KCRW's Film Reviews

Green Zone

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:44:00 EDT

During the exciting but eventually wayward course of Green Zone, Jason Bourne discovers the truth about weapons of mass destruction, then teaches a sloppy reporter from the Wall Street Journal how to be a good journalist...

Alice in Wonderland

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:44:00 EDT

The Cheshire Cat brags about his evaporating skills in Tim Burton's 3-D Alice in Wonderland, and the movie has its own way of evaporating before your polarized eyes. Every scene brings something new and remarkable to look at, yet every scene sweeps away specific recollections of the previous one...

Extraordinary Measures; Creation

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:44:00 EDT

Extraordinary Measures requires extraordinary tolerance for bathos, bombast and plain old unpleasantness. It?s a fictionalized ? and sadly trivialized ? adaptation of a non-fiction book, The Cure, which was written by my Wall Street Journal colleague Geeta Anand...

Creation is a fancier botch, blissed out on its own cleverness. Paul Bettany is Charles Darwin, struggling to finish The Origin of the Species while he grieves the loss of his beloved daughter Annie, who died at the age of ten.

The Last Station

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:44:00 EDT

The Last Station is Michael Hoffman's evocation of the last years of writer Leo Tolstoy. It's a "seduction that draws us into a vanished world where Count Leo Tolstoy and his wife of 48 years, countess Sofya come to life in a match pair of magnificent performances by Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren."

Youth in Revolt; Daybreakers

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:44:00 EDT

Youth in Revolt is an endearing coming-of-age comedy that stars Michael Cera. In one way, only, but in a significant way, Cera reminds me of Billie Holiday, who achieved subtle marvels within a severely limited vocal range...

The German filmmaker brothers Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig have come up with a new twist on vampires in an English-language movie called Daybreakers. The year is 2019, and vampires have taken over the world...

Avatar

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:44:00 EDT

James Camerion's Avatar takes place on a planet called Pandora, where American corporations and their military mercenaries have set up bases to mine a surpassingly precious mineral called unobtanium. The vein of awe mined by the movie is nothing short of unbelievium...

Invictus; The Lovely Bones

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:44:00 EDT

Until now, America's curiosity about rugby has been on a par with its knowledge, but this could change with the advent of Invictus... Clint Eastwood's new movie is an inspirational game played by Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, and Matt Damon as the captain of a South African rugby team...

Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones was adapted from Alice Sebold's widely admired novel. The movie, like the book, is party set in an Inbetween that occupies an ethereal space between heaven and earth; it's the vantage point from which the young heroine watches over her family after her death at the hands of a monstrous pervert...

Up in the Air

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:44:00 EDT

The best of Up in the Air -- meaning most of it -- is right up there with the fresh and sophisticated comedies of Hollywood?s Golden Age?

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans; Red Cliff

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:44:00 EDT

This year's prize for clumsiest title goes to Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. I wanted to get that out of the way so I could talk about a defining moment in the movie, set in post-Katrina New Orleans -- it's when Nicholas Cage's rogue cop pulls up to a seedy building to make an arrest...

Red Cliff, set in China in the twilight of the Han Dynasty, lends new meaning to the notion of Baby on Board when a fearless swordsman plunges into battle with an infant strapped on his back...

2012; Pirate Radio

podmaster@kcrw.org (Joe Morgenstern) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:44:00 EDT

2012 is Roland Emmerich's latest assault on planet Earth and its moviegoers, and it isn't the end of the world: it only feels that way...

Pirate Radio follows the form -- when it chooses to follow any form -- of a cat-and-mouse game between the British government, circa 1966, and a crew of deejays beaming round-the-clock rock and roll from a decrepit tanker anchored in the North Sea just outside Britain's territorial waters...