POSTED // Jan 7,2009 - Clint Eastwood is not a great actor. Twenty years ago, that wouldn’t have been a particularly daring critical statement; the odd outlier like Tightrope notwithstanding, he was known primarily as a guy who could squint one-dimensionally while firing a gun, or squint one-dimensionally while being punched by an orangutan. nBut at some point during his cinematic dotage, we all started cutting Ea...

POSTED // Jan 7,2009 - nnnn n n n Former child stars in crisisn Current child stars in crisis n Best Week Ever, new format n Best Week Ever, old format n Any members of Poison n Any of Poison’s members n Anything … of Love n Prank shows n Skank shows n Kardashians n H...

POSTED // Dec 31,2008 - nn n n {::INSERTAD::}n n nnScott Renshaw’s Top 10 of 2008 nn Rachel Getting Married: Recriminations are few in Jonathan Demme’s simple, powerful, portrait of a family trying to function for one weekend in spite of its dysfunction.n My Winnipeg: Guy Maddin delivers a quirky, hilarious salute to his hometown in which a uniquely stylized vision creates...

POSTED // Dec 31,2008 - Game Show in My Head Saturday, Jan. 3 (CBS)nSeries Debut: A new hidden-camera reality show from Ashton Kutcher? Hosted by Joe Rogan? I am so elsewhere! Setup: “Contestants wear an earpiece as they go about life in the city and are instructed back in the studio by Rogan. If the contestants can perform crazy, outrageous and often embarrassing tasks in public, they can go home with big money.&r...

POSTED // Dec 24,2008 - Here’s a helpful comparison for understanding why F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button really shouldn’t have been made into a movie: Consider Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, in which Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a “gigantic vermin.” How would that transformation be realized for the screen? What w...

POSTED // Dec 24,2008 - I’m not sure Frost/Nixon actually means all that much of anything. And furthermore, I’m not sure it actually matters. nAt this time of year, critics spend a lot of time watching dramas battling to prove that they have enough gravitas to deserve year-end awards. They tell stories of great people and/or great historical moments; they journey to far-off lands; they explore weighty themes,...

POSTED // Dec 24,2008 - The Best n Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Life on Mars (ABC): The first two have been canceled; the latter will return Jan. 28, 2009, paired with Lost. Life on Mars, about a present-day cop mysteriously transported back to 1973, actually improves on the British original—when was the last time that happened? nGary Unmarried (CBS): Jay Mohr’s sitcom managed to wring genuine laughs fr...

POSTED // Dec 17,2008 - Posters and other advertisements for Seven Pounds promise … well, not all that much, actually. In a film marketing universe where the general object of a trailer or commercial is to give away pretty much the entire plot, Sony Pictures has been downright elusive about what the hell this thing is even about. Maybe we can determine that it’s a drama, and that there are tragic elements&md...

POSTED // Dec 17,2008 - nnnDVDnn n n n Burn After Readingn Dumb gym monkeys (Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand) attempt to extort money for misplaced CIA files; hilarity and George Clooney’s beard ensue. It’s like the Coen Brothers’ other film, The Big Lebowski. Only not. (Dec. 21; NBCUni.com)n n n n Death Racen Like in...

POSTED // Dec 10,2008 - Everyone loves a fairy tale. Everyone loves a love story. And everyone seems to love Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, an underdog crowd-pleaser with just enough of a gritty undercurrent that people who generally don’t embrace underdog crowd-pleasers won’t consider it too frivolous. nThat’s assuming, of course, that you think underdog crowd-pleasers actually work with a gr...