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Will Smith, We've Missed You. <i>Men in Black 3</i>, Reviewed.
For all of the box-office success and critical acclaim Will Smith has found playing different characters, it's quite possible that Agent J is going to end up being his signature role. Sure, he played Muhammad Ali, but his performance in Men in Black was the one that most defined his strengths—easy c...
Will Smith Has Left And Gone Away
When did you first realize that the Fresh Prince could legitimately act? Like, in the big leagues? For once in my life, I was on the early part of the curve; my college newspaper assigned me, a green freshman, a review of Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare's adaptation of his own play about a fan...
Why Can't Michael Bay Make Stoopid Movies Like This? <i>Battleship</i>, Reviewed.
One of the knocks on Battleship is that it plays like a ripoff of a Michael Bay movie, but frankly, I wish any of Bay's recent films had been a fun as this very silly let's-kill-the-aliens action flick is. Directed by actor-turned-director Peter Berg (Hancock, the Friday Night Lights film), Battlesh...
<em>What To Expect When You're Expecting</em> Makes Me Want To Get A Vasectomy
My wife and I love kids—we just don't want to have any of our own. That shouldn't be a big deal, but sometimes other people sure act like it is. There have been a few too many instances when my wife and I have been around other folks' babies and the inevitable question comes up: "When are you two go...
Is Not Good For Me. <em>The Dictator</em>, Reviewed.
1. There's a scene toward the end of The Dictator when you can see, finally, why Sacha Baron Cohen decided to wrap a whole movie around Admiral General Aladeen, the ruthless, clueless dictator of fictional country Wadiya. Without giving away any plot details, Aladeen is speaking to the United Nation...
Sacha Baron Cohen Doesn't Know You're Tired of Him
One of the surest signs you've become a successful comedian is that a lot of people absolutely can't stand your shtick. When you're starting out in standup or as a performer, you're desperate to get noticed, but you also have the time to hone your act and experiment and figure out your unique thing,...
Tim Burton Bottoms Out. <em>Dark Shadows</em>, Reviewed.
1. How was there ever a time that we considered Tim Burton weird? He certainly isn't weird now—give this guy a slight haircut and he's essentially an insurance salesman—but in retrospect, knowing the bloated, self-satisfied cookie-cutter hack Burton turned out to be makes one wonder what all the exc...
How Bobcat Goldthwait Became A True Artist Of Independent Cinema. (Seriously.)
Bobcat Goldthwait, in almost every possible fashion, belongs on the list of those creatures who could only have come of celebrity age in the '80s, along with Emmanuel Lewis, Grace Jones, and Dr. Ruth. When the highlight of your popularity is that you were the star of the second through fourth Police...
RIP Adam Yauch, Indie Film Hero
In January, Bingham Ray died. A lot of moviegoers probably wouldn't have recognized his name, but if they loved independent film in the 1990s, they knew his work. The co-founder of October Films, Ray had helped distribute movies by Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet, Secrets & Lies, Topsy-Turvy), Lars von Tr...
The Perfect Comic-Book Movie. <em>The Avengers</em>, Reviewed.
1. The Avengers is a superhero movie so fun, full of so much pure fanboy-wank joy wrapped up in an accessible, relentlessly entertaining package, that I'm not sure anybody needs to make any more comic-book movies; this one might wrap it up. (One suspects they'll still find a way.) Made by and for—bu...
What Movies From the '90s Will Critics Include In <em>Sight & Sound</em>'s Top 10 (AKA The Only Poll That Matters)?
These days, there are so many film polls and online Top 10 lists that the idea of ranking movies can seem rather old hat. But amid all that list-bait, there is one movie poll taken more seriously than all others: Sight & Sound's once-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. The British film ...
The Worst Summer Movies: The Ones Your Mom Will Like
Somewhere in the world, maybe in a dusty old rotting liberal-arts faculty lounge, maybe in the office where they make that McSweeney's-Grantland Quarterly thing, someone is really excited about The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It's a "light" comedy opening Friday that stars Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Ma...
Joss Whedon: Revenge Of The Nerd
Five years ago, Joss Whedon's career wasn't going so well. The man behind the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel had recently written and directed Serenity, a big-screen version of his short-lived series Firefly. It was his feature directing debut, and it was a commercial disappointment. No...
John Cusack In A Goatee? Quoth The Raven: Meh.
John Cusack is one of those actors whom everybody likes. He was a consistently enjoyable presence in '80s films like Better Off Dead and Sixteen Candles, and he won the hearts of a generation of young women by being the most sensitive man ever in Say Anything. Since then, he's been an indie staple (...
Jack Black Has Overdosed On Himself
There is a moment, I think, when an actor's persona becomes so chiseled and locked-in that it's impossible to accept that person as an actor anymore; he's a movie star now, and that's all he will ever be again. This is not to say this movie star cannot be effective in a film; Tom Cruise hasn't been ...
<em>Scenes From a Marriage</em>, But Longer And With Fart Jokes. <em>The Five-Year Engagement</em>, Reviewed.
1. There are several long stretches in which The Five-Year Engagement is the polar opposite of what anyone would consider "romantic" or "comedy." Jason Segel has always had a tinge of self-aggrandizing self-pity in his characters—the ones he plays, the ones he writes, and both—but for swaths of The ...
What <em>The Avengers</em> Means For The Future Of Comic-Book Movies
Tomorrow, Marvel's The Avengers will open in certain parts of the globe—not the U.S., which won't see the film until May 4—and Marvel's four-year odyssey of laying the groundwork for this action blockbuster will finally be over. It's been an impressive run commercially, if not always critically. (Ca...
It's Hell Becoming A Comfortable And Wealthy Old Filmmaker
It's the fear of any successful creative person, anyone who started their career as a young buck with fire in the belly, all the ambition in the world, all the idealism of the new and stupid: What happens when you make it? What happens when you achieve your goals, early in your life, and you have to...
<em>The Lucky One</em> and <em>Think Like a Man</em>: Hollywood Wants You to Have a Terrible Love Life
Like a lot of people, I learned about relationships at a young age by watching movies and TV shows. Only now in my adult life do I realize how much influence Cheers and Woody Allen and L.A. Story had on me: They helped to create a sense that love was this melancholy thing that rarely lasted, no matt...
The Dark Knight Rises, And So Do Our Trousers: The Grierson & Leitch Summer Movie Preview
Back in 1991, your esteemed Grierson & Leitch, then both 16 years old, sat down with this issue of Entertainment Weekly and planned out our holidays. We did not have Box Office Mojo's release calendar, and the Mattoon, Illinois local newspaper wouldn't tell you what movies were playing at the Cinema...