Rethink Reviews

The bad news is Kristen Stewart, whose performance seems transplanted from the Twilight films since she spends so much of both looking either bewildered or angst-ridden with the weight of the world on her shoulders when she isn't running for her life.

By making Driss and Philippe fully realized characters (the film is based on a true story) with histories and lots to learn about life and each other, The Intouchables manages to escape the trappings of the Magic Negro genre.

Why, ten years after an underperforming sequel, is there a Men In Black 3? Are there burning questions about agents J (Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) that were left unresolved? Is there an arch-nemesis still on the loose?

The Dictator is further proof that it's important to laugh at tyrants, not just fear and hate them. The problem is that this doesn't necessarily make for a great movie.

Battleship succeeds in being big, dumb, and extremely loud, and after The Avengers, we should all be expecting a lot more.

Bobcat Goldthwait is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore. At least, the two main characters of his dark comedy God Bless America won't.

Last Call at the Oasis explores the reasons why humans are polluting and consuming more fresh water than nature can replenish. I spoke with Yu, discussing some of the scarier facts she learned and how we need to shift our thinking about water.

Ondi Timoner's latest ventures, an interview show called BYOD (Bring Your Own Doc) and a YouTube channel called Live Public, use Timoner's interests in mind- and life-changing documentaries and technology to go behind the scenes of how both are made.

Why would a small town in East Texas claim that one of its residents, an assumedly gay man, should be given a lenient sentence for shooting an old woman in the back? That's a question that's only partially answered by Richard Linklater's dark comedy, Bernie.

If 4/20 is the international day for celebrating marijuana, songs by Bob Marley and the Wailers would be the day's equivalent of carols on Christmas. But Marley was much more than a pot smoker and a purveyor of music for barbecues and pool parties.

Marc Dreier may be the biggest Wall Street criminal you've never heard of, but he'd respectfully disagree.

Haven't you been curious about what the crew from American Pie have been up to since American Wedding? Me neither, which makes the arrival of American Reunion that much more baffling.

I had a chance to talk with Weitz, and as I began transcribing our interview, I began to notice parallels between Nick's story and Weitz's journey to both forge a unique movie from a beloved existing work and to embrace his past as a way to move forward and develop his own voice.

Young American boys (including myself) have been running around with toy/imaginary weapons pretending to be soldiers for millenia, and have been watching TV shows and movies about the military for decades.

As technology advances and our knowledge accumulates, some ideas just don't make as much sense as they used to and are relegated to novelties or objects of nostalgia. I think it might be time to add the standard romantic comedy to this list of obsolete institutions.

Oscar-nominated documentary Undefeated follows a season in the life of the Manassas High School football team. But as is true of any great sports story, it really isn't about the final score.

Perhaps what's most mysterious about the Mysterious Island is that it takes place in a world where well-paid actors are unable to mimic authentic human emotions, and a script's action scenes appear to have been written before the story.

In that sense, along with impressive special effects, Chronicle succeeds in keeping its story firmly planted in the real world despite its science-fiction premise. It's likely that not all outcasts would use newfound abilities to defend the weak, save the planet, and become a hero.

Before seeing Pina, I had agreed with the conventional wisdom that 3D was best suited for action and animated films, though the vast majority of 3D movies I'd seen so far had left me feeling like it shouldn't be used at all.

With Soderbergh's Ocean's 11 heist series over, the director is clearly looking for another genre franchise to do for fun between his more challenging and experimental pieces. Haywire fits that description.

Young Adult is clearly set up as award bait for Charlize Theron, who gets the chance to be unlikable in almost every way.

I'm not going to go into all the subplots, except to say that they all end as happily as you know they will from the very start.

Nostalgia can't be the only reason why The Artist is receiving such critical praise. And be sure -- The Artist is a charming, beautifully shot, often funny novelty that audiences of all ages would do well to take a chance on.