Tame bunny tale 'Hop' skips into blandness

"Hop" has one of the cutest bunnies you'll ever see and plenty of other eye candy among its computer-generated visuals, yet there's not much bounce to the story behind this interspecies buddy comedy.Letting bad-boy Russell Brand supply the voice of the Easter bunny sounds like a promising way to add spice to a warm and fuzzy family flick. Too bad the movie winds up about as bland as

Life Goes On (Movie Review)

One of the many pleasures of watching this supple evocative elegiac family saga is to see the timeless Sharmila Tagore share screen space with her real-life daughter Soha, who by the way, has never looked lovelier. That inner-glow comes from the company she keeps in this gentle drama suffused in melodious whispers and mellifluent suggestions of tunes long-forgotten and yet stored in the most

Monica (Movie Review)

One doesn't know if the real-life journalist Shivani Bhatnagar was meant to be a kind of promiscuous enigma. But that's how she is purported to be portrayed by writer-director Sushen Bhatnagar. A kind of Madame Bovary (a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert) of the fringe world. A cryptic woman and a mystery to others and to herself whose story is pieced together after her death through the

Wipeout: 'Soul Surfer' lacks bite

LOS ANGELES: Sports writers invariably call any last-minute heroics or unbelievable upset a "Hollywood ending," yet in reality Hollywood usually does a poor job with sports stories based on real-life events.Such stories force filmmakers to drastically alter the filmmaking playbook, draining away all color or quirks of personality from characters based on living people and removing any

Game (Movie Review)

“What a story!” Abhishek Bachchan, playing a cross between a fugitive and a guardian-angel, says wrily at the of this elegantly crafted whodunit. What a story, indeed. And full marks to writer Althea Delmas Kaushal for crafting a jigsaw that would have made Agatha Christie smile. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say, they don’t make movies like this anymore. Stylishly crafted, cunning in plot and

Movie review: Devil

Starring: Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Jenny O’Hara, Geoffrey Arend, Logan Marshall-Green, and Jacob VargasDirected by: John Erick DowdleScreenplay by: Brian NelsonStory by: M Night ShyamalanThe first release in M Night Shyamalan’s The Night Chronicles series, Devil is a supernatural thriller that follows the story of five strangers (Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Jenny O

'Mars Needs Moms' needs stronger story

LOS ANGELES: Robert Zemeckis' performance capture system, which turns life-action into animation, gets quite a workout in Disney's "Mars Needs Moms," which opens on Friday.Its characters, both human and Martian, tumble through space, slide down chutes, chase along corridors that turn every which way and dance around mountains and into caverns created out of huge mounds of trash. The process has

'Red Riding Hood' inspires dread

LOS ANGELES: A film of grimm banality, "Red Riding Hood" puts a bloodthirsty "Twilight" spin on a fairy tale already possessed of an unusually macabre climax.As it thuds along from one wolf attack to the next, Catherine Hardwicke's first film since taking leave of Bella and her toothy friends adamantly refuses to provide any wit, humor or fun, concerning itself mostly with the heroine's taxing

'Battle Los Angeles' cliched but a fun watch

"World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles"; Actors: Aaron Eckhart, Ramon Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo; Director: Jonathan Liebesman; Rating: ***There is nothing original about "World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles". In brief, it is "Independence Day" meets "Cloverfield" meets "Black Hawk Down" meets "Saving Private Ryan" with state-of-art special effects thrown in. And this, as

Bol, the much-awaited film by Shoaib Mansoor, is likely to be released after the cricket world cup

LAHORE: The film which was earlier set to be released in February is now likely to hit cinemas in mid April. The release was delayed to settle matters related to distribution. It was cleared by the Film Censor Board in November last year. It is the second full-length feature film by ace director Shoaib Mansoor.Film pundits desperately await the release of Bol, the plot of which remains a hot

The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau is an enjoyable piece of hokum – your basic doom-laden parable of metaphysical sci-fi mind control, only with a surprise romantic sparkle. It's based on a 1954 short story by Philip K. Dick (called ''Adjustment Team''), but even as the film gives you a taste of Dick's crazy-visionary the corporation ate my brain! paranoia, it infuses that twisty gloom with a spirit that's

Take Me Home Tonight

There are deep-dish '80s nostalgia movies, like Adventureland and Hot Tub Time Machine. Then there's Take Me Home Tonight, which duplicates the car crashes, drug jokes, all-night-long plot twists, and robot hip-hop dance moves of low-rent '80s party flicks with such casual fidelity that you may ask: Why not just watch Losin' It, Bachelor Party, or License to Drive instead? I can't claim that Take

I Saw the Devil

Charismatic Korean star Choi Min-sik found international fame as a man bent on revenge in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy. In director Kim Jee-woon's wildly violent, genre-pushing vengeance pic (I Saw the Devil), Choi goes to town as the embodiment of murdering, torturing evil; Lee Byung-hun plays the equally mono-minded special agent seeking maniacal revenge for the death of his pregnant fiancée.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Spirit, animal, and human worlds coexist in dreamy harmony in this (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) remarkable drama, winner of the 2010 Cannes Palme d'Or. The latest film from groundbreaking Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady) features Thanapat Saisaymar as Boonmee, who, nearing the end of his life, calmly waits for death in the lush countryside. Magical

happythankyoumoreplease

With very little modification, the relationship woes of the six chirpy young New Yorkers in this (happythankyoumoreplease) self-absorbed indie could be reworked into episodes of TV's How I Met Your Mother. The casting is in place: HIMYM star Josh Radnor — who also wrote and directed — plays a puppyish aspiring novelist with a knack for one-night stands (Kate Mara lasts a few nights longer). Good

Hall Pass

Men and women, as every chick flick and buddy-slob comedy will tell you, don't just come from different galaxies — they're locked in a battle for supremacy. But Hall Pass, a light comedy of horny marital woe from directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly, makes a novel statement about the sex wars: It says that they're essentially over. And that the guys — in case there was any lingering suspense about

Drive Angry

Shaven-headed men in tattoos and ugly goatees. Pretty girls who punch guys out. Hash-slinging diners and trashy neon honky-tonk bars. A jet-black 1969 Dodge Charger. A cherry-red 1970 Chevelle SS 454. (Wow, just writing that made me feel like I know something about cars.) Nicolas Cage in thatchy frosted-blonde Owen Wilson-as-biker hair. (Another Nic Cage hair joke? I bring it up only because

Tanu Weds Manu

Why should you watch "Tanu Weds Manu"? For R. Madhavan who will win you heart as a sweet lovable NRI doctor Manu who has the misfortune of falling in love with a Kanpur-girl Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) who not only rejects him as a suitor but also uses him to elope with her ruffian boyfriend. Hiding his heartbreak and disappointment behind a smile, Madhavan fits into the role of a goody goody NRI like

Of Gods and Men

Gravely serene and suffused with tenderness, Of Gods and Men takes the simple, profound stand that how a person of faith lives matters more than the circumstances of his death. I stick with the male pronoun here because this superb, award-laden French drama — a surprising omission among this year's Foreign Language Film Oscar nominees — is so essentially about how men behave in the name of

The Last American Virgin

When the teen T&A comedy Porky's scored at the box office in the spring of 1982, Hollywood quickly realized there was an audience — largely male, teenage, and horny as hell — itching to see guys as clueless as they were willing to humiliate themselves in the quest to get laid. Most of these knockoffs were god-awful. But a few, like the three in a new MGM '80s box set, added heart to the hormonal