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2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
1-20 of 22 items from 2012 « Prev | Next »
The bullying of ‘Bully,’ and other musings on screen violence
24 May 2012 1:44 PM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »
And so, the war over The Weinstein Company’s provocative documentary, Bully, ends – to use an exhausted cliché – not with a bang, but with a whimper. Since its release at the end of March, the doc has grossed approximately $3 million; not bad for a reality piece, and, measured against the flick’s $1.1 million budget, it means TWC will go home with some money in its pocket. But considering the thundering opening bombardments which accompanied the film’s debut, it’s hard not to look at that sum as a bit of a disappointment. After all, Disney’s warm and cuddly and topically irrelevant doc Chimpanzee, released almost three weeks later to a lot less fuss, has earned over $27 million.
Undoubtedly, there are going to be those who think Bully was hobbled at the box office by its nasty run-in with the MPAA. But I keep looking at Bully’s $3 mil, »
- Bill Mesce
Movie Reviews: The Avengers
4 May 2012 11:08 AM, PDT | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Even many of the critics who had long ago grown weary of the typical superhero movie appear delighted by The Avengers. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times says that the difference between this superhero movie and the ones that came before is that it “gives us much, much more of the same.” He concludes that it is done “with style and energy” and that “it provides its fans with exactly what they desire.” That’s the conclusion of nearly all the critics. “The Avengers does what we expect it to do,” comments Amy Biancolli in the San Francisco Chronicle. It is, she writes, “the most inspired yet of Marvel movies.” But Claudia Puig in USA Today argues that what the movie is really contrived to do is make a lot of money. It “offers maximum bang for moviegoing buck,” she writes. “It’s essentially six movies in one.” But it’s not any of the actors-in-tights who are responsible for the film’s success, many critics note. That credit should be bestowed on screenwriter Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). “Whedon is the key reason why this $220-million behemoth of a movie is smartly thought out and executed with verve and precision,” writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Michael Phillips in the Chicago Sun-Times writes that Whedon “cleverly … combines and recombines” the rivalries of the superheroes, producing a film that “is more solid and satisfying than terrific.” And Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe remarks that “Whedon is making movies for people like him. He’s a kid in a comic-book store. I might not remember any of the sequences in The Avengers, but I’ll remember the rush. I don’t need anything else.” But then there is that review by A.O. Scott in the New York Times that was publicly damned on Twitter by costar Samuel L. Jackson. “While The Avengers is hardly worth raging about, its failures are significant and dispiriting,” Scott writes. “The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre. Mr. Whedon’s playful, democratic pop sensibility is no match for the glowering authoritarianism that now defines Hollywood’s comic-book universe.”
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‘Marvel’s The Avengers’: Review Revue
4 May 2012 7:00 AM, PDT | Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal | See recent Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal news »
Columbia Pictures/Everett Chris Evans (as Captain America) in ‘Marvel’s The Avengers.’
The summer blockbuster season starts this weekend. “Marvel’s The Avengers,” the hotly-anticipated superhero-fest starring Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson, soars into multiplexes Friday, finally providing comic book fans with the opportunity to witness Iron Man, Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow team up to protect the world from evil. Find out what the critics have to say on Rotten Tomatoes. »
- WSJ Staff
Daily Briefing. Cannes Jury, Czech New Wave, More
25 April 2012 12:25 PM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
Presenting single-paragraph biographies of each member, the Cannes Film Festival's announced the Jury of the Competition for its 65th anniversary edition, running May 16 through 27: Nanni Moretti (President), Hiam Abbass, Andrea Arnold, Emmanuelle Devos, Diane Kruger, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Ewan McGregor, Alexander Payne and Raoul Peck.
"Ebertfest, the annual film festival founded by the venerable Chicago Sun-Times critic in 1989 and running April 25-29, 2012, has always had the core mission of spotlighting underappreciated films." A preview from Michael Fox at Keyframe.
With its tenth anniversary edition, the Independent Film Festival Boston "continues the tradition of mixing renowned filmmakers and unknown artists, celebrity speakers and thoughtful in-depth panels," notes Not Coming to a Theater Near You, introducing a special section where it'll be collecting reviews throughout the festival's run from today through May 2. The Globe's Ty Burr and Wesley Morris present a batch of capsule previews.
"The Seattle International Film Festival (Siff), announced »
A Link is a Blog's Best Friend
18 April 2012 9:01 AM, PDT | FilmExperience | See recent FilmExperience news »
Stale Popcorn Popcorn Glenn is a Scream (1996) fanatic and he almost got to correct that little problem of "never seen it on the big screen".Sympathies!
Film Doctor has a spoileriffic analysis of a crucial late scene in Cabin in the Woods
Basket of Kisses has an insightful guest post on misogyny, goal-post moving and blistering reactions to Megan on Mad Men who is "too" everything.
La Daily Musto today's arguments about Judy Garland's legacy. Are young gays still 'Friends of Dorothy'?
Pulitzer Prizes congratulations to this years winners, particularly to the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris (pictured above) who is easily one of the best film critics working. If you aren't reading him, you're missing out.
Tom Shone, another of my favorites, on box office and spiritual pain. Don't let the "pre-sold" suck your soul.
Go Fug Yourself Lindsay Lohan three times... and behind a transparent umbrella!
The Ultimate »
- NATHANIEL R
a critic gets a bit of love and respect in these dark days for arts journalism (and other adventures in social networking)
17 April 2012 4:55 PM, PDT | www.flickfilosopher.com | See recent FlickFilosopher news »
What my followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ saw today: • Is Brin someone Hollywood will heed? Nah, probably not... Google co-founder rips Hollywood on anti-piracy efforts • Linda Mills of Omaha, Nebraska, this link is for you. Let the Nanotargeting Begin • Nice to see a critic getting a bit of love and respect in these dark days for arts journalism. Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris honored with 2012 Pulitzer Prize • There's no way this could go wrong, is there? Disney making 'Iron Man 3' with Chinese partner • The media still can't resist identifying women through the men they're married to, and not as individuals in their own right... Women and men are still unequal – even when they are dead »
- MaryAnn Johanson
Daily Briefing. A Pulitzer, "Pizza" and Cannes Shorts
17 April 2012 6:53 AM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
Congratulations to Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. The judges have cited "his smart, inventive film criticism, distinguished by pinpoint prose and an easy traverse between the art house and the big-screen box office." And the Globe's collected his nominated reviews. "Journalism's highest honor has only been bestowed upon a film critic a few times," notes Eugene Hernandez of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. "Previous recipients include Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal in 2005, Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post in 2003 and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1975. 'I was just doing my job and this is what happened,' Morris offered modestly during an emotional newsroom speech that was recorded and edited for the Globe website."
In other news. Nick Catucci for Artinfo: "When we say that Abel Ferrara's Pizza Connection — a web serial for Vice now in »
2012 Pulitzer Prizes Winners. Fiction? Nada.
16 April 2012 12:59 PM, PDT | AwardsDaily.com | See recent AwardsDaily news »
Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe wins this year’s Pulitzer for criticism. Drama winner Quiara Alegría Hudes is best known for writing the book of the musical In the Heights. »
- Ryan Adams
Daily Briefing. Hoberman on Gekko and the Stooges
16 April 2012 7:38 AM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
J Hoberman hasn't even broken his stride since the Village Voice let him go back in January. Not only does he carry on reviewing films week in and week out, only now at Artinfo, he's also turned in several amazing long-form pieces — on, for example, Geoff Dyer's Zona (and by extension, Tarkovsky's Stalker) in the New York Times (where Manohla Dargis and Ao Scott have asked him about the current state of film culture), on Terence Davies for the New York Review of Books and, in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, on Oliver Stone's Wall Street, which turns 25 this year: "Gordon Gekko, portrayed with vulpine, Oscar-winning gusto by Michael Douglas, has added a remarkably durable archetype to American mythology — the personification of capital." Watch Hoberman then segue into Mitt Romney via Karl Marx.
The other Marx is name-checked in another new piece, this one for Tablet, on the Jewishness of the original Three Stooges, »
Movie Reviews: American Reunion
6 April 2012 12:05 PM, PDT | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Most of the reviews of American Reunion trash the film as if it were a stale, leftover pie, which, in a sense it is. It’s a ten-year follow-up to 1999′s American Pie, 2001′s American Pie 2, and 2003′s American Wedding. And even the less brutal reviews hardly serve as recommendations. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example, while remarking that “it delivers a lot of nice laughs,” wonders whether someone who didn’t see the original films might not feel “out to sea” with this one. “If you liked the earlier films, I suppose you gotta see this one,” he writes. “Otherwise, I dunno.” Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer simply summarizes the movie and gives no clue about whether he liked it or not. Peter Howell, in the Toronto Star appears to praise the film when he calls it “the funniest issue yet from the American Pie franchise factory.” Then he adds: “Which isn’t saying all that much, given the low standards for laughter in this continuing teen sex farce.” Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune allows that “now and then the movie rouses itself to deliver.” Likewise, A.O. Scott in the New York Times remarks, “It has some good moments, but it goes on too long, and not enough happens that is likely to create new memories.” Now to the really negative reviews. “The entire film is a mistake,” Amy Biancolli writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. “(Directors) Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg direct with a bluntness, witlessness and sloppiness that only brings out the chasmal vacancy of the script, in which nothing happens and no one seems to be having any fun.” Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe tears the movie apart, then concludes, “The directors don’t know how to make this new plot funny or infectious.” Michael O’Sullivan grants it one and a half stars, calling it “aggressively crass and not especially funny.” And Lou Lumenick’s remarks in the New York Post are best summed up in the headline of his review: “American Why?”
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Movie Reviews: Project X
2 March 2012 11:49 AM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Of all the major U.S. newspaper film critics, only one gives Project X a favorable review — Neil Genzlinger, who refers to himself as a “second tier” arts critic for the New York Times. And what a favorable review it is! “The Oscars are swell, but once in a while a film comes along that is so courageous it deserves consideration for the Nobel Prize.” In this case, it’s a film that boldly asserts the 17-year-old’s inalienable right to have “a drunken, deafening, topless, drug filled, sex-crazed, property-destroying, life endangering birthday,” as Genzlinger puts it. This is, he concludes, the “Animal House of the iPhone generation.” Then, as an aside, remarks: “Pretty enjoyable for parents, too.” But not enjoyable for other critics, it would seem. Sara Stewart in the New York Post sums up the sentiment of most of them: “There is no way you could make this movie stupider or more pointlessly noisy than it already is.” Project X is another one of those “found footage” movies, with the footage made to appear as if it were taken by the principal character. But Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe comments that it’s hard to look at it “and not think about how true news video and amateur footage have documented political uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Or how, in the 1990s, that footage captured riots in South Los Angeles. In Project X, you see similar destruction and anarchy used to bestow popularity upon three boys and think, ‘What a waste.”’
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Movie Reviews: Act Of Valor
24 February 2012 12:01 PM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Film critics seem to be having difficulty getting a handle on Act of Valor — understandable given the fact that the movie reportedly started out as a training and recruitment film for Navy SEALs. It uses real-life SEALs in the cast, not professional actors — and some critics say that the lack of acting experience shows. In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert begins by praising it as “an accomplished, riveting action movie.” But he acknowledges that he had difficulty writing “the ordinary kind of review” because the film does not allow the audience to get to know the characters. “After the movie you’d find yourself describing events but not people,” he writes. “Act of Valor is gift-wrapped in patriotism. It was once intended as a recruitment film, and that’s how it plays.” Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe also remarks that there’s no Kenneth Branagh among the Seal cast members. “Having the military play itself is propaganda on one hand, and simple efficiency on the other.” Even politically conservative New York Post critic Kyle Smith seems to find it hard to appraise the film — as a real motion picture. While remarking he finds it “refreshing … to see the military portrayed as something other than a band of neurotics and creeps,” he nevertheless observes, “It consorts with reality … yet it also wants to be G.I. Joe. Choosing one path or the other would have been wiser.” Claudia Puig in USA Today comments that using real-life troops as actors in the film “is a clever idea.” However, she notes, “The soldiers’ awkward line readings are glaring enough to distract from the potency of the story.” Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times also praises the action sequences in the film, but then adds: “Impressive as all this is, it can’t hide the fact that these total warriors can’t really act, a situation that may not matter in combat but has to be characterized as a drawback in a motion picture.”
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Movie Reviews: Wanderlust
24 February 2012 12:00 PM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Critics always seem to have adulatory comments to express about Jennifer Aniston’s performances, even while castigating the makers of most of the films in which she has appeared. Such is the case with her latest one, Wanderlust, in which she stars with Paul Rudd. Aniston, writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post “thrives in this ensemble comedy,” which, he nevertheless says, “lacks any real bite.” Perhaps the reason for that, Wesley Morris remarks in the Boston Globe, is that it “has no teeth.” As an aside, he comments that movie producers simply do not know how to approach Aniston’s “undervalued sense of comedy.” Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer refers to “Aniston’s many underappreciated gifts,” but unlike many of her colleagues, she likes the movie, which, she says, brought her “more laughs than I’ve had at the movies in a very long time.” And Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times remarks, “There are so many things to feel guilty about liking in the pure and prurient guilty pleasure that is Wanderlust.” But Mick Lasalle in the San Francisco Chronicle, in a kind of on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand review, remarks enigmatically: “Certainly, no comedy that generates this much laughter deserves anything other than a good review, and that’s what this is, a good review, and don’t let anybody tell you any different. All the same, Wanderlust is slightly disappointing, slightly mechanical, so that when it’s over, you get none of that extra something. What is that extra something? You know: It’s the something we all want from comedies, besides laughs. It varies from picture to picture, but when it’s not there you feel it.”
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Movie Reviews: This Means War
17 February 2012 1:52 PM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
This Means War is taking a volley of shots from the nation’s leading newspaper film critics, many of whom suggest that it’s simply not worth the price of today’s admissions. With a series of “what if?” questions, Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe provides a summary of the improbable plot, then asks, “What if people paid to see this?” Manohla Dargis in the New York Times calls the romantic comedy “mirthless,” although she does concede that it would be “perfectly acceptable watched on the back of an airline seat or at home while you’re doing housework.” Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post rolls out these adjectives in her review of the movie: “sloppy, scattered, utterly synthetic,” then remarks that it is “little more than the canned Spam of the movie world — bland, over-processed and cheap.” If you’re thinking of taking it in as an accompaniment to Valentines Day, Liam Lacey in the Toronto Star urges you to reconsider. It is, he writes, a “Valentine’s date dud: Think wilted roses, squashed chocolates and flat champagne.” Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times puts it another way: “It’s not so bad it’s good. It’s so bad it’s nothing else but bad.”
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Movie Reviews: Safe House
10 February 2012 2:09 PM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Several critics are drubbing the script for Safe House, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, but they’re missing the point, other critics argue. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times suggests that the “business-as-usual” script is offset by “expert direction” by Daniel Espinosa. The Swedish director, says Turan, has given Safe House “an unmistakably stylish and unsettling tone, characterized by probing camera work, quick and edgy cutting and a fine ability to keep audiences off-balance and wondering when they’ll get a chance to catch their next breath.” Likewise, Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer, comments that with Espinosa at the controls the movie “rockets along, taking a familiar formula and making it work — hard.” Rea also credits the performance of Denzel Washington for lifting the film out of commonplace thriller status. “If Denzel Washington isn’t the coolest dude out there, I don’t know who is,” he remarks. (That’s a theme of several reviews, even the negative ones. Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe writes, “Here is a star in such complete command of his cool that he can’t even be bothered to look a little nervous about the prospect of torture.” And John Anderson in the Wall Street Journal faults the filmmakers for focusing too much attention on Ryan Reynolds’s character. “What we want to watch is Mr. Washington, and of him there is not nearly enough.”) A.O. Scott in the New York Times compliments Washington for his ability to suggest “deep reserves of cool, moody mystery and smoldering feeling.” He also praises director Espinosa’s handling of the action scenes, “though it’s his work with the actors and his attention to beauty that puts Safe House a cut above the genre rest.” But this is yet another Hollywood movie that makes the CIA come across as evil, and that produces a predictably negative review by the conservative New York Post critic Kyle Smith. “Even before the scene in which good guy straddles villain and barks, ‘Who do you work for?’ the movie succeeds extravagantly in its main goal, which is to be as average as possible,” he writes. “The ending, idiotic as it is, is also worth seeing, mainly because the subtext reveals so much about Hollywood’s upside-down thinking. Yes, this is a community that actually considers Julian Assange a hero.”
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Movie Reviews: The Woman In Black
3 February 2012 11:49 AM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
The reviews for Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Harry Potter film are decidedly mixed. The Woman in Black is a period piece, a ghost story and a stage for Radcliffe to prove that he can transform himself into a far different character than Harry. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times suggests that he has only partially succeeded in doing so. “The ghost of Potter past hovers in his every gesture,” she writes. “It will take time before many of us will be able to see the actor instead of his famous character, and time for him to shake that role off too.” Yet she praises his ability to keep “the story steadily moving forward inch by inch, shiver by shiver.” Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times figures it might have been a mistake to cast Radcliffe in a role that might well have been more believably executed by an older actor with more gravitas. “At 22, he still looks like a schoolboy,” he remarks. “The movie nevertheless is effective,” he says, “because director James Watkins knows it isn’t a character study. His haunted house is the star.” Peter Howell in the Toronto Star agrees. “It’s a haunted-house shocker where the frights are foremost, especially the jumpy kind (there are a few good ones), and acting is almost beside the point. We quickly stop thinking about Harry,” he observes. Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe didn’t stop thinking about Radcliffe’s indelible icon, however. Radcliffe, he suggests, has opted to play a role in which his character is all “seriousness and suffering. It’s how we we know he’s a man. (He’s even grown stubble for this part.) … But we don’t need any more prematurely old men in movies about lost souls.” The Associated Press’s Jake Coyle disagrees with Ebert and Morris. “Radcliffe looks respectably adult,” he says. Coyle, too, has much praise for director Watkins. “It’s obvious he’s interested in using fright for more than just shock,” he writes. The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips’s take on Radcliffe: “Quite good. I’d say he’s on his way as a post-Potter entity.” The film itself: “a handsome nerve-jangler … [that] amps up the scares without turning them into something completely stupid.” Most of the critics agree that the movie has audiences jumping out of their seats time and again. But John Anderson in the Wall Street Journal calls Watkins scare tactics “shameless” and concludes, “A movie can only cry ‘Boo!’ so many times before the victim runs out of patience.”
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'The Grey': The Reviews Are In!
26 January 2012 10:21 PM, PST | MTV Movie News | See recent MTV Movie News news »
Critics give mostly positive reviews to Liam Neeson's wolf-punching thriller.
By Kevin P. Sullivan
Liam Neeson in "The Grey"
Photo: Open Road Films
For the third January in a row, Liam Neeson returns to kick ass more than any other 59-year-old we know. This time he isn't taking down sex traffickers like in "Taken" or whatever he was fighting in "Unknown." No, this time, it's wolves.
For a movie that was sold on the notion of wolf punching, "The Grey" has received primarily positive reviews for its deeper-than-you'd-think story and characters.
Check out what the critics are saying about "The Grey."
The Story
"We meet Neeson's character, a heartbroken loner named John Ottway, on the verge of suicide and thinking back, obsessively, to the woman who got away. His demons temporarily quelled, Ottway boards a small plane with his fellow refinery workers and in one of the most nerve-racking flights ever put on film, »
84th Academy Awards. Nominations
24 January 2012 1:11 PM, PST | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
First the nominations, then a few notes after the list.
Best Picture
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Directing
The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants, Alexander Payne
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
Actor In A Leading Role
Demián Bichir in A Better Life
George Clooney in The Descendants
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Actor In A Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn
Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Max von Sydow in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Actress In A Leading Role
Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady »
Steven Soderbergh's "Haywire"
20 January 2012 1:21 PM, PST | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
"Haywire reunites director Steven Soderbergh with screenwriter Lem Dobbs," begins Josef Braun. "Though not as revelatory or formally engaged as The Limey, the pair's 1999 sleeper, which marked a comeback for its star, Terrence Stamp, Haywire is nevertheless, like The Limey, a smart, playful vamp on old tropes: lone wolf hired muscle takes a gig that turns out to be a double-cross; she becomes a loose end; corrupt former employer now seeks to eliminate her... you know the tune. Like The Limey, Haywire is also a film unusually concerned with geographical coherence, thus we get chase scenes that work up quite a sweat ensuring that we understand exactly how we got onto the fourth floor of this particular building or down that particular alleyway — there's even a pair of demonstrative scenes in which our heroine, Mallory Kane (Gina Carano), carefully consults a covert Gps device. Soderbergh, as always, operating as his own cinematographer, »
Movie Reviews: Red Tails
20 January 2012 12:18 PM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
If, as George Lucas has announced, Red Tails, his take on the all-black Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, turns out to be his last Hollywood movie, he’s going out in a blaze of critical indifference. Wesley Morris, one of the few black film critics for a major publication, concludes his review in the Boston Globe by remarking that although Red Tails “has its moments,” it is “so desperate to be palatable, to appeal to everybody, that it doesn’t taste like anything.” James Adams in the Toronto Globe and Mail says that if he were grading the movie on virtue alone, he would give it four stars. “Virtue aside, however, Red Tails is a lousy film. Not wincingly bad, mind you, just mediocre.” Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal, is not reluctant to call it just plain bad. “It’s antiquated kitsch reprocessed by the producer’s nostalgia for the [war] movies of his boyhood,” he writes. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer notes that Lucas chose to create “fictional composites” of the real Tuskegee airmen. “There isn’t a real, flesh-and-blood figure in the bunch. Everything about Red Tails — the breaking down of racial barriers, the military achievements, the courage and sacrifice — is diminished in the process,” he observes. But A.O. Scott in the New York Times notes that Lucas himself has said that he set out to make a film that would be, in his words, “inspirational for teenage boys.” And, says Scott, he has succeeded in doing so. “The mostly happy ending is as satisfying as a snack of milk and cookies after a ninth grade softball game.” And Lou Lumenick in the New York Post suggests that the negative reviews for the movie may be the result of the critics’ dissatisfaction with Lucas’s Star Wars prequels. “Listen to the naysayers and you’ll be missing one of the best January-releases of the past 30 years,” he writes, “a well-acted, well-directed … popcorn movie with great aerial battles and solid dramatic scenes that hold your attention for two good hours.”
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