Movie review by Greg Carlson The expanded version of Shane Acker’s 2005 computer animated short “9” bears many unwelcome traits that can accompany movies making the leap to feature length, most notably the change from silent protagonists to celebrity-voiced chatterboxes. Despite the detailed look of the film’s post-apocalyptic, industrial wasteland, “9” struggles to apply the […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Mike Judge’s incisive observations of the foibles and humiliations of the workplace, school, and home have turned several of his creations – most notably the constantly quoted “Office Space” – into grimly comic fables for smart folks who suffer the fools with whom they toil, learn, and live. Since the […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Like a less ambitious Sacha Baron Cohen, musician/actor/comic/diorama architect Charlyne Yi constructs in “Paper Heart” a world in which the phony and the real are so blurry they are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Co-scripted with director Nick Jasenovec, who is played onscreen by actor Jake M. Johnson, the movie […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson What many Quentin Tarantino fans had hoped would be the director’s dazzling genre deconstruction/reconstruction of Spaghetti Westerns and WW 2 action flicks unfolds as a sloppy, long-winded, and sometimes dull disappointment. Tarantino’s audacious stylistic flourishes continue to be applied with a virtuoso’s touch, but the purposefully misspelled “Inglourious Basterds” exchanges […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “District 9,” a zany sci-fi social commentary blended with bugs-on-the-run brio, arose from the ashes of the failed “Halo” movie that was to have been shepherded by Peter Jackson as producer and visual effects specialist Neill Blomkamp in the director’s chair.  Jackson purportedly offered Blomkamp roughly 30 million bucks to […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Marc Webb’s “(500) Days of Summer” is, alas, a conventional, male-centric romance masquerading as an appealing hipster fantasy.Were it not for the chemistry of attractive lead performers Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, the movie would have a difficult time sustaining its self-conscious cool throughout the jumble of its fragmented chronology.While […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Veteran Hollywood action filmmaker/adrenaline engineer Kathryn Bigelow offers her finest movie to date in “The Hurt Locker,” a brutal and intense tour of duty with a team of American soldiers charged with the ugly, dangerous task of defusing improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Bigelow, whose credits include several films with […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A thoroughly disappointing variation on “The Bad Seed,” “Orphan” will find a loyal audience in viewers who revel in murderous children and creepy psychosexual games. Despite a late twist that provides the movie with a concussive blast, “Orphan” collapses under the weight of its bloated, unnecessary running time and its […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Food, Inc.” is the best of a group of movies focused on issues and problems related to the corporatization of the food industry in America and beyond, even as the documentary opts for breadth over depth on a topic as huge as the ever-expanding waistlines of our population. In recent […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson An impressive feature movie debut for advertising veteran and David Bowie scion Duncan Jones, “Moon” succeeds as both technical acting clinic and science fiction brainteaser. Like several of his father’s tunes, most notably “Space Oddity,” Jones’ story – which was crafted into screenplay form by Nathan Parker – ponders helplessness […]