Superman Returns

Brandon Routh as Superman in “Superman Returns.” In attempting to write a commentary on this film, it’s become clear to me what I liked about the previous “Superman” movies (let’s just pretend the latter two never happened) all along. The instant I hear the Krypton theme in the opening sequence, returning us back to familiar [...]

The Devil Wears Prada

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is a recent graduate of Northwestern University looking for a job in New York. After some shots of her and some glamorous others dressing for the day in clothes too ridiculously impractical to be taken seriously by any employer, save the entertainment and fashion industries, she appears for her interview with Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the editor of …

Wordplay

Crosswords… Crosswords… Does this sound like a fascinating subject for a documentary? Probably not. I’ve said this before—forgive me if it sounds redundant—but I’m growing more fascinated with documentaries every year. I feel like learning something about somebody or some people, or, in the case of “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” some birds—why not some nerds? I mean that in the most…

The Lake House

Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) lives in a glass house (please, no jokes involving stones…) in the woods, near a quiet lake. As with all romantic stories (especially those involving Sandra Bullock), she’s a luckless type who drives the obligatory beater, despite somehow being able to afford an architecturally-iconic house in the…

An Inconvenient Truth

“I feel as if we failed to get the message across,” ponders Al Gore while narrating at the introduction of this documentary. He’s referring partly to the public disregard and slide in government policy toward the ecology and environment over the past 30-40 years during his tenure in Congress and as Vice President. Instead of browbeating and “I told you so’s,” Gore tries to approach the present situation by re-evaluating himself, his…

A Prairie Home Companion

I wanted to start this review by writing about Robert Altman and the provocative films he has made throughout several decades, but as I’m no advocate of so-called Auteur Theory, I will not discuss “A Prairie Home Companion” in context of his body of work. Instead, I will only say that it is an exception and not necessarily in a good way. I thought I might appreciate this film more because I live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Area, from…

Cars

Never did I understand the appeal of stock car racing. Cars of relatively moderate speed (considerably slower than Formula One) go around on a circuitous path for seemingly endless scores of laps. I tried doing a search on the internet for NASCAR rules, to understand more about the race but invariably it turned up dozens of articles about crashes. Wait… now I get it, sort of. People…

Interview with Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta, director of Fox Searchlight Pictures’ “Water.” Deepa Mehta was born in Amritsar, India, in 1950. She emigrated to Canada in 1973, where she continues to reside (in Toronto). In addition to “Water,” she has also directed “Fire” and “Earth,” which together form a trilogy of sociopolitical discourse examining the past and present of [...]

Keeping Up With the Steins

As a movie intended to be a comedy about ethnic idiosyncrasies and, to a lesser extent, religious beliefs, “Steins” presents us with limited shades of Jews—e.g. the ridiculously-wealthy Steins throwing a “Titanic” themed party complete with stage show on the aforementioned ocean liner for their son’s Bar Mitzvah, but Grandpa Irwin (Garry Marshall) can barely afford the shirt on his back. Is there no middle ground to being a Jew? Surely, just as…