Eric D. Snider

Movie Review: "Il Divo (Italian)" (A) July 2, 2009

The funny little toad who ran Italy

I have enough trouble following the details of my own country's political intrigue, so the material in "Il Divo" -- about Italy's notorious seven-time prime minister Giulio Andreotti -- was almost entirely new to me. The film begins with a dizzying stream of names and events, too, which would be a daunting history lesson if the writer/director, Paolo Sorrentino, didn't present it with such style. Even with no knowledge of Italian government, you can enjoy this hip, un-stodgy, grimly entertaining dissection of it, and of one of its most infamous modern figures.

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Eric's Blog July 2, 2009

Eric's Bad Movies: 'The Care Bears Movie' (1985)

It's kind of fun to have Eric's Bad Movies at Film.com be thematically linked to one of the week's new releases. If nothing else, it helps me choose subjects for the column, a process that would otherwise be fairly random. So this week, in vague conjunction with the new animated "Ice Age" movie hitting theaters, Eric's Bad Movies deals with "The Care Bears Movie," which hit theaters 24 years ago and became the most lucrative non-Disney animated feature up to that point. That wasn't much of a feat, since hardly anyone besides Disney even tried animation in those days, but still.

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Eric's Blog July 1, 2009

Wednesday movie roundup - July 1

Used to be that the Fourth of July was a huge time at the box office, especially when it fell on a weekend. But this year's dominator, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," opened a week early, leaving Independence Day week to suffer. I'm pretty sure this is Obama's fault. I hear he's coming for my guns, too.

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Movie Review: "Public Enemies" (B+) July 1, 2009

Johnny Depp fights the law; law wins

One of the very first films to last longer than a couple minutes and tell a complete story was "The Great Train Robbery," a hugely influential 12-minute adventure that dazzled audiences way back in 1903. Its technical and narrative innovations have since been improved upon, but one thing has held steady: Audiences still love criminals. Sure, we generally like to see them punished in the end (and the old Hollywood Production Code used to insist on it), but in the meantime we delight in their exploits, vicariously enjoying their unrestrained, uncivilized behavior, and secretly kind of hoping they get away with it.

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Movie Review: "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" (B-) July 1, 2009

The franchise shows signs of cooling

To answer the obvious question, the makers of "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" are well aware that the dinosaurs came and went long before the film takes place. What happened, though, is that some of the dinosaurs survived in a huge, cavernous world underneath the ice, and in this sequel our mammalian heroes stumble across them. So it's not a "dawn of the dinosaurs" so much as an "accidental discovery of a few leftover survivors of the dinosaurs." But that would have been too unwieldy a title.

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Movie Review: "Adoration" (B) June 29, 2009

The more you know, the less you like

The Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan often tells his stories with scenes out of order to reinforce his theme that absolute truth is impossible to find. In an Egoyan movie, things are rarely what they seem to be, which becomes evident when he circles back and shows us the details he kept hidden at first. He possesses all the facts (obviously: he created the story) but deliberately obscures them for a while to prove a point. That matches some people's view of God.

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Eric's Blog June 26, 2009

Friday movie roundup - June 26

No doubt you are already well aware of the presence of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" at your local multiplex, but there's my review anyway.

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Movie Review: "My Sister's Keeper" (C) June 26, 2009

Uh-oh! The clone has gained sentience!

The premise of the two-hankie dying-daughter melodrama "My Sister's Keeper" is so preposterous that taking it seriously proves a difficult task. The gist: 11-year-old Anna Fitzgerald was conceived for the sole purpose of being a genetic match for her older sister, Kate, who has leukemia. All her life, Anna has been a donor of blood, marrow, and other necessities, and now Kate needs a kidney. But Anna has had enough of this and wants to sue her parents for "medical emancipation" -- the right to decide for herself whether she keeps donating things to her dying sister.

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Movie Review: "Whatever Works" (B) June 26, 2009

Seeking happiness, or pleasant misery

Of all the actors Woody Allen has recruited to play "the Woody Allen role" in his films, has there ever been a more inspired choice than Larry David? As a writer for "Seinfeld," and now in his own "Curb Your Enthusiasm," David's caustic, neurotic misanthropy fits with Allen's own nebbishy pessimism like onions fit in a knish. The only surprise in "Whatever Works" is that the collaboration didn't happen sooner.

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Eric's Blog June 25, 2009

Eric's Bad Movies: 'Power Rangers: The Movie' (1995)

In honor of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," now deafening audiences in theaters everywhere, Eric's Bad Movies at Film.com this week features "Power Rangers: The Movie." The posters and other promotional material for the film referred to it by its TV show title, "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie," but the actual onscreen title drops the "Mighty Morphin" part. I am forced to conclude that while the Power Rangers were mighty and could morph on TV, they did not have these attributes in cinemas.

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