With Lovely and Amazing, writer-director Nicole Holofcener revisits the themes and personalities she deftly examined in her feature debut, Walking and Talking, this time turning her sharp eye on how parental neurosis can affect the lives of children long after they’ve left the nest. In this case, the screwed-up parent is Jane (Brenda Blethyn), a … Continue reading
Call me stupid, but I had kind of a hard time following the plot of Mad Love, which concerns the stormy relationship between Joan of Castile and her husband, Philip the Handsome. It’s not my fault, though. Watching it requires more than a cursory knowledge of the sort of Spanish/Germanic history and geography that my … Continue reading
In Maid in Manhattan, Jennifer Lopez plays the most radiantly beautiful housekeeper to ever grace the silver screen. Despite a dowdy gray uniform and sensible shoes, her beat and brushed mug screams Rodeo Drive, even though her character is supposedly just another girl on the IRT. Of course, it always takes a certain suspension of … Continue reading
In this heavy-handed reworking of the Cinderella story, Jennifer Lopez attempts to keep it real by playing Marisa, a housekeeper at a luxury hotel who dreams of being promoted to assistant manager. After illicitly trying on some designer duds she finds in a room she’s cleaning, Marisa is mistaken for a well-heeled socialite by a … Continue reading
If you were a fan of My Big Fat Greek Wedding – and, admit it, like just about everyone else in the world, you probably were – you’re definitely in for a treat with Mambo Italiano. But even if you didn’t just loooooove Nia Vardalos’s long-running, record-breaking, cliché-ridden yuk fest, with its two-dimensional characters and … Continue reading
In life, people tend to make the same mistakes over and over, a fact anyone who’s ever been in therapy will readily explain to you. Me Without You, the story of best friends Holly (Michelle Williams) and Marina (Rebecca Friel), definitely captures this cyclical nature of human existence. But while the repetition is authentic, it … Continue reading
The creative team behind Monkeybone is amazing. It was directed by Henry Selick, the master of stop-motion animation who brought us The Nightmare Before Christmas. The screenplay is by Sam Hamm, who wrote Batman. Not counting Brendan Fraser, it stars an impressive group of comedic talent, including David Foley, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Kattan, Megan Mullally … Continue reading
After losing his badge in a bungled drug investigation, undercover narcotics agent Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) gets a chance at reinstatement when he’s asked to help solve the murder of a fellow undercover officer. Despite his wife’s fervent objections and his own strong reservations, Nick accepts the assignment, joining Henry Oak (Ray Liotta), the volatile … Continue reading
Martin Lawrence’s highly publicized run-ins with the law – he’s been arrested for battery and gun possession and once had to be subdued by cops after he ran screaming into a busy Los Angeles intersection – have left him with a serious grudge against the police force. Or so it would appear, judging by the … Continue reading
Determined to support his family after his father dies, the eternally idealistic Nicholas Nickleby (Charlie Hunnam) seeks help from his malevolent uncle (Christopher Plummer), who finds Nicholas a job teaching in a miserable academy run by a wretched, one-eyed schoolmaster (Jim Broadbent). Nicholas quickly flees, taking with him a persecuted boy, Smike (Jamie Bell), to … Continue reading
Mike Rucker Writes 