Brazilian sculptor, artist and photographer.

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The Resident, a new release under the wing of Hammer films, features the re-occurring Hammer favorite Christopher Lee playing the role of tenant August with our focal characters Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Max the landlord and the ever alluring Hilary Swank as Dr. Juliet Dermer. Juliet is a young doctor who had relocated to New York under the relationship promise of joining her “now” ex boyfriend. Finding herself working long hours, under duress and alone she comes across a dream apartment that seems to good to be true for the view and condition it’s in. It’s Max who makes every effort to make her feel at home and comforted right form the start. Though as the drama thriller evolves, it is clear that not is all as it seems. A dark secret is quickly coming to the surface about Max and the place and in the meantime a relationship begins almost immediately




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Movies and video games have something of a love/hate relationship. The film industry loves to make movies out of videogames, which gamers inevitably hate. But Scott Pilgrim is different. Now, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World isn’t based on a videogame, it’s based on the geek chic comic book series of the same name. But like the comic, director Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the upcoming Ant-Man) adaptation is steeped both structurally and aesthetically in the videogame tradition that Generation Y (or Millennials, or whatever the hell old people call us these days) grew up with.


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Claire Denis is one of the world’s great filmmakers. The likes of Beau Travail, L’intrus and 35 Shots of Rum are at once blurry and precise, mood-rich driftworks that explore the psychology of alienation. White Material, co-written with Marie N’Diaye, is characteristically alluring and elliptical.

Set in an unnamed but French-speaking African country, it features Isabelle Huppert as Maria, a divorced woman trying to run a coffee plantation. Her son Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle) spends his days in bed. Her father-in-law Henri (Michel Subor) is sick. Her ex-husband André (Christophe Lambert) keeps telling her that she should return home. Civil war has broken out, and the violence it unleashes gets closer and closer.


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Disheveled musician and college student Adam (Cameron Douglas, son of Michael Douglas) goes out of his way to meet the beautiful Eve (Emmanuelle Chriqui) on campus. In no time, the two are in love. Everything goes swimmingly except in the bedroom, where Eve asserts her right to remain a virgin until shes ready. Adammdashthough deferentialmdashtakes her requirement personally and demands to know what ready means. The pair go on like this for months, with Adam remaining true to his passion for Eve, despite howls of protest from his degenerate housemates (among them Jake Hoffman, son of Dustin Hoffman)...

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Dawn grows up in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. In high school, while her biology class studies evolution, she realizes she may have a hidden curse, an adaptation. She lives with her mom, step-father, and hard-edged step-brother. She likes Tobey, a guy at school, and he likes her. She takes a pledge to remain chaste until marriage, so they date in groups, watch G-rated films, and dont kiss, but the power of teen hormones is great, so temptation beckons. Dawn has an admirer in Ryan, and when she breaks it off unexpectedly with Tobey, she turns to Ryan for help. Will he be her mythical hero and rescue her? Or can she find her way as her own hero, turning the curse into an asset?

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In February, 2001, Robert Hanssen, a senior agent with 25 years in the FBI, is arrested for spying. Jump back two months Eric ONeill, a computer specialist who wants to be made an agent is assigned to clerk for Hanssen and to write down everything Hanssen does. ONeills told its an investigation of Hanssens sexual habits. Within weeks, the crusty Hanssen, a devout Catholic, has warmed to ONeill, who grows to respect Hanssen. ONeills wife resents Hanssens intrusiveness the personal and professional stakes get higher. How they catch Hanssen and why he spies become the films story. Can ONeill help catch red-handed the worst spy in history and hold onto his personal life?

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