Film Articles: April 2008

Stephen Chow's CJ7 reveals again the energetic generic revisionism for which he is renowned.

Deception is less a thriller than it is a contest between boys with big egos, assorted women dropped in as pseudo-exotic objects of exchange.

If he's not precisely magical in Baby Mama, Oscar (Romany Malco) does function as wise advisor for white women who should know better.

As before, the adventures of Harold and Kumar are essentially an illogical, sometimes funny, and most often dead-on tour of U.S. race relations.

Pashu straddles a particular and complicated divide in Without the King, Michael Skolnik's intriguing documentary about the last kingdom in Africa.

Comprised of exquisite single images, Jellyfish achieves a fluidity that is both alluring and conventional.

In The Forbidden Kingdom, Lu Yan instructs the boy in ancient wisdom and martial arts, offering up the occasional Mr. Miyagi-ism.

Calling up collective fears and resentments, The Life Before Her Eyes offers a most prosaic moral framework.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Rachel is initially uninterested in Peter's story. It is, after all, the same story, again.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? poses its titular question so it is at once literal and metaphorical.

In 88 Minutes, Gramm's carelessness is increasingly annoying, less a characterization than a function of slack scripting.

Tender and detailed, Thomas McCarthy's movie features beautiful performances, but is grounded in a fundamental difficulty, that Walter's education is achieved by his engagement with brown and black people.

Young@Heart's overstatement is too bad, because the singers' stories are terrific, at once rebellious and sentimental, self-aware and affecting.

In Street Kings, Tom (Keanu Reeves) is puffy and surly, Neo if he hadn't met Trinity, Neo unsaved.

Smart People is determined to showcase familial quirk in multiple dimensions.

In Blueberry Nights, attractions are premised on separate losses, cultivations of similar heartaches, and delights in desserts.

As the emotional focus of Body of War, Tomas Young surely provides a striking visual.

Fighting for Life shows that, though technologies have advanced and more injured troops survive than in previous wars, the lack of organization, funding, and equipment repeatedly leaves practitioners facing impossible decisions.

While the coming together of the Rolling Stones and Martin Scorsese has been heralded as an event, Shine a Light is only fitfully absorbing.

Pleasant and clever, Leatherheads is not built for surprises.

The focus in Nim's Island is most earnestly on the relationship that develops between 11-year-old Nim and Alex (Jodie Foster) from San Francisco.

The Ruins achieves something like a metaphor, as the tourists' fears infect their very beings.

For all Flawless' interest in the workings of Laura's mind, the caper part of the plot is awfully regular.