THAT EVENING SUN *** Like the Jeff Bridges vehicle Crazy Heart, That Evening Sun is one of those films that generates nearly all of its goodwill from a smashing central performance by a long-established veteran. Here, it's Hal Holbrook who shows up to demonstrate to Hollywood's young pups how it's done. Holbrook plays Abner Meecham, an elderly Tennessee farmer who's been dumped into a nursing home by his well-meaning but insensitive son (Walt Goggins). ...

THE LAST EXORCISM *** The prospect of journeying to Hell and back seemed less daunting than sitting through another horror yarn made in the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project, but The Last Exorcism proves to be a pleasant surprise -- even more so since Hostel gorehound Eli Roth is listed as one of the film's producers. Unlike Roth's hard-R outings as a director, The Last Exorcism is rated PG-13, but don't let that ...

THE SWITCH * A vile scenario doesn't necessarily have to translate into a vile movie, providing there's some objective or empathy on the part of the filmmakers. Gaspar Noe's 2002 French release Irreversible, for example, centers around arguably the most brutal rape sequence ever committed to celluloid, but several factors, specifically Noe's decision to tell the story in reverse (thus delineating the heartbreaking -- and commonplace -- circumstances that could have prevented the tragedy), provide ...

EAT PRAY LOVE ***1/2 Just for the record, not all porn flicks are of the X-rated variety. More palatable for mass consumption are the films that qualify as "food porn," works that show off delectable dishes in all their mouthwatering glory (e.g. Babette's Feast, Julie & Julia). Then there's the "travel porn" branch, efforts that offer postcard perfection and entice moviegoers to blow their savings on airfare and overseas accommodations (Out of Africa, Under the ...

THE OTHER GUYS **1/2 It makes perfect sense for a film like, say, An Inconvenient Truth or Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room to end with some sort of plea to our sense of activism or with a mountain of hard data about the evils of unchecked capitalism. But what to make of The Other Guys, featuring closing credits that are packed with statistics concerning government bailouts and the glaring discrepancy between the average ...

DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS **1/2 Whereas American filmmakers often prefer to produce comedies like Killers, French filmmakers frequently choose to produce killer comedies like The Dinner Game. An award-winning money machine that premiered in its homeland back in 1998 (it reached our shores the following summer), this adaptation of a popular stage play was a subversively funny picture about a smug book publisher named Pierre who takes part in a game in which he and ...

SALT ** A neo-Cold War thriller would seem like just the ticket for cineastes who fondly recall Iron Curtain-courting capers on the order of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Fail-Safe and select James Bond tales. And the title of this feature even suggests a nod to that significant chunk of 20th century history involving U.S.-U.S.S.R. tensions: After all, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) was the name given to the discussions centering on ...

INCEPTION **** What would noted dream warrior Sigmund Freud make of Inception, Christopher Nolan's first film since the eye-popping success of The Dark Knight? That's impossible to say, of course, but personally, it left me absolutely giddy. And if "giddy" sounds like a rather juvenile word to use to describe such an astounding experience (I can't imagine Freud would critique it in such terms!), that's simply the fault of the picture itself, a moviegoing marvel ...

DESPICABLE ME *** When James Stewart offers to lasso the moon for Donna Reed in Frank Capra's classic It's a Wonderful Life, it's purely a romantic gesture. When Gru (Steve Carell), the star of the 3-D opus Despicable Me, plots to shrink the moon to a size small enough so that he can make off with it, it's clearly to show that he's the baddest dude around. After all, if a supervillain isn't feared and ...

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE **1/2 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse isn't the best of three, but neither is it the worst. Instead, this adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's blockbuster book falls somewhere in the middle, between the nicely captured teen angst of 2008's Twilight and the ill-fated emotional oasis of 2009's The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Clearly, we're not talking about quality to match the Toy Story trilogy, but neither are we plumbing the Police Academy or ...

GROWN UPS * Adam Sandler's worst film since the one-two punch of Little Nicky and the inexplicably popular Big Daddy a decade ago, Grown Ups marks the umpteenth collaboration between the comedian and director Dennis Dugan. Dugan is to screen comedy what the atomic bomb was to Nagasaki, and with this film, he and the ostensible writers (Sandler and Fred Wolf) serve up a mirthless affair in which the only people laughing are the ones ...

TOY STORY 3 **** Threepeats may be rare in the sports world, but they're even harder to achieve in the cinematic realm. Yet here comes Toy Story 3, bucking the odds and satisfying sky-high expectations to emerge as the perfect final chapter in a trilogy that's guaranteed to live on for generations (to infinity and beyond?). It's been a long time since 1995's Toy Story broke ground as the first computer-animated feature film, and nearly ...

THE A-TEAM *** "Overkill is underrated," opines group leader "Hannibal" Smith (Liam Neeson) at one point during the course of The A-Team. Clearly, the man isn't talking about summer films, wherein the whole point of many of these heavily hyped efforts is to render everything louder, larger and more expensive. Still, as far as costly packages go, this is one of the better ones in recent memory -- unlike the schizophrenic Iron Man 2, the ...

GET HIM TO THE GREEK **1/2 A semi-sequel to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek is the latest film to emerge from the Judd Apatow factory, which means the picture will take great pains to show it can be sweet and sincere while simultaneously dishing out the sort of vulgar gags that have become the status quo in modern comedy. In this instance, it translates into good news for everyone: Those who prefer ...

SEX AND THE CITY 2 **1/2 Parents, lock up your fanboys! Yes, the ladies of the Sex and the City franchise are back to once again strike terror in the heart of any male moviegoer who steadfastly believes that cinema was only created to serve those folks sporting a Y chromosome. Admittedly, annoying these computer trolls sounds like reason enough to give Sex and the City 2 a hearty recommendation, but the truth of the ...