Movie Mom
All reviews by Title
Four top spies are staking out a meeting between a ruthless Russian assassin and the world's most notorious international criminal mastermind. One of the spies redirects the sound equipment to eav...
A character in this movie's version of the Catholic organization Opus Dei explains that their mission is to follow doctrine very strictly. That was director Ron Howard's secular mission as well wi...
This farm team follow-up to "Daddy Day Care" puts Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Paul Raye as Charlie and Phil, the parts originated by Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin. Note that the ads proclaim this is "fro...
This is the sort of movie that Hollywood can churn out in its collective sleep and audiences can watch without really waking up. It is as bland and predicable as a package of Kraft Macaroni and ch...
No one is better than Steve Carell at playing clenched. In "Dan in Real Life," he plays a character so clenched he just about levitates off the ground. Dan is an advice columnist and a single paren...
Former Miss America Vanessa Williams and Latin Superstar Cheyanne star in this story of a Cuban man who comes to Texas in search of his father and brings a new spirit to the people who work at a ru...
We get one of these every few months whether we need one or not, so "Danny Deckchair" is this season's quirky-characters-with-accents comedy. Unlike its main character, it never quite achives lift...
This may be another Marvel comic superhero movie rated PG-13, but it is a much darker story than "Spiderman," and parents whose 8 and 9 or even 13-year-olds loved that movie should think carefully ...
If Wes Andersen ever decides to treat his characters with the same loving attention he treats his props, he will make better movies. Oh the tschotchkes in this movie! It's like a long, loving J. Pe...
This is an ambitious movie. It takes a cop who is corrupt in an ends-justify-the-means sense and contrasts him with a cop who is corrupt in a what’s-in-it-for-me sense and arranges for them to c...
"Dark" is right. Christopher Nolan's sequel to his
Batman Begins is not only dark; it is searing and disturbing. The ba...
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Posted on Wednesday July 18, 2012
"Dark Shadows" tries to sink its teeth into the legendary 1960's supernatural soap opera with both ironic distance and visceral thrills. It can be done -- see the original "Men in Black" -- but ...
Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) is an impetuous and headstrong heiress who lives life with furious energy. Her life revolves around parties and horses. She sees Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent) ...
No matter how many times they film it, the "something creepy is going on in my house" story has a lot of potential. We've all heard creaks and wondered, on dark and stormy nights, if anyone -- or a...
There is almost nothing positive to say about “Darkness Falls,” the new slapped-together horror movie hitting theaters. It’s filmed so poorly that it is almost impossible to see. The editing ...
I counted references to 23 movies in this 80-minute film, not including Girls Gone Wild and "The Bachelor," or about one every three and a half minutes. Throw in a couple of songs and a dozen or s...
Putting Tina Fey and Steve Carell together seems so natural it's hard to believe that it took this long. Both are funny in part because they let us see how smart they are. The characters they pla...
Have you ever wanted a fresh start? To live in a shopping mall without needing your credit card? How about if these fantasies and more were writ large in a movie scary enough to remind you how go...
A disaster movie has to be about more than the cool special effects. It does not have to have compelling characters or memorable dialoge. It does not even have to make sense in logical terms, but...
De-Lovely is Di-Sapointing.
On the asset side, we have the glorious songs of Cole Porter, the most urbane and elegant composer-lyricist of the 20th century. He's the top.
An...
There is an amateur quality to this film that might be endearing if it was not so self-righteous and almost deliberately ignorant. Though written by a former investment banker, it has been dumbed ...
Nicholas Sparks writes the equivalent of comfort food, high-carb, low-nutrition, but sometimes it hits the spot. His stories usually feature relationships that are not just true and deep and lovin...
It feels like the world should come to a stop when someone dies, but unfortunately, it does not. And it feels like the confrontation with the eternal and the shock of grief should somehow make eve...
Stories are linear. Part of what gives them their power is that we jettison the details that are distracting or unimportant. But real life is messy. That may not be as compelling, but is hone...
Another year, another cheesy, hypocritical movie about how the true meaning of Christmas gets lost in the madness of Christmas. Except that this movie is, in itself, Exhibit A in the Christmas Mad...
Cowriter-director Edward Zwick, who also made "Glory," the story of an all-black Union regiment in the Civil War,
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Posted on Tuesday June 2, 2009
"Definitely, Maybe" is the s...
A heart-pounding thriller with a time-travel twist, "Deja Vu" will not leave you thinking you've seen it all before.
Denzel Washington plays Doug Carlin, an
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Posted on Monday November 20, 2006
The good news is that animation software is so widely available these days that just about anyone can make an animated film. That's also the bad news. It is now too easy to produce a professional-l...
The deliciously dishy Gabrielle Union, so memorable as the rival cheerleading captain opposite Kirsten Dunst in "Bring it On," gets center stage in this saucy romantic comedy inspired by "Taming of...
Brilliantly acted, enthrallingly told, this vast, operatic saga centers on two men, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), both Boston Southies. Both are pretending ...
This movie sets out for intense, psychological thriller but ends up in an unrealistic dead-end thanks to misguided casting, implausible character development and a whole lot of bad behavior on the ...
Teens may think that it does not really matter who gets elected President. Or, they may think that the important issues in this year's election are the domestic controversies that attract most of ...
This movie follows four high school boys who are die-hard KISS fans in spite of the overwhelming popularity of disco and the objections of the adults ("KISS stands for Knights In Satan's Service!")...
Viewers will know exactly what they're in for when the opening credits reveal the production company: Happy Madison. Anyone who recognizes that name as a tribute to two Adam Sandler movies will enj...
It's not just that an interview with a rock star while he is in the dentist's chair having his teeth drilled is far from the weirdest thing in this movie. It's more that the whole story is so weir...
It is just too bad Meryl Streep is so good at drama and suffering and accents and stuff like that because that means we don't get enough of a chance to see how brilliantly funny she is. Her under-...
The Movie Mom wants to make it clear that this film is not for children or for most adults. It is unrated for its graphic depiction of violence, including sexual violence and torture, strong langu...
Kirk Douglas plays Harry, an aging boxer recovering from a stroke, who wants to retreive some lost "magic diamonds" he once hid in Reno. So he sets off in a Thelma and Louise-style vintage converti...
Three separate movies collide in this uneven but heartfelt drama of a woman done wrong who has to learn to rely on herself for the first time. The first movie is a soapy, syrupy, over-the-top "wom...
This is the second movie based on the wildly popular series of
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Posted on Thursday March 24, 2011
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Posted on Thursday August 2, 2012
Plot: In WWII Amsterdam, a young girl and her family must hide from the Nazis in "the hidden annex." Unimaginable horrors go on outside their tiny sanctuary. Inside, she struggles to understand, co...
The better you remember the early 70's, the more you will enjoy this very funny movie. It purports to reveal the "Deep Throat" who gave the Washington Post the inside information that led to Presid...
"Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" just isn’t a very funny movie. At best, audiences who don't think too much will laugh once or twice then forget the whole thing before they reach the door of ...
Chutzpah has never been a problem for Sasha Baron Cohen, whose previous films, based on characters he created for television, were semi-documentaries of encounters with ordinary people who did thei...
I have seldom seen the stars of a movie look as thoroughly uncomfortable as Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant in this drearily low-concept would-be comedy, "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" Park...
Bond, James Bond, has returned to the big screen once again. This time, as with every effort in the Pierce Brosnan series, producer Barbara Broccoli and MGM studios will try and out do the explosio...
The truest comedy is the laugh of recognition and enlightenment. You won't find much of that in this crass and crude remake of the French film, "The Dinner Game." What you will find instead is th...
Instead of the annual G-rated musical cartoon released just as school lets out, this year Disney’s big summer release is "Dinosaur," a stunning integration of computer graphics over live backgrou...
Somebody, please put this baby in a corner.
Before we get into the reasons, let's recap briefly why the original Dirty Dancing was so irresistibly watchable, because that will remind us of ...
Somehow I don't see this movie following Hairspray to become a Tony-award-winning Broadway musical for the whole family. Too bad, because those would be some musical numbers.
Once again, J...
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Posted on Thursday April 18, 2013
I started smiling ten minutes after the movie began, and didn't stop until ten minutes after it ended. What a delight! I cannot resist saying that this "dish" is delicious.
It's about one ...
Writer-director Robert Zemeckis wisely chose the most unquenchable of stories for his technological marvel. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, already filmed with everyone from Michael Caine to P...
Genre: Remake
MPAA Rating:
Audience:
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Posted on Wednesday October 3, 2012
Note to Bruce Willis: make sure all your future movies have kids in them. Willis has great talent as an actor and enough charm to keep him on the A-list despite a few clunkers, but he is simply th...
Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle make a sensationally appealing team in this follow-up to their hit film "District B13." Belle is the creator of "parkour," a stunt spectacular that turns an entire ...
This is the smartest alien movie in quite a while. But then movies about creatures from other planets are never about the aliens; they're about the humans, and about what being human really means....
This nicely nifty little thriller takes Hitchcock's classic
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Posted on Wednesday April 11, 2007
All of the ingredients for a good, old-fashioned chick flick are here – an Oscar-winning cast willing to pull out all the stops; quirky, flawed, but relentlessly adorable and completely devoted c...
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Posted on Monday December 24, 2012
Think Bad News Bears crossed with Happy Gilmore. Except with dodgeball, which means many, many opportunities for humorous slams to the head, chest, and crotch. That pretty much sums it up.
“Dogville” will inspire passionate responses, partly because it is deliberately provocative but more because it
...
"Based on a true story."
"Sort of."
Domino Harvey was the daughter of British movie star Laurence Harvey (
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Posted on Thursday September 29, 2005
This tiresome animated quest story starts out uninspired but quickly becomes irritating. Half an hour into its 80 minute running time, the child behind me asked hopefully, "Is that the end?" If o...
The movie is called "Doom" and it's based on a video game. So no one is expecting insights into the human condition or subtle performances. We're here to see stuff get blown up, baby.
And...
“Dopamine” is Mark Decena’s first journey as a director and it shows. While there are some lovely scenes and an evocative remote feeling, the dialogue and MESSAGE are as facile and meaningfu...
Usually, the worst thing about a movie like this is the waste of talent. Yes, this movie wastes the talent of Orlando Jones (the guy from the 7-Up commercials who was terrific in "The Replacements...
Before movies, there were plays, and before plays there were stories told around the campfire. One of the deepest human impulses is the need to tell our stories in part because of the way they hel...
Chris Rock is a stand-up comic. The people behind this movie (the Weitz brothers, of "American Pie" and "Chuck and Buck") wisely devote 25 percent of the film to Rock's stand-up routine. Chris Ro...
Teenagers, especially teenage girls, may want to see this movie, a romantic comedy staring teen dreams Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Julia Styles. Parents need to know that it contains material that they...
"Down With Love" can't make up its mind whether it is a salute to the Doris Day-Rock Hudson/James Garner/Cary Grant movies of the 1960's or a parody of them. Perhaps surprisingly, it works better a...
Before the opening credits are over, we've seen bathroom jokes and sexual humor, but at least this time it's rated PG.
It really is a shame, because Eddie Murphy is just great as Dr. Dolittle...
Audiences will feel like their own hearts are two sizes too large at the end of this wonderful sugarplum of a movie.
Based, of course, on the classic Christmas story by Dr. Seuss, this is th...
The great thing about the irrepressibly anarchic Cat in the Hat is that even Hollywood can't contain him. They can stretch out the story with filler that ranges from the superfluous to the distract...
Genre:
MPAA Rating:
Audience:
This week's release of "The Lorax," the Dr. Seuss story about protecting the environment starring Danny DeVito, should inspire families to read the
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Posted on Wednesday February 29, 2012
Plot: In this blackest of black comedies, a "Duck Soup" for the Cold War era, a rogue American general named Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes mad and sends planes to drop nuclear bombs on the ...
This doctor knows what ails you. Sully Travis (Richard Gere) is known as "Dr. T" to the adoring upper-class women of Dallas. He is a popular gynecologist, and why not? No trying to cover your nu...
This is another attempt at creating a new "Sixth Sense," and it falls far short. It is dreary, it is boring, and worst of all, it is phony. And it completely wastes the talents of two brilliant O...
Plot: Set in medieval times, the story begins as villagers with torches approach the home of a famous sorcerer (Sir Ralph Richardson). They need his help to fight a dragon. If they do not sacrifice...
It's not Stephen King's best book, and it is far from the best screenplay produced by either Lawrence Kasden ("Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Big Chill") or William Goldman ("The Princess Bride,...
There is one thoroughbred on the screen in this film and her name is Dakota Fanning.
Ever since her breakthrough performance at the age of six in I am Sam, when she more than held her own w...
If my movie reviews had headlines, this one's would be: "A Star is Born." More like a Supernova. Jennifer Hudson explodes onto screen in this incendiary production of the Broadway musical inspire...
Like Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow has tried to exte...
Danish director
Nicholas Winding Refn said that "Drive" is his vision of a contemporary fairy tal...
The movie is called "Drive Angry." It stars Nicolas Cage. It's in 3D.
What more do you need to know?
Cage is such a fan of comic books he took his screen name from a...
If a sitcom episode from the TGIF line-up was crossed with a commercial from MTV, you'd get this movie, a genial half-hour story stretched out to movie length through the insertion of lots and lots...
It’s a good thing that the people who will want to see this movie are not too concerned about the plot, dialogue or performances, because the people who made the movie were not too concerned abou...
I guess they thought they were going to make another "Fargo." That's the only possible explanation for the time this talented cast spent making this awful movie.
There are movies that paint...
John Philip Sousa and all of the Music Man’s 76 Trombones never dreamed that marching bands could be this cool. Farewell to the nerdy reputation for “band camp.” “Drumline” makes marching...
Kiera Knightley plays 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in this muddled but eye-filling saga of an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, who shared her status as a fashion ic...
Two obnoxious and unlikeable people are stuck together for an excruciating cross-country road trip that is hard on them and harder on the audience. It is such a thoroughly unpleasant journey ...
If you think that seeing a nutty fat guy in saggy white underpants blowing things up is funny, then this movie might be for you.
Otherwise, don't bother. The single biggest challenge for a...
This movie begins with the birth of one of the characters -- from the baby's point of view. He begins to emerge, then he bites the doctor and goes back inside. If he had to watch this movie, he w...
The stork delivers babies to the circus animals, including Mrs. Jumbo’s baby, an elephant with enormous ears. The other elephants laugh at him and call him Dumbo, but Mrs. Jumbo loves him very m...
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Posted on Thursday April 21, 2011
"Duplex" is a cartoonish black comedy about a young couple driven to financial ruin and finally to plotting murder by their elderly tenant.
Alex (Ben Stiller) and Nancy (Drew Barrymore) thi...
What do Egyptian launch codes and a new frozen pizza topping have in common?
They're both secrets that are of value to both those who know it and those who want to know it. Where there are secr...
Do You Believe in Miracles? Take some time this week to help someone else. Surprise someone with ...
10 Exercises to Stay Spiritually Fit Get spiritually fit with our 10 tips!
20 Scriptures That Bring Hope to Any Situation Need a lift? Here are 20 scriptures to make you feel better in any ...
5 Ways to Revive Your Dream! Rekindle your joy! Re-ignite your passion. Achieve your wildest ...
7 Ways to Plant Seeds of Greatness in Your Life Visit ways to plant seeds of greatness into your life. ...
20 Powerful Declarations to Fight Discouragement Speak life into your day with these 20 declarations!
5 Ways to Stay Healthy This Summer Here are five ways to remain healthy and happy during the summer!
5 Tips for Better Sleep Top sleep expert Dr. David Volpi, Founder of Eos Sleep Center has put ...
7 Top Health Issues Facing Today’s Women Here are seven top health-related issues facing today’s women and ...
Celebrities Who Won't Back Down Here are five courageous women who won’t back down when their health ...
Words of Wisdom from Dr Joyce Brothers Dr. Joyce Brothers passed away May 13, 2013 at her Fort Lee, New ...
A Conversation with Minnesota Wild Center Matt Cullen With the NHL Playoffs in full swing, Minnesota Wild center Matt ...
Yes, Gratitude Works! Having an attitude of thankfulness brings incredible, unexpected ...
10 Ways to To Handle Life Changes With Courage Here are 10 tips to help you handle the twists and turns on the road ...
The Fruits of Desire Fruits are the ultimate fast food: sweet, healthy and conveniently ...
Nurturing a Healthy Marriage For many couples, years of marriage can sadly lead them to a negative ...
10 Ways to Get Over a Hurtful Past Has someone hurt you? Use these tips to move forward.
Ten Things Every Dad Should Tell His Son Being a father has never been more difficult. It's is a tough world ...
