REMEMBER ME * I'm not saying it's impossible for the surprise ending of Remember Me to work (not to worry; no spoilers here); however, it needs to be attached to a project a lot more distinguished than the one on display here. But because the bulk of Remember Me is clumsy, mawkish and marked by some truly heinous dialogue, the conclusion proves to be staggering in its tastelessness, and one gets the impression that scripter ...

ALICE IN WONDERLAND **1/2 Here's the problem with the vast majority of movies based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass: They're too tame, too hesitant and too conventional to really tap into the more unsettling aspects of an immortal fantasy that provides as much satisfaction for adults as for children. The most disappointing adaptation is arguably 1951's Alice in Wonderland, the animated Disney version that misinterpreted the tale ...

THE CRAZIES ** With the new version of The Crazies in wide release, should viewers head to the theater to check it out or mosey toward the DVD store with the intent to rent George Romero's 1973 original? Given the options, perhaps an alternate plan should be set in motion (maybe a museum, or a nightclub?), but between the pair, it's best to target the couch. Subsequently re-released as Code Name: Trixie, writer-director Romero's ...

SHUTTER ISLAND *** Just how obvious is the big "twist" that concludes Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel? So obvious that some folks who haven't read the book are figuring it out simply by watching the trailer. But just how accomplished is the picture anyway? Enough that viewers will happily be led down the rabbit hole by a director with the ability to distract them with every technique at his disposal. Delivering ...

THE WOLFMAN *1/2 Back in the 1990s, three Hollywood heavyweights wrestled the horror genre away from the kiddies long enough to make a trilogy of terror that delighted anyone who enjoyed seeing monster movies that were adult in nature, literate in approach and steeped in atmosphere so pungent, you could almost cut it with a scalpel. Yet while Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 gem Bram Stoker's Dracula and Kenneth Branagh's underrated 1994 effort Mary Shelley's Frankenstein ...

It's been over 65 years since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences allowed more than five films to be nominated in the category of Best Picture.

AN EDUCATION **** In 1960, Lynn Barber was a 16-year-old schoolgirl in Twickenham, a suburb of London, with good grades and big dreams of attending Oxford University. She was swept off her provincial feet by a thirty-something cad named Simon Goldman, whose charm, sophistication and worldly ways were nothing like the young innocent had ever encountered. Barber, who later became one of England's top journalists, wrote a memoir of her two years in Goldman's ...

EDGE OF DARKNESS **1/2 Although based on a 1985 British TV miniseries, the new thriller Edge of Darkness mostly feels like The Constant Gardener shorn of all emotional complexity and weighty plotting. That hardly matters, though: Edge of Darkness could have played like an episode of Sesame Street and audiences would still turn out just to answer the pressing question: So, what's Mel been up to these days? It's been eight years since Mel Gibson ...

EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES *1/2 Had Harrison Ford spent as much time playing risk-taking actor as action hero, would he now have a mantel of awards to call his own? There was a time when the former box office behemoth would occasionally tackle a quirky character (e.g. The Mosquito Coast, Working Girl) amidst all those larger-than-life super-studs in guaranteed blockbusters, but that time is long gone, and the past decade-plus has mostly seen him wheezing away in ...

  THE LOVELY BONES *** We might as well begin with a disclosure: I haven't read Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. And from what I've been able to ascertain, folks who did go buy the book are furious that the film version doesn't go by the book, or at least not enough to stifle their cries of foul play. Normally, I wouldn't even bring this up, as the disconnect between literature and film has been ...

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS **1/2 The late Henry Fonda had the good fortune of ending his distinguished film career with an Oscar-winning performance in the popular On Golden Pond, while, on the opposite end of the spectrum, both Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin found their mutual swan song to be the Hall of Shame turkey Cannonball Run II. Most stars, however, bow out in a less conspicuous manner via a film that's neither exemplary ...

  The movie year began with bumbling mall cops and ended with singing chipmunks, but rest assured that signs of intelligent life could be found in between. Still, the decade certainly could have ended on a better note. After an extremely strong celluloid crop in 2007 (led by No Country for Old Men) and a fairly decent roster last year (with Harvey Milk and an ’80s wrestler – to say nothing of a certain caped ...

UP IN THE AIR **** In the cinema of 2009, Ryan Bingham should by all accounts emerge as the Protagonist Least Likely To Be Embraced By The Nation's Moviegoers. That's because Ryan works as a downsizing expert, hired to come in and dismiss employees that their own bosses are too gutless to fire face to face. Ryan is excellent at his job, which would make him the antagonist in virtually any other film. But because ...

  THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG *** Given the Disney studio's recent disdain toward traditional hand-drawn animation, it's sometimes hard to believe this was the company that over seven decades ago proved that toon flicks deserved to be on the big screen as much as their live-action counterparts. After all, the outfit with countless classics under its belt, some as recent as the 1990s (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King), had all but abandoned ...

THE MESSENGER ***1/2 Coming up with a compelling hook is half the sale, and writer-director Oren Moverman has found one with The Messenger, a drama that looks at the wartime experience from a fresh perspective. Yet nothing about Moverman's angle feels gimmicky or sensational -- instead, his movie is honest and heartfelt, a justified tribute that pays more than merely the usual obligatory lip service to our men and women in uniform. Writing ...