Author: BO

“Julie & Julia” is a heavenly foodie playground, filled with gorgeous photography that captures every last dripping ounce of gourmet delights, anchored by a type of lascivious attention to detail that would make Bob Chinn blush. It’s a dream to behold, and the story’s not too shabby either. Carefully orchestrated to subvert expectation at all the right moments, “Julie & Julia” surprises as much as it delights, bringing writer/director Nora Ephron to a new level of storytelling subtlety once completely alien to her, pulling together a parallel lives tale that explores the thrill of creation and the agony of approval.

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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Carolco Pictures reigned supreme with their stable of franchises (the “Rambo” series), action blockbusters (“Total Recall,” “Terminator 2,” “Cliffhanger”), and provocative thrillers (“Basic Instinct,” “Jacob’s Ladder”). And then 1995 hit them square in the jaw, due the embarrassment of “Showgirls” and the massive financial misery that emerged from record-setting box office failure of the pirate epic, “Cutthroat Island.” Much has been written and vocalized about this notorious bomb, but cleave away all the rancid press and Hollywood gossip, and there’s a rip-roaring adventure film in there somewhere that will do just about anything to please its audience.

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This is not Disney’s first encounter with Witch Mountain, and it most certainly won’t be their last. However, it’s their loudest contribution to date. A reimagining of the 1975 motion picture and the 1968 Alexander Key novel, “Race to Witch Mountain” does away with all that pesky character development stuff to put the pedal to the metal and offer family audiences an adventure packed with stunts, gunfire, and one-liners. It’s definitely a vibrant diversion, and kids will undoubtedly be glued to the screen, but the high tech, fist-happy approach leaves much to be desired.

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“Aliens in the Attic” is a DVD babysitting tool that was somehow granted a theatrical release. It’s not all that loathsome, just remarkably unremarkable; a lively war of the worlds diversion with plenty of spunky special effects, gratuitous slapstick, and Ashley Tisdale parading around in a bikini for all the dads out there. It’s something bright and flashy to rest eyes upon for 85 minutes, but I can’t imagine anyone emerging from a showing of this thing proclaiming it to be a summer 2009 highlight.

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Writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan are primarily known for their goopy work on the last few “Saw” sequels. Well, the boys are up to their old torture tricks with “The Collector,” though it’s heartening to find some improvement in the fright and performance departments. A grisly, sicko suspense ride, “Collector” is miles ahead of the “Saw” franchise. Perhaps that’s damning the film with faint praise, but “Collector” has some genuinely inspired moments to alleviate its cancerous stupidity.

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With “40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” writer/director Judd Apatow created a special comedic identity that combined slacker geek sentimentality with crude, winding improvisational stings. It suited him well at the box office, but “Funny People” bravely detaches from Apatow’s comfort zone, though in a crafty manner that perhaps doesn’t provide an intensive genre-shifting challenge for the filmmaker. However, there’s just enough of a shove into uncharted waters of callous behavior to maintain an intriguing bite to the essential rolls of laughter.

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Richard O’Barry worked for the Miami Seaquarium in the 1960s, capturing and training dolphins to perform tricks for tourists. O’Barry was also the man who trained “Kathy,” the dolphin that became a sensation on the popular television series, “Flipper.” Lining his pockets while Kathy went about her stunts for the cameras, it soon dawned on O’Barry that something wasn’t right. When Kathy died in his arms after years of rigorous instruction, O’Barry was rocked to his foundation, refusing the lucrative comfort of future dolphin exploitation to become an activist, preaching a message of freedom for these highly intelligent mammals often cooped up in aquatic cages or worse, as found in an astonishing corner of rural Japan.

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While a fringe member of the supposed “Mumblecore” movement, “Humpday” is more of an art-house Will Ferrell comedy than a searing depiction of genital gamesmanship. A tale of gay chicken slathered with a thick coating of verbal wandering, “Humpday” is cute, well acted, but exceptionally trying at times, using an aesthetic reserved for realism to push across a trite frat house concept.

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“The Soloist” strikes me as a very special film handicapped by unfortunate marketing. Dreamworks seems unfairly bound to promote the feature as a feel-good snapshot of redemption, spotlighting the road-tested appeal of the privileged white man taking a handicapped black soul under his wing, guiding him to unimaginable greatness. “The Soloist” is not that film. Under no circumstances is this picture a perverse “Radio 2.”

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“Orphan” is a seriously tasteless motion picture, but it’s equally as spineless. A suspense piece with numerous acts of violence and torment involving children, “Orphan” endeavors to unnerve the audience by hitting below the belt, taking on the taboo concept of kids in peril to come across as provocative and unsettling. Instead, the film mostly bores with its repetition; the little originality it clings to dearly is neutered and slowly drained of shock value by the film’s end.

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The screenplay for “G-Force” seems to fumble the joy of the concept, hunting for a more impactful way to tell a very silly story. This might be the reason there’s a frantic, suffocating thinking that ends up marring the picture. This is a team of super spy guinea pigs getting into all sorts of hijinks, there’s little need to add pathos or rigid character arcs. “G-Force” feels the urge to present audiences with a sympathetic portrayal of talking animals, when it’s clear that potential viewers, both young and old, would rather see these heroes in all stages of miniature combat and furry teamwork instead.

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A political farce with wonderful ricochet timing and stellar acting, “In the Loop” reaches for both the brazen and the bizarre to manufacture a hopping comedy. If only all bureaucratic adventures could share this type of spirit; “Loop” establishes itself as an acidic force of nature, confident with brutal exchanges of opinion, yet retains a cutting satirical curve that buttresses the film’s undeniable pull toward outright silliness.

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“A little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women?” – Katherine Heigl on “Knocked Up,” Vanity Fair, January 2008.

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