MaxSpace

Charlie St. Cloud

Max — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:20:25 +0000

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars Technically, Charlie St. Cloud is about a promising young man (Zac Efron), about to leave for Stanford on a sailing scholarship, who is driving his kid brother one night when they are struck by a truck. Charlie flatlines, but is revived by a medic (Ray Liotta). Eleven-year-old Sam (Charlie Tahan) [...]

Salt

Max — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:26:32 +0000

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars The producers of Salt had two bits of good fortune on their side: The first is that Russian spies have been in the news lately, otherwise their film might’ve seemed like a dusty Cold War retread. The second is that Angelina Jolie agreed to play the titular role of Eveyln Salt. [...]

The Kids Are All Right

Max — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:29:49 +0000

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars The miracle of Lisa Cholodenko’s funny, wise, and warm The Kids Are All Right is not that it successfully showcases a lesbian family, but that it successfully showcases a family, period. The first time we see Jules (Julianne Moore), she’s at the table with her teenage children Laser (Josh Hutchinson) and [...]

Inception

Max — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:19:01 +0000

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars Fans of the hit TV show Lost often complained that, while they loved the plot’s myriad twists and turns, they sometimes feared that the producers were making it up as they went along. That is certainly not the case with Christopher Nolan’s Inception, one of the most elaborately diagramed films I [...]

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Max — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:19:21 +0000

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars I didn’t get around to watching Comedy Central’s roast of Joan Rivers, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Turns out, Rivers sat in her limo before the show began, absolutely dreading it. She knew it was going to be a litany of cruel jokes about her age and her plastic surgery [...]

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Max — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:02:19 +0000

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars Twilight has a two word problem: True Blood. Anyone who’s seen the HBO series knows that it’s dangerous, funny, outrageous, and kinky. Now that’s a vampire story you can sink your teeth into! By comparison, the Twilight series is Hannah Montana: The Undead Years. But if you can get past the fact [...]

Grown Ups

Max — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:45:33 +0000

RATING: 0.5 out of 4 stars I didn’t expect Grown Ups to be good, but I at least expected to give it one of those “it looks like they’re having more fun on screen than we are in the audience” type reviews. That’s usually what happens when a big star like Adam Sandler rounds up his pals—in [...]

Toy Story 3

Max — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:27:41 +0000

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars Could Toy Story be the greatest trilogy of all time? I often cite Toy Story 2 as an example of that rare sequel that is as good, maybe better, than the original. And now, improbably—because after 10 years, the magic had to be gone, right?—Toy Story 3 is its every bit [...]

The Karate Kid

Max — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:00:40 +0000

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars Viewers of The Karate Kid will undoubtedly fall into two camps: Those, like myself, who are fiercely protective of the original and who find the new version both unnecessary and somewhat lacking; and newcomers to the film, who will cheer the story of a fatherless boy who is bullied and [...]

The A-Team

Max — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:18:53 +0000

RATING: 1 out of 4 stars The opening credits for The A-Team go on for an inordinately long time—at least 10 minutes. We are introduced to the various members of the team—their names stamped across the screen in a bold font—in a flurry of action and dialogue that is meant to prepare us for the joy [...]