If you were even mildly enchanted, amused, chilled, or any combination of those three, by the original HOCUS POCUS, I beg you to avoid the sequel at all costs. It is a travesty of a flick, and an insult to that darkly whimsical tale of 29 years ago. To remind you, it introduced us to… Read More »
A Cold Reception for HOT PURSUIT
If anyone could have saved HOT PURSUIT, it would have been Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara. Aside from having scads of talent and audience appeal, they both have a keen understanding of their strengths as performers, yet they never quite cross the line into becoming caricatures of themselves. Here, the co-stars and co-producers have found… Read More »
THE PROPOSAL
What almost saves THE PROPOSAL from itself is a pair of performances by Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds that have a bold and bracing bite of snarkiness to them. Alas, the formulaic nature of the script requires that they both warm up to each other and in the process, while their characters find true love,… Read More »
GUILT TRIP, THE
THE GUILT TRIP could have gone many ways, most of them unfortunate. Yet, in the able hands of Barbra Steisand and Seth Rogan, what could have been a painful excursion into the murky depths of schmaltz is, instead, a sharp and funny look at mother love and filial duty and what happens when the two… Read More »
STEP UP
STEP UP is a surprisingly wholesome bit of fluff with an amiably charismatic cast and a script that should be cited for violating the basic tenets of solid scriptwriting. Uneven, undecided, and rife with everything except aliens from space and a natural disaster, it’s further hobbled by cliches, bouts of stale dialogue, inadvisable turns into… Read More »
27 DRESSES
27 DRESSES begins as a harmless little romp. It coasts along with a comfortable sort of premise, which lacks originality, but does have the fumbling effervescence of Katherine Heigl as its star. What starts out unremarkably quickly loses its way with writing that falters, dialogue that babbles, and a point of view that vacillates about… Read More »