2008

The Movies I Love: Doug Bentin on "The...

A couple of words: The Blue Angel is over 75 years old so a few spoilers will probably slip by....

Evan Derrick Review: The Dark Knight

As filmgoers we are often asked to choose between films that entertain and films that stimulate...

Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa,...

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t need to be preached to by a...

Michael Smith Review: Pineapple Express

So autobiographical were the hormones and humor of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s teen...

George Lang Review: Pineapple Express

Despite their chronic condition, Cheech and Chong weren’t exactly aiming high; they were...

Michael Smith Review: Swing Vote

One man, one vote, one pretty amusing election-year comedy. Click to read the rest of the review...

Michael Smith Review: The Mummy: Tomb of...

See whether this sounds familiar: An aging adventurer is called back into action, is joined by his...

James Cooper Review: The Mummy: Tomb of...

In a climatic battle sequence late in “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” Michelle...

Gene Triplett DVD Review: The Mummy:...

With another “Mummy” set to bust out at the box office, Universal Home Entertainment figured...

George Lang DVD Review: In Bruges

It’s hard to imagine the Belgian Tourist Office being thrilled with “In Bruges,” a...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Baby It's...

Writer-director John Sayles has the ability to take the most cliché-riddled formula and —...

George Lang Review: Swing Vote

Well-meaning but suffering from severe mood swings, the tone and sensibility of “Swing Vote” veers...

George Lang Review: The Wackness

“The Wackness” is a state of mind in which the glass is always half full of something bad....

Brandy McDonnell Review: Brideshead...

A lonely, working-class British teen falls under the thrall of an odd, aristocratic family in...

Michael Smith Review: Brideshead...

In terms of bringing British literary classics to the big screen, “Brideshead Revisited”...

Michael Smith Review: The Wackness

Witty and warm and weird, “The Wackness” treads some familiar ground with its...

Phil Bacharach Review: The Love Guru

(Oklahoma Gazette, June 25, 2008) A checklist for lowest-common-denominator comedy: Characters with...

Brandy McDonnell Review: The Flight of...

With “The Flight of the Red Balloon,” Taiwanese writer-director Hou Hsiao Hsien creates an...

George Lang Review: The X-Files: I Want...

“X-philes” cannot help going into “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” with enormous...

Michael Smith Review: Bigger, Stronger,...

It has long been the American way to think that we are “Bigger, Stronger, Faster” than...

James Vance Review: Jellyfish

“Jellyfish,” with a title directly translated from the original Hebrew...

Kim Brown Review: When Did You Last See...

Watching a loved one endure a prolonged illness is a torture most people wouldn’t wish on...

Michael Smith Review: Step Brothers

Playing lunk-headed chauvinists such as Ron Burgundy and over-competitive doofuses such as Ricky...

George Lang Review: Step Brothers

“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” only scratched the surface of Will Ferrell and...

James Cooper Review: The X-Files: I Want...

“The X-Files: I Want to Believe” feels like a strange hodgepodge of a movie. On the one...

The Movies I Love: Doug Bentin on "All...

Note that “All Wet” is over 80 years old so I don’t mind writing about some plot elements in a way...

Matthew Price Review: The Dark Knight

“The Dark Knight” begins as a heist caper, as goons in clown masks execute a bank robbery. But...

George Lang Review: Reprise

Joachim Trier’s “Reprise” is the sum total of a first-time director’s formidable...

Kim Brown Review: Space Chimps

What is it about family-friendly space adventure movies lately? They seem to be as vital to movie...

Jim Chastain Review: Hancock

Hancock is the most schizophrenic film I’ve ever seen. Seriously. Click to read the rest of...

Michael Smith Review: Flight of the Red...

Glorious photography and an experimental narrative full of improvised dialogue combine to make...

Michael Smith Review: The Dark Knight

I have an announcement: The new Batman film, “The Dark Knight,” is the best film...

Brandy McDonnell Review: Let's Get Lost

Fashion photographer-turned-filmmaker Bruce Weber captures both the natural musical genius and...

James Vance Review: The Dark Knight

With this week’s release of “The Dark Knight,” the summer’s 300-pound...

James Cooper Review: Mamma Mia!

Donna (Meryl Streep) sings and dances, glides and skips around her seaside villa with the thrill of...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Heathers -...

Teen suicide is no laughing matter — at least under normal circumstances — but that...

The Movies I Love: Doug Bentin on...

Boris Karloff was always publicly grateful to the horror genre and its fans for making him a star...

Isn't it romantic? Kim Brown's favorite...

Ah, to be young and in love. To me, summer is one of the best times for a romantic comedy, but to...

Kim Voynar Review: Kit Kittredge: An...

There have been a couple of previous American Girl movies, made for television; my favorite was...

Kim Voynar Review: Hancock

I wanted to go into Hancock knowing as little as possible, so I deliberately avoided reading...

Michael Smith Review: The Children of...

If Steven Spielberg hadn’t made a movie about the man, the public at large still...

Brandy McDonnell Review: Meet Dave

“Meet Dave” isn’t as offensively bad as the movies the puppet robots on the TV series...

Brandy McDonnell DVD Review: Definitely,...

Writer-director Adam Brooks adds a little mystery to the romantic comedy formula with the...

Michael Smith Review: Hancock

For lack of a better term, “Hancock” is a revisionist superhero movie. There is no hero...

James Vance Review: Hellboy II: The...

In this summer’s box office battle of the super guys, Hellboy is probably going to get his...

James Cooper Review: Hellboy II The...

You will find it very difficult … to care about the heroics of the superhero in Guillermo del...

Gene Triplett Review: Journey to the...

Visual-effects-man-turned-director Eric Brevig plunges us deep into the world of state-of-the-art...

Mike Robertson on Sylvester Stallone: A...

This is pretty random, but during a recent visit to Ross Dress for Less, of all places, I found a...

Kim Brown Review: WALL-E

It’s hard to imagine all the difference one little green plant could make. And one little...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: In Bruges

Independent cinema loves professional hit men. In fact, hit men are so beloved in indies that...

James Cooper Review: Hancock

I suppose that its concept should actually make “Hancock” a better film. In fact, the...

George Lang Reivew: Kit Kittredge: An...

Possibly the biggest surprise about “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” is that it is the best...

James Vance Review: Reprise

Even though it’s clearly set in the present day, the Norwegian drama “Reprise” is...

"Redrum"

A most inspired promo from Great Britain’s Channel 4, which is about to air the films of the...

"300" sequel in works?

 OK, if you saw “300,” you can think of one pretty excellent reason that there...

Matthew Price Review: Hancock

Hard-drinking superhero Hancock (Will Smith) finds himself out of favor with the public in...

The Movies I Love: Doug Bentin on "White...

Note that White Heat is over 50 years old so I don’t mind writing about some plot elements in a way...

James Cooper: "Lost" in the American...

In an arena packed with thousands of fervent and passionate supporters in the early days of summer,...

George Lang Review: Mongol

Never assume that historical dramas must be dry and ponderous — Sergei Bodrov’s “Mongol”...

Matthew Price Review: Wanted

“Wanted,” directed by Timur Bekmambetov of the “Night Watch” films, is a visually...

James Vance Review: Mongol

A film that purports to tell the story of Genghis Khan’s formative years sounds more like a Monty...

Brandy McDonnell Review: WALL-E

Only the geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios could create an adorably clunky, inarticulate robot...

Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa,...

I think Get Smart is supposed to be a sort of parody, but it doesn’t really come off that way....

Michael Smith Review: Priceless

Romantic comedy meets the human comedy on the French Riviera in “Priceless,” a...

Michael Smith Review: The Love Guru

I’ve always appreciated Mike Myers for making films that were so ridiculous that they made us...

George Lang Review: The Love Guru

“The Love Guru” reeks of desperation, testing the already stretched boundaries of what Mike...

George Lang Review: Get Smart

By veering away from the tone and style of the Mel Brooks/Buck Henry original series, Peter...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: 4 Months, 3...

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a harrowing, starkly told tale of abortion and rape in the waning...

Michael Smith Review: Get Smart

A big-budget version of the 1960s TV comedy classic “Get Smart” has bigger stars than the show. It...

Joe Wertz: A year premieres

Two Okie filmmakers captured the creative lives of seven state artists working on an...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Redacted

The controversy that surrounded the theatrical release of Redacted generated much heat and precious...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Diva - The...

Revisiting Diva more than 25 years after that magical viewing, I must admit this French import...

Kathryn Jenson White: deadCENTER 2008

Well, the final film has screened, and the winners have taken home their trophies. The final event...

Catfish Cinema

In honor of the now-concluded deadCENTER Film Festival, enjoy this trailer for Brad Beesley’s...

Kathryn Jenson White: "American Teen" at...

As a docfreak, I’m always eager to find a new documentary to love and talk about....

George Lang Review: Before the Rains

James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant created a brand of literate exotica in their filmmaking,...

James Cooper Review: The Incredible...

Of course, “The Incredible Hulk” is a better movie than Ang Lee’s 2003 attempt to...

Michael Smith Review: The Happening

Mother Nature fights back in “The Happening,” an ecological thriller from filmmaker M....

Matthew Price Review: The Incredible...

Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner in “The Incredible Hulk,” a love letter to the 1970s series...

James Vance Review: The Incredible Hulk

To answer your first question: Yes, this time they did it right. In fact, they did “The...

George Lang Review: American Teen

Nanette Burstein’s “American Teen” acts as a strong antidote to the glitzy bilge of MTV’s “My Super...

Kathryn Jenson White: At the Edge of...

Well, today is the day OKC joins — as it has for eight years now — the ranks of Toronto, Telluride,...

Kim Voynar Review: Sex and the City

I can only review this film as a fan of the series, so I’m not sure how well it will play to...

Doug Bentin on the "B" Attitudes: The...

Recent DVD and theatrical releases of movies by Dario Argento have started me thinking about that...

Michael Smith Review: You Don't Mess...

Zohan is an Israeli counterterrorism agent, a Hebrew superhero capable of outswimming speedboats,...

George Lang Review: You Don't Mess with...

“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” shoots mass quantities of hummus at the wall, and...

Brandy McDonnell DVD Review: Semi-Pro

“Semi-Pro” falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of Will Ferrell’s growing canon...

George Lang Review: Kung Fu Panda

Beholden to treasured cinematic legacies and a culture shared by over a billion people, “Kung...

George Lang Review: Son of Rambow

With their super-absorbent brains and free time for dreaming, children often have rich fantasy lives...

James Vance Review: Then She Found Me

Helen Hunt hasn’t registered very strongly on the big screen since her 1997 Oscar-winning turn...

Gene Triplett Review: Sex and the City:...

Park Avenue becomes a fashion runway once again as the “Sex and the City” gal pals put their...

Brandy McDonnell Review: The Fall

The magic of storytelling forms the bond between a depressed man and a precocious child in the...

Kim Brown Review: My Blueberry Nights

With a title as delicious as “My Blueberry Nights,” it’s hard to resist this indulgent yet visually...

Kim Brown Review: Sex and the City: The...

Who needs superheroes this summer when “Sex and the City” fans have Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and...

James Cooper Review: Sex and the City:...

In a scene early in “Sex and the City,” Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), displaying the...

Rod Lott's DVD-a-Go-Go

As much as I’d like to see everything in a theater, projected onto a huge screen, sometimes it just...

Michael Smith Review: Indiana Jones and...

We all love Indiana Jones, and after 19 years it’s good to see our hero return, like an old friend...

Kim Voynar Review: Wendy and Lucy

Director Kelly Reichardt’s much-anticipated follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2006 fest...

Kim Voynar Review: Adoration

Adoration, the newest film by critically acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan, is a beautifully evocative...

Sydney Pollack, 1934-2008

  By George Lang Assistant Entertainment Editor, The Oklahoman  When I was a teenager, I remember...

Brandy McDonnell DVD Review:...

For a movie about suicidal people condemned to a drab afterlife, “Wristcutters: A Love Story”...

Brandy McDonnell Review: Young@Heart

On the surface, the conceit behind the documentary “Young@Heart” sounds charming, with a...

Michael Smith Review: Young@Heart

Their bones ache and their joints are swollen, but they can still shake their groove things. The...

Michael Smith Review: Indiana Jones and...

We all love Indiana Jones, and after 19 years it’s good to see our hero return, like an old friend...

George Lang Review: Indiana Jones and...

“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is Steven Spielberg and George Lucas...

Gene Triplett DVD Review: Dirty Harry...

A fully loaded box set of Dirty Harry movies should make the day of any fan of Clint...

Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa,...

Next week is early deadline week, so it’ll be the annual Summer Movie Preview guide. This...

James Cooper Review: Indiana Jones and...

Thirteen years after “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” fans and critics alike have...

Phil Bacharach Review: Forgetting Sarah...

(Oklahoma Gazette, April 23, 2008) There’s nothing like a breakup for sheer misery, especially when...

Phil Bacharach Review: Shine a Light

(Oklahoma Gazette, April 9, 2008) Martin Scorsese knows about putting rock ’n’ roll on celluloid. As...

Phil Bacharach Review: Smart People

 (Oklahoma Gazette, April 16, 2008) Judging by the movies, you would think that college professors...

Kim Voynar Review: Hunger

Hunger, by British artist and director Steve McQueen and Irish writer Enda Walsh, is a graphically...

Michael Smith Review: The Visitor

Walter Vale, a college professor of economics in Connecticut, travels to New York to present a paper...

Michael Smith Review: The Chronicles of...

Family-friendly fare from Disney gets the rousing treatment again in “The Chronicles of Narnia:...

James Vance Column: "Straight Shooters"

Two ranches stood off the road to Newhall, California – one, an austere little spread that barely...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: The Great...

Among the many intellectual exercises connected to debate is the ability to defend stances that are...

James Cooper Review: Iron Man

Critics and scholars have long argued that a society gets the horror movie it deserves, reflecting...

Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa,...

I had no idea prior to walking into the theatre that Redbelt was a David Mamet film. Yes, the guy...

Gene Triplett Review: The Chronicles of...

The four Pevensie children are sucked back into the mystic once again in Disney’s “The...

James Vance Review: My Brother Is an...

You wouldn’t know it from its Lifetime movie-like title, but “My Brother Is an Only...

Michael Smith Review: The Visitor

Walter Vale, a college professor of economics in Connecticut, travels to New York to present a paper...

George Lang Review: The Visitor

Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor” is a great humanistic tale about literally recapturing the rhythms of...

Kim Voynar Review: Waltz with Bashir

The horrors of war and the atrocities of which humans are capable of have, of course, been...

Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Nanking

In late 1937, one of the most harrowing atrocities of the 20th century took place in China’s...

Michael Smith Review: Speed Racer

If “Iron Man” opened the summer movie season as fun brain food, then “Speed Racer” is the eye candy...

Michael Smith Review: Redbelt

“Redbelt” is compelling and entertaining at the same time, all a person could ask for from...

Brandy McDonnell Review: Speed Racer

Writer-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski don’t stray far from the source for their film...

James Vance Review: Paranoid Park

“Paranoid Park” is a lovingly crafted portrait of disaffected teens that could have been a riveting...

George Lang Review: What Happens in...

Someone needs to burn this flowchart: Two mismatched and obnoxious people meet cute/drunk, are...

Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa, 5-7-08

Saw just one film last weekend. I’d planned on seeing two, but after sitting through Iron Man...

Doug Bentin on Joe Dante

Last month, director Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling) programmed a 7-part film festival, called...

George Lang DVD Review: Honeydripper

John Sayles might be independent film’s best chronicler of regional personality, and when Sayles is...

James Vance Review: Iron Man

With “Iron Man,” the season of big-ticket popcorn movies is not only officially...

Brandy McDonnell Review: Made of Honor

Despite blissful chemistry between its leads, the romantic comedy “Made of Honor” tosses out a...

George Lang Review: Snow Angels

David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels” will break your heart. The layers of desolation in an...