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"POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is Not the Greatest

"The Beaver" Damns the American Sitcom Family With a Very Special (Major Depressive) Episode

This review was originally published May 5, 2011. It is being reposted for the home video release.

"Win Win" is a Hilarious Comedy with a Very Winning Ensemble Cast

This review was originally published on January 23, 2011, from the Sundance Film Festival. It is being reposted for its home video release.

"Trollhunter" is a Fantastic, Fun and Potentially Accidental Satire

This review was originally posted from the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2011. It has been reposted for the film's home video release.

The Originals: "Fright Night" Is Just Right for a Remake

The originals is a regular column where we look at material being remade, adapted or otherwise recycled, particularly if the source was unfamiliar to us before announcement of the new version. This week we caught up with the original 1985 "Fright Night" in anticipation of Craig Gillespie's redo, out...

"Your Highness" Fails the Fantasy Fan, So Why Set It In That Genre?

What a perfect week for "Your Highness" to arrive on home video and remind us what a failure it was. James Franco stars in this past weekend's box office champ ("Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), which grossed nearly six times as much, while Danny McBride has a new movie out Friday ("30 Minutes or Less") that's getting pretty decent first marks. Meanwhile, indie debut "Bellflower" is a greater heir to a throne once sat in by David Gordon Green. Evan Glodell's gorgeously shot romance-turned-thriller is like "All the Real Girls" with bigger balls and a much darker outlook. Cynically speaking, Glodell may one day be directing period-set pot come...

"Paul" Is a Road Comedy with Some Extraterrestrial Attitude

This review was originally published March 18, 2011. It has been reposted for its home video release.

Urban Folklore Explosion With New Trailers for Docs "Resurrect Dead" and "Shut Up Little Man!"

Two like-minded documentaries premiered at Sundance this year -- both unfortunately without a lot of buzz -- that look into fascinating tales of urban myths. "Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles" is about an enigmatic phenomenon involving tile-based street art -- or is it less art, more a message for the future? "Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure" is a comparatively grounded journey back into the analog days of viral and memetic media to show how long it took for someone to become an underground, accidental celebrity in the days before YouTube. Each deals in pre-Internet materials like zines, cassette swaps, pirate radio,...

"Koran by Heart" Offers So Much More Than the Usual Competition Documentary

Greg Barker's "Koran by Heart" is the latest in an ongoing stream of competition documentaries out this year. But calling it "'Spellbound' in Arabic," as Variety's John Anderson has done, is way too simple and obvious. Anderson does at least acknowledge in his review that the comparison, quoted slightly out of context for the marketing of the film, is indeed only the "shorthand" response. Even Barker claims it is "a competition film, first and foremost," but his doc goes above and beyond that genre, providing audiences with much to consider about the transnational compass of Islam, the followers of which are united by a religious text but may...