VH Corner

 Album of the Year

 Album of the Year
Released: June 3, 1997
Best songs: Stripsearch, Last Cup of Sorrow, Helpless, She Loves Me Not

There were signs that the band was over. Almost all band members had side projects going on: Mike “Puffy” Bordin (drummer) was touring with Ozzy Osbourne, Mike Patton was touring with Mr. Bungle (his first band), and Roddy Bottom (keyboardist) had started his own band, Imperial Teen. They went back into the studio to make another album though. They got rid of Dean though since he was better as a touring guitarist rather than part of the songwriting process. They hired Jon Hudson. The album was released in 1997 and less than a year later, Bill Gould released a press release that the band had decided to break up with the following funny email:

“After 15 long and fruitful years, Faith No More have decided to put an end to speculation regarding their imminent break up…by breaking up. The decision among the members is mutual, and there will be no pointing of fingers, no naming of names, other than stating, for the record, that “Puffy started it”. Furthermore, the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered. Lastly, and most importantly, the band would like to than all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout its history.”

For thinking that King For a Day was filled with slow songs, this one had even more. The band had really ventured far from their rock image that they had when I first heard of them. They still had the harder songs, but they also had more and more slower songs. I liked them. They were catchy, but I didn’t love them as much as I did previous albums. It was a good album and a nice one to end with. I also loved that they did the entire tour in tuxes and black suits acting like they were all Dean Martin. It was a fabulous tour and very much a nice goodbye.

The album began with Collision, which is a pretty standard rock song.

Song: Stripsearch
I must include this song since it was our wedding song. Such a lovely wedding ditty that includes the lyrics, “F for fake”. We chose it because Angela and Dan played it at their wedding and it was the only song I could convince Jer to dance to, so it had to be our wedding song. It is at least slow!

Song: Last Cup of Sorrow
This was the first single of the album and has an excellent video. It is an homage to the movie, Vertigo, with Mike Patton playing Jimmy Stewart’s character and Jennifer Jason Leigh playing Kim Novak’s character. It also has nice lyrics of “This is getting old and so are you.”

The next song is Naked In Front of the Computer, which is what you might think it would be about. It has the potential to be funny, but it is pretty standard-sounding song with a funny title.

Song: Helpless
It is a nice and pretty song, but what makes me like this song is the ending. I love him yelling in so much pain, “Help!”

What follows are the songs with similar titles Mouth to Mouth and Ashes to Ashes. They song fairly similar too, even though I do like Ashes to Ashes more.

Song: She Loves Me Not
My favorite song on the album. It would have been a nice, slow song to dance to at the wedding, but the title didn’t really fit. Of course, Stripsearch, didn’t fit either, but there’s my lovely logic.

The rest of the songs are more rock-type songs but don’t really stand out too much for me: Got That Feeling, Paths of Glory, Home Sick Home, and Pristina. Actually the last two are slower, but they still don’t stand out too much for me.

Song: This Guy’s in Love With You
This was not on an album or on a b-side, but was performed live many times. It finally came out on a best-of compilation called Who Cares A Lot? This song is the only reason to own the CD. It’s Burt Bacharach

Tags: album of the year, faith no more

King For a Day…Fool For a Lifetime

King for a Day…Fool for a Lifetime
Released: March 28, 1995
Best songs: Ricochet, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, Just a Man

 Jim Martin was fired from the band between the last album and this one. He didn’t like the direction the band was moving. Judging by the song that he had the most influence with on Angel Dust, which was Jizzlobber, he wanted the band to keep the heavy metal feel while the rest of the band was heading towards a more softer, melodic side with the harder rock songs getting more twisted. Trey Spruance from Mike Patton’s other band, Mr. Bungle joined the band, recorded this album with them, and then left before touring began. The band said he couldn’t commit to a long tour, but Trey has always said the band didn’t want him anymore. Dean Menta joined the band as their guitarist.

I expected this album to be like Angel Dust and it was not. I did not like it right away. I loved the first song I heard from the album, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, but when I heard the entire album, I thought it was too slow over all. I put it away and ignored it for many months. I don’t remember what made me start listening to it again, but I ended up loving it. I still liked Angel Dust best, but there are some really good songs on the album and I love the lyrics.

The first song, Get Out, is a pretty standard rock song and doesn’t make much of an impression on me.

Song: Ricochet
The second song on the album has great lyrics: “And I’d rather be shot in the face, than hear what you’re going to say” and “It’s always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it’s just hilarious.” Violence and humor make a smashing combo.

The third song, Evidence, is a very pretty song since Mike Patton is actually singing instead of yelling or screaming on it. It’s a slow song that took me a while to like.

Song: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
This was never released as a single, and I can tell why from the lyrics, but the awesome indie radio station that used to exist in Phoenix, KUKQ, used to just put their favorite song on an album on the radio instead of the “single” so this was the first song I ever heard from the album. I agreed with their choice, since it is awesome and I love the lyrics. There is much cussing, which the station never edited since it wasn’t like anyone was complaining to the FCC about an little indie AM radio station. It’s all about corporate whore-ism and my favorite line is, “I deserve a reward ’cause I’m the best fuck that you ever had.”

The next few songs on the album are okay, but not my favorites, Star A.D., Carahlo Voador and Digging The Grave. They are more along the generic rock song style. There are some songs in between those that are better. Cuckoo For Caca does have some funny lines, “Being good gets you stuff, being stuff gets you good, good stuff gets you being.” Ugly in the Morning does have the line that is screamed, “Don’t look at me I’m ugly in the morning.” Take This Bottle and King For a Day are pretty similar sounding slow songs. They are nice, but not outstanding.

Song: What a Day
More good lyrics! This song has a line from Hunter S. Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “Kill the body and the head will die.” Yeah good references! I am also a fan of the chorus, “What a day, what a day. If you can look it in the face and hold you’re vomit.”

Song: Just A Man
It is the last song on the album and great singing from Mike Patton. I played this song the most when I was finally getting into the album. I used to play it while I was getting ready to go out. I’m sure my neighbors in my apartment loved me blaring it all the time.

Song: I Started a Joke
This was a b-side and another fabulous cover. It is a Bee Gees song! Faith No More loves the cheesy cover songs.

Tags: faith no more, fool for a lifetime, king for a day

Angel Dust

Angel Dust
Released: June 16, 1992
Best songs: Land of Sunshine, Midlife Crisis, RV, Be Aggressive

This is the first album that I bought from Faith No More. I had heard Epic and Falling To Pieces, but I didn’t buy The Real Thing until after I bought Angel Dust. I loved Midlife Crisis. After falling in love with the entire album, I went back and bought The Real Thing used on cassette tape. I never upgraded it to CD. I did play Angel Dust over and over again so that the CD case is completely broken, yet I still haven’t ever put it in a new jewel case.

Angel Dust is still my favorite Faith No More album. It is really hard to narrow it down to just a few good songs since the entire album is quite varied and messed up in its own way. I think Mike Patton brings out the freaks in everyone around him. This entire album brings me back to freshman year in college when I played it over and over again in the dorm. I’m sure all those around me appreciated it.

Song: Midlife Crisis
The first single was Midlife Crisis and it has my favorite line in the song, “My head is like lettuce, go on, dig your thumbs in.” It also talks about his “menstruating heart”. Fabulous imagery! You can also start to hear Mike Patton actually using his good singing voice. He’s all over the place with screaming, growling and actually singing melodically.

Song: Land of Sunshine
There were other songs that were follow-up singles, and they were good, but I liked other songs on the album better, including Land of Sunshine. What makes this song so awesome are the lyrics. The first half of the song is fortune cookie fortunes and the chorus/second half of the song are actual questions from the Scientology personality test. That’s the entire song!

I have actually received four of the fortunes before and was very excited when I saw them. I tried to explain my excitement to my boss at the time that had taken me out to lunch, but I just confused him.

Song: Be Aggressive
Aimi should love this song. It takes the cheerleader chant “Be Aggressive” and makes it into a dirty, dirty song. It’s for that reason that I love it. It’s also awesome to see frat guys in concert singing along at the top of their lungs “I swallow, I swallow!”

Song: RV
When I first heard, RV, I didn’t know what to think of it. It didn’t seem to fit into the rest of the album or the “hard rock” category that Faith No More was classified as. Then it became one of my favorites on the album. It’s a swinging tune with great vocals and lyrics about a depressed trailer trash guy. I love it when the music doesn’t match the lyrics and this is a good example.

Song: Easy
Easy wasn’t on Angel Dust, but was a B-Side for the album so I might as well throw it in here. It is a cover of The Commodores song and so much better. You might have heard it recently in a Levi’s 501 commercial.

I used to play this song for my mom to prove to her that Mike Patton could actually sing. When The Real Thing came out, I was in high school and had MTV on in the background in the living room while I did my homework so she would see the news reports where they stated that they kicked out Chuck, and Mike Patton was a much better singer. Then she heard Epic and Falling to Pieces and said “That’s better?” I used to play Easy to prove that he could sing much better!

Tags: angel dust, faith no more

The Gallery of Regrettable Food is extremely scary. It is from “recipe” books ranging from the ’30’s to 60’s. It might even have some stuff later than that. It is ads by food products, like 7-Up, Jell-O, Knudsen dairy products that include their helpful recipes so you can make tons and tons of very scary looking food. It also has fabulous commentary. You can scan through it to become frightened, but I highly recommend taking the time to read through all of it and become horrified.

Faith No More

In 1981, Faith No More was formed under another name–Faith No Man, but after a few musician changes, Faith No More became Mike “Puffy” Bordin, Billy Gould, Roddy Bottum, Jim Martin and Chuck Mosely. After two early albums with Chuck, We Care A Lot (1984) and Introduce Yourself (1987), the band decided to kick Chuck out of the band due to his drinking problem and suck-ass singing. I like to ignore that the albums or the band ever existed before Mike Patton joined.

Band Members
Mike Patton
Mike “Puffy” Bordin
Billy Gould
Roddy Bottum
Jim Martin
Chuck Mosely
Trey Spruance
Jon Hudson

Website: Faith No More
Formed: Bay Area, CA 1981
Label: Slash Records

Random Fact: Courtney Love was one of the first singers in the band before Chuck Mosley.

 

The Real Thing

Mike Patton was recruited to join in 1989. The band had written most of the music for their third album, The Real Thing, and Mike Patton just wrote the lyrics. I think this is why it is my least-favorite FNM album with Mike Patton. It is pretty good, but I think whatever weirdness he added to the band came later on.

Now, Mike Patton has an awesome voice. You can’t really tell from this album though. He was in his whiny singing phase. I’m not including their one really big, hit song, Epic, because you should all know it already. It was the reason that I started to like the band, but I’m not too thrilled about the song now. It didn’t wear well with time.

Here are three other songs from the album, with the first one being the second single off of it, so you might have seen the crazy video on MTV.

Song: Falling to Pieces
Song: From Out of Nowhere
Song: Edge of the World

Tags: faith no more, real thing

Nationwide Releases

The Good Shepherd
Directed: Robert De Niro

Fictional account of how the CIA was born through the eyes of a man (Matt Damon), showing how it affected his family and friends.

RT Score: 56%
RT Consensus: This fictitious CIA origin film is an overlong, tedious effort that leaves viewers with more questions than answers.

Robert De Niro made up for lost time by making “The Good Shepherd,” a film that feels like it takes 13 years to watch.that’s an exaggeration. The sprawling, 160-minute epic only feels like it takes seven hours.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

it’s tough to slog through a movie that has no pulse.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

A buttoned-up, shadowy dramatic recounting of the early days of the buttoned-up, shadowy Central Intelligence Agency.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

DeNiro’s CIA tale shows some good film-making but simply too much of it.
- Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

As long as it is, Shepherd speeds through its leading man’s life, cramming in 30 years without elaborating on any of them.
- Robert Wilonsky
Village Voice

The film purports to tell the inside story of the first 20 years of the CIA, but Damon’s Bourne movies are more realistic spy stories.
- Jeffrey Westhoff
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

Night at the Museum
Directed: Shawn Levy

Ben Stiller is the new night guard at New York City’s Natural History Museum where he comes to find out that all the exhibits come to life at night.

RT Score: 49%
RT Consensus: Parents might call this either a spectacle-filled adventure or a shallow and vapid CG-fest, depending on whether they choose to embrace this on the same level as their kids.

If you’ve ever wanted to see a prehistoric man hurl fire-extinguisher foam in Stiller’s face, this could be your only chance.
- David Germain
Associated Press

Entertaining enough that kids might not even mind the history lessons along the way.
- Mack Bates
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It might be fair to give Ben Stiller an ‘A’ for effort, but to call what he does in this movie “acting” is a misnomer. He does a lot of running around, occasionally falling down or bumping into things.
- James Berardinelli
ReelViews

It looks great, but without sharp characters it’s both lifeless and pointless. And strangely unfunny.
- Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

Formula family filmmaking aside … varies the humor enough to keep everyone from small children to grandparents at least mildly entertained.
- Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

We Are Marshall
Directed: McG

Based on true events, almost an entire college football team is killed in a plane crash in 1970. Matthew McConaughey steps up as the new coach to rebuild the team for the community.

RT Score: 49%
RT Consensus: Matthew McConaughey almost runs We Are Marshall to the end zone, but can’t stop it from taking the easy, feel-good route in memorializing this historic event in American sports.

More than a simple football movie, the theme is not about winning or losing, but finding the strength to move on in spite of tragedy.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

We Are Marshall has little of the bone-crunching sincerity of the recent pigskin rouser Invincible. This one is more like Unconvincing.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Bright spots can’t get at the script’s failure to make this into a story about something bigger than sports, in the way Invincible, Miracle and Go Tigers did.
- Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Matthew Fox, who is supposed to be playing second fiddle to Matthew McConaughey, actually upstages the bigger star by doing everything right that the Texan does wrong (sounding and acting like Yosemite Sam doesn’t always work).
- Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

We Are Marshall isn’t about grief or loss, but how these things can be overcome. it’s uplifting, but shallow.
- Scott Tobias
Onion AV Club

Rocky Balboa
Directed: Sylvester Stallone

Rocky comes back for one more fight to see if he can beat the current champ since a computer simulation showed that if they both fought in their prime, Rocky would win.

RT Score: 77%
RT Consensus: Implausible but entertaining and poignant, Rocky Balboa finds the champ in fighting form for the first time in years.

“Rocky Balboa” is so awesome that everyone else who makes movies may as well just give up now. it’s not going to get any better than this.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

Just when you’re ready to puke, the old Bill Conti theme (’Gonna Fly Now’) kicks in — are you feeling it? — Stallone steps in the ring and every day is Christmas. All together now: Rock-ee! Rock-ee!
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

It turns out that the added years only benefit the character, making him seem touchingly new because he’s so old.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Somehow trumps any attempts at critical objectivity … Scoff all you want, but all I know is that “Eye of the Tiger” has now found its way onto my iPod.
- Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

Just as he did back in 1976, Rocky–and by extension Stallone himself–is climbing into the ring as a man with something to prove. And for the first time in thirty years, you just might find yourself cheering him on.
- Ethan Alter
Premiere Magazine

Plays like Stallone simply headed to the set with his handy Rocky checklist, ticked off all the items and called it a day.
- Josh Bell
Las Vegas Weekly

Limited Releases

Letters From Iwo Jima
Directed: Clint Eastwood

Ken Wantanbe is an American-education Japanese general who leads his troops against the American attack on Iwo Jima during World War II.

RT Score: 94%
RT Consensus: An achingly humanistic war film, Letters from Iwo Jima is an emotional and artistic triumph.

Letters is quality from first frame to last, a war film that is almost a tone poem.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

It takes a filmmaker of uncommon control and mature grace to say so much with so little superfluous movement, and Eastwood triumphs in the challenge.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

This is sentimentality of the best kind, a touching display of male bonding amid terror and aching loneliness worthy of Howard Hawks at his finest.
- Ken Fox
TV Guide’s Movie Guide

Significantly more interesting than its predecessor.
- Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Companion piece to Flags Of Our Fathers (and frankly, this is a much better film). The message I got from these two movies is that war is hell, no matter which side you’re on.
- Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
TheMovieChicks.com

Venus
Directed: Roger Michell

Peter O’Toole is a veteran actor who takes a shining to his friend’s niece who has come to take care of his friend in his old age.

RT Score: 89%
RT Consensus: Audiences may attend to witness Peter O’Toole’s Oscar-worthy performance, but they’ll also be treated to a humane, tender exploration of maturing with both dignity and irreverence.

O’Toole gives a staggering performance — fearless, defiantly untamed and in its own way a work of art.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

Venus gives pleasure and then some. it’s a marvelous movie that manages to make you laugh and break your heart all at once as it breezily ruminates on youth and mortality, beauty and brittleness.
- Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News

Venus is a sublimely directed and acted film, handling what could be seen as a rather controversial storyline — an octogenarian man hitting on a twenty-something girl — with ease and finesse.
- Kim Voynar
Cinematical

Peter O’Toole famously refused an honorary Oscar on the grounds that he could still win a proper one and on the basis of his performance here, he may well have been right.
- Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

Even with O’Toole’s charms, this is a story with enormous poor-taste potential. Yet director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi wisely don’t make this a story about May-December sex.
- Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger

This is a relationship unlike any we’ve seen, and it’s a measure of the film’s subtle gifts that it is easier to watch it unfolding than to precisely define what we’re seeing.
- Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times

The Painted Veil
Directed: John Curran

In the 1920s, a married couple (Naomi Watts and Edward Norton) cheat on each other in Hong Kong, but try to save their relationship while going to work on a cholera epidemic deep into the heart of ancient China.

RT Score: 79%
RT Consensus: Visually, The Painted Veil has all the trappings of a stuffy period drama, but Norton’s and Watts’s deft portrayals of imperfect, complicated characters give the film a modern-day spark.

The Painted Veil has the power and intimacy of a timeless love story. By all means, let it sweep you away.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

A thoroughly grown-up movie that compellingly thinks its way through the toughest matters of the heart.
- Bob Strauss
Los Angeles Daily News

Largely Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking, but of a very high order…an elegantly appointed, intelligently played picture that does Maugham’s period piece proud.
- Frank Swietek
One Guy’s Opinion

A period piece with an edge, combining lush photography with an engaging script, strong acting and on-screen chemistry between Norton and Watts.
- Ron Wilkinson
Monsters and Critics

Curran, his actors and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner have made an old-fashioned melodramatic epic that, as steeped as it is in the language and tradition of old movies, is never less than thrummingly alive.
- Stephanie Zacharek
Salon.com

Curse of the Golden Flower
Directed: Yimou Zhang

Epic tale taking place during the Tang Dynasty in China about an emperor, his adulterous empress, and an assassination attempt.

RT Score: 57%
RT Consensus: Melodrama, swordplay, and CG armies — fans of martial arts epic will get what they bargain for, though the baroque art direction can be both mesmerizing and exhaustively excessive.

Exposed boobs contribute a titillating ingredient to the venom and the betrayals, but it’s no antidote for the royal excess.
- Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals

… plays like an Asian take on Shakespearean royal tragedy executed with Hong Kong action scenes and Chinese art-house pageantry.
- Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Chinese director Zhang Yimou achieves a kind of operatic delirium, opening the floodgates of image and melodrama until the line between tragedy and black comedy is all but erased.
- Jeannette Catsoulis
New York Times

Not even Chow Yun-fat and Gong Li, two of the world’s most impressive actors, can inject any dazzle into this dud.
- Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Its natural impulse towards regal spectacle overwhelms practically every other element of the story.
- Chris Barsanti
filmcritic.com

Matthew Barney: No Restraint
Directed: Alison Chernick

Artist Matthew Barney boards a whaling ship in Japan to perform some art piece with Bjork, so you know it’s weird.

RT Score: 50%

A skimpy Cliff’s Notes for both the eponymous Vaseline-loving sculptor-filmmaker’s career and, specifically, his most recent act of cinematic self-infatuation, Drawing Restraint 9.
- Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

Chernick’s documentary (and her subject) eloquently trace Barney’s inspiration and intention in a way that naturalizes rather than neuters them.
- Michelle Orange
Village Voice

[Director Alison] Chernick misses the chance to follow in the footsteps of documentarian Thomas Riedelsheimer, whose essential artist-at-work films Touch The Sound and Rivers And Tides meditate on the ephemeral nature of the creative act.
- Noel Murray
Onion AV Club

Chernick may not answer every question about this beguiling and enigmatic film, but you wouldn’t want it to: Mystery is an essential part of the Barney experience.
- Ken Fox
TV Guide’s Movie Guide

[It would] work better as a DVD ‘extra.’
- V.A. Musetto
New York Post

Things to note: There hasn’t been a Certified Fresh movie since Casino Royale came out in November. There are two this week: Charlotte’s Web and Dreamgirls. The best quotes are under Eragon.

Nationwide Releases

Pursuit of Happyness
Directed: Gabriele Muccino

Will Smith is a single father without a job, but has an unpaid internship that might lead to a job at a stock brokerage firm. He tries to make ends meet while hoping that his luck will turn around.

RT Score: 67%
RT Consensus: The Pursuit of Happyness tries too hard to tug at the heartstrings, and despite strong performances ultimately fails to resonate.

An emotionally manipulative but astoundingly powerful rags-to-riches tale that recalls Frank Capra at his most heart-rending.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

The role needs gravity, smarts, charm, humor and a soul that’s not synthetic. Smith brings it. he’s the real deal.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

The Pursuit of Happyness speaks eloquently to the anxieties of our own time, when staying afloat, let alone movin’ on up, has rarely been tougher.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

If you ve seen the schlocky trailer for The Pursuit of Happyness, you ve seen a better version of the actual film.
- Toddy Burton
Austin Chronicle

The character of Christ… er, I mean Chris Gardner gets beaten down so much - and has a complete absence of faults - that it’s really unbelievable.
- Kevin Carr
7M Pictures

Eragon
Directed: Stefan Fangmeier

Based on the first book of the Inheritance Trilogy about a young boy learns he’s a dragon rider that must battle the evil king.

RT Score: 14%
RT Consensus: Eragon presents nothing new to the “hero s journey” story archetype. In movie terms, this movie looks and sounds like Lord of the Rings and plays out like a bad Star Wars rip-off.

“Eragon” is based on a book by a 19-year-old with a script that seems to have been written by a 12-year-old.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

A load of generic mush perhaps best served as a piece of bitchin’ ’70s van art.
- Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

For those who love the fantasy genre known as sword and sorcery — and I count myself in their number — sitting through the movie version of Eragon will suck the will to live right out of you.
- Chauncey Mabe
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

I left Eragon feeling like I’d just watched a Renaissance Faire stage its own production of “Star Wars.”
- Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News

The script, which reaches for importance by repeating ideas, drags down the actors, who try to do the same thing by throwing periods into the middle of a sentence: “Take care of Saphira. Without her. You’ll find that life is hardly worth living.”
- Kyle Smith
New York Post

Charlotte’s Web
Directed: Gary Winick

Live-action adaptation of the classic children’s book. Julia Roberts is the voice of the Charlotte.

RT Score: 80%
RT Consensus: Kids will be entertained by the straightforward plot and cute animals, and adults will be charmed by how quiet and humble the production is, a fine translation of E.B. White s genteel prose.

it’s a movie that might just inspire E.B. White, up in literary heaven, to wipe away a tear of gratitude.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Walden Media should be applauded for continuing on their mission to bring high-quality family-centric fare to audiences without infusing every scene with an ironic wink.
- Jason Ferguson
Orlando Weekly

Charlotte s Web ends on a grace note that should keep you feeling whimsical for many days after.
- Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

Children of all ages, even those not old enough to read, can enjoy the journey.
- Nancy Churnin
Dallas Morning News

Some will bristle at liberties taken. Cows do indeed break wind. Yet the movie’s use of flatulence is less a nod to rural truths than a reliance on what has become a go-to gag in movie’s made for the booster-seat set.
- Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post

Limited Releases

The Good German
Directed: Steven Soderbergh

At the end of WWII, a U.S. Army news reporter tries to get his German girlfriend out of Berlin, but she has secrets that may prevent her from leaving.

RT Score: 30%
RT Consensus: Though Steven Soderbergh succeeds in emulating the glossy look of 1940s noirs, The Good German ultimately ends up as a self-conscious exercise in style that forgets to develop compelling characters.

This is Soderbergh’s show, and a haunting and hypnotic show it is.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

On the meta level, Soderbergh has re-created not only the kind of story told in the 1940s, but the kind of technical production Hollywood gloried in more than half a century ago, too.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Will prove more compelling as a technical study for Film Studies majors than as an entertainment for a general audience.
- Erica Abeel
Film Journal International

The music and story are lousy. I m calling for a Clooney-Soderbergh divorce.
- Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

The Good German, Steven Soderbergh’s film noir homage, is nearly perfect when it comes to style and tone, but it concentrates so single-mindedly on the mechanics of the narrative that it loses sight of its characters.
- James Berardinelli
ReelViews

Breaking and Entering
Directed: Anthony Minghella

Jude Law is an architect that has his offices broken into repeatedly. He realizes that a boy has stolen his laptop with everything on it, but instead of confronting him, he makes friends with his mother and starts an affair with her.

RT Score: 47%
RT Consensus: This class warfare drama feels contrived and superficial: characters don t act logically as the movie manipulates them towards deconstructing various social issues.

The film is saddled with a badly written, unconvincing ending that threatens to ruin the film completely - in fact, you’re almost better off leaving the cinema ten minutes early and supplying your own ending.
- Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

Anthony Minghella’s film is conspicuously thoughtful and civilized as it provides a close-up snapshot of particular aspects of life in London at this moment.
- Todd McCarthy
Variety

Minghella is a master at texture and depth, which makes up for some frustration with the characters.
- Marty Mapes
Movie Habit

This timely anatomy of one problematic neighborhood, where race, class, and sex interface and crash (as in the film Crash) begins well but then escalates into heavyhanded melodrama marred by implausible subplots, allegorical meanings, and pat ending.
- Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Minghella returns to his roots for a moody and stylish London drama that’s full of terrific scenes and strong performances. Although it’s a little contrived and overwrought.
- Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

Dreamgirls
Directed: Bill Condon

it’s Diana Ross and the Supremes story, but with Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson (from one of the American Idol seasons).

RT Score: 78%
RT Consensus: Dreamgirls’ simple characters and plot hardly detract from the movie s real feats: the electrifying performances and the dazzling musical numbers.

This baby dazzles like nothing else anywhere.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

Dreamgirls is the rare movie musical with real rapture in it.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Transcends the musical genre with its moving portrayal of how the music business makes and breaks stars.
- Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

If you can be satisfied skipping along its surface, Dreamgirls fulfills its splashy, superficial promise of glitter, glamour, and sass.
- Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews

The movie belongs to Hudson as the proud, self-destructive Effie. When she’s center stage, Dreamgirls transports you to movie musical heaven.
- David Ansen
Newsweek

The Secret Life of Words
Directed: Isabel Coixet

Tim Robbins is temporarily blinded on from an oil rig accident, which is run by all men. A mysterious woman who is fleeing her past is brought on board to take care of him and they form a bond.

RT Score: 78%

Can a single scene save a movie? An hour and 20 minutes into The Secret Life of Words, Sarah Polley delivers a halting, evocative 10-minute monologue that finally unlocks the mystery behind her guarded character.
- Gregory Kirschling
Entertainment Weekly

The true force of The Secret Life of Words, as would be appropriate, is encapsulated almost completely in its strong dialogues.
- Boyd van Hoeij
europeanfilms.net

A series of conversations that are sometimes clever and sometimes feel like screenwriting exercises about the details of life, but are always well acted.
- Jeremy Mathews
Film Threat

Coixet is an adult-contemporary visualist whose films are almost always saved by the great performances she coaxes out of her actors.
- Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

In due course skeletons will march out of closets, but the movie yields up its secrets with slow reluctance.
- Ella Taylor
Village Voice

Home of the Brave
Directed: Irwin Winkler

Two weeks before they leave Iraq for good, four soldiers are sent on one last transport mission when they are ambushed. Those that survive deal with what happened after they return home.

RT Score: 18%

A Hallmark TV drama about the very antithesis of a Hallmark moment.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

A vote against its heavy-handedness does not make you or I a troop hater. In fact, I believe they deserve a narrative free of after-school special dramatics.
- Erik Childress
eFilmCritic.com

it’s a formulaic, overacted piece of work that rarely delves deep.
- Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor

Home of the Brave is so ham-fisted in its attempts to wring pathos from the vets’ problems that it plays like an overwrought parody of an award bait movie.
- Mark Pfeiffer
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

The intentions are good. The actors have been assembled with care, and the production is polished. But everything feels assembled, as if it were put together from blueprints.
- Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger

Brave reduces everything to riotously loathsome television movie standards, bleeding the potency of what should be a very significant and disturbing story dry.
- Brian Orndorf
DVDTalk.com

Melinda and Melinda
Directed: Woody Allen

Melinda walks into a dinner party unexpectedly in two different versions of the same story–one a comedy and one a tragedy.

Damn Match Point. I loved that movie and recently watched it again on cable. It did not seem like a Woody Allen movie at all, so I thought I might try another of his movies. Then I ran across this movie where it was the same person in two different situations. I like choose-your-own-adventure-type themes like Sliding Doors, so I thought this movie might be similar. It was not.

It starts out with a group of people at dinner having a philosophical discussion about seeing everything as a comedy or a tragedy. Right there I should have turned off the movie. I really hate when people get into pseudo-philosophical discussions. It reminds me of freshman year in college. Everyone is so full of hot air and they aren’t really saying anything. They are just talking to hear themselves talk. Boring!

Anyway, one guy at the table says that he is going to tell a basic story, and the other two guys can decide if it is a comedy or a tragedy. A lady interrupting a dinner party is the set up and then they go from there. Besides the main character being the same actress and named Melinda, nothing else is the same in the two stories. There are different supporting actors in each one and different backgrounds to the Melinda character. The two stories go back and forth.

The “tragedy” story isn’t really a tragedy. I think of old Greek tragedies when I hear the world. She had some bad luck and made some bad decisions. Everyone has that nowadays so what makes her so special? She is friends with Chloe Sevigny and Johnny Lee Miller. They all seem to be in their thirties, living in Manhattan and love various classical music. The conversations all the people had sounded nothing like anyone that I hang out with and I’m in that age range. I didn’t relate to these people at all.

The “comedy” story had Amanda Peet and Will Ferrell in it. Will Ferrell is channeling Woody Allen, and it is highly annoying. It is annoying when Woody Allen is in his movies, but it doesn’t change anything when he has a “Woody Allen” character in his movie instead of himself. Even if what Will Ferrell was saying was funny, I was highly annoyed by his shaky, jerky mannerisms and mumbling to himself. Ugg.

I got half way through the movie before I had to pause it. I went back to watch the rest of it later, but found that I didn’t care. I wasn’t enjoying it so I decided to just hit the delete button on the TiVo.

Grade: D-

Me and You and Everyone We Know
Directed: Miranda July

A performance artist falls hard for a depressed department store shoe-salesmen who is dealing with his recent divorce and separation from his two kids.

For those that have been initiated, this is the Poop Back and Forth Forever movie. When I ran across that clip, I shared it with Amy and Marci while asking them, “Do you want to see something funny, but really messed up?” Amy wavered and Marci said “Yes!” It is hilarious, and sets the tone for the movie. It is what you would call a quirky indie film.

The main plot line is about the performance artist, played by the writer/director Miranda July. She’s an odd one. She works as a driver for elderly people while trying to get her art shown in a gallery. She is attracted to a shoe salesman guy, but he’s trying to figure out if he has another shot with his wife who just kicked him out. he’s also realizing it is harder being a single dad since he didn’t pay much attention to his two boys to begin with. They are the kids in the clip. They are the best part of the movie.

I actually enjoyed the subplots more than the main plot. There is another one with some teen girls dangerously flirting with an older guy. it’s very twisted and just so very wrong, yet funny. The two boys have more scenes in the movie, but the younger kid has the best scenes and when you find out who the person is on the other side of the chat, it is not who you expect. So funny.

If it wasn’t for the two brothers in the movie subplots, I’m not sure I would have been a big fan of the movie. It dragged during the main plot points and I had to stop myself from turning it off since it just wasn’t grabbing my attention. If you are a fan of the clip up above, I recommend seeing it so you can see all the scenes that relate to it. ))<>((

Grade: B-

Mean Creek
Directed: Jacob Estes

Rory Culkin gets his brother to help him exact revenge on a bully, and of course, things go horribly wrong.

Rory Culkin plays Sam, a middle school kid who gets picked on by a bully, who has mental issues and is held back a few grades. He bothers other kids too, so most kids in school hate him. His older brother and his friends are in high school, and they remember being in the same grade as the bully so they know all about what a fabulous human being he can be to others.

There seems to be a lack of parents in the movie until the very end. The kids are off on their own doing a lot of stuff, when they could use some parental supervision.

Sam and his girlfriend are going on their first “date”, but on that same day they are going to play a prank on the bully by saying they are all going canoeing. The real plan is to leave him out there or get him to strip naked and jump into the water while they all leave so he can walk home naked and wet. Sam, his older brother and his two friends are in on it. He doesn’t tell his girlfriend until they get there. She’s confused about what’s going on since she doesn’t like the bully either, and the bully seems to think it is Sam’s birthday, and that’s why they are all going on the river. She doesn’t like the idea, and says they shouldn’t do it to Sam.

While the day goes on, others in the group get to know the bully some more and go back and forth on whether they should pull the prank. One guy is adamant that they stick to the plan, but, of course, the plan doesn’t go off without a hitch. Horrible things happen and then they all have to deal with the aftermath.

it’s a bit of a downer movie, but all the kids in it are great. You actually feel sorry for the bully when a few others do, but then you see a bit later why they all hate him. You go back and forth about whether they should do it or not. It isn’t a happy ending either, but I did wish it would have gone on a little longer. It seemed to end a bit short. I wanted to see a bit more of the aftermath since I felt like I was hanging on what happened or would happen with a few characters.

Grade: B