MOVIEREVIEW 'Nine Lives' 3.5 Stars Conflict. Drama. Resolution. It's the standard formula for almost any movie, and when the credits roll, it's all over. But "Nine Lives" is different. It is difficult to consider Rodrigo Garc
MOVIEREVIEW "Ask the Dust" 2 stars In 1974, Robert Towne wrote "Chinatown," the best noir-inspired drama to come out of Hollywood since the downfall of the studio system. In 2006, Robert Towne wrote and directed "Ask the Dust," one of the worst noir-inspired dramas since "Chinatown" revived the genre. "Ask the Dust" is one of those movies that claims to be noir simply because it uses horrible first-person narration to gloss over all the loose parts of the script. It forgets all of the elements that made the genre wonderful.
MOVIEREVIEW 'The Pink Panther' 1 Star Steve Martin might be the funniest actor alive. But that's only because Peter Sellers is dead. And ever since Sellers, the original "Pink Panther" star, died, studio executives haven't been able to carry the series. Not even when they enlisted the help of Martin, the most recent recipient of the Mark Twain award, poignant author of "Shopgirl" and comic genius of "The Jerk."
As his show was starting Thursday, students were still spilling into Memorial Hall to see Tom DeLuca. DeLuca is not rock star, a comedian or even a motivational speaker. He is a hypnotist. DeLuca said he has been practicing hypnotism since he was a 22-year-old student at the University of Illinois. He originally worked individually with patients who wanted to quit smoking or lose weight. But that all has changed now.
MOVIEREVIEW 'Looking for comedy in the muslim world' 2 Stars Writer-director Albert Brooks' new film "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" sounds like a documentary, or at least a mockumentary. Sadly, it isn't. Instead, Brooks created a movie that sounds great in theory, but one that ultimately gets lost on paper and fizzles out on screen. In the movie Brooks plays himself, a less-than-quasi-famous comedian who the U.S. government asks to travel to the Middle East in order to study what makes the Muslim world laugh.
MOVIEREVIEW "The Squid and the Whale" 4 & 1/2 Stars Never before has divorce and child custody been such a laughing matter. But in Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale," the laughter is not uproarious or even healthy. It is short and defensive in the same unrewarding way one might laugh at an embarrassing memory. The film's intention is not to tell a traditional story, but to recall an all-too-familiar one in all of its embarrassment and terror.
