The American

Once you’ve seen The American the stylish, 70s-inspired one sheet makes perfect sense–this is a movie that bows at the feet of European art films, and isn’t so much a thriller as a meditation on hitman movies and cinema history itself. Everything about it, from the placid camerawork and minimal dialogue to the ancient Italian settings, asks you to settle down into an earlier time. Director Anton Corbijn is not afraid to bore his audience in what’s essentially a character study about a career assassin, and while he and Clooney happen upon some striking visuals and dig up a few interesting ideas, the flashy visuals tend to say a lot more than the story itself. Things start well with a striking and intense confrontation in snowy Sweden, leaving three dead and Clooney’s assassin Jack on the run to Italy, where he meets up with the mysterious man (Bruce Altman) who gives him his orders. Jack hides out in one of those Italian cities that’s all cobblestones balanced precariously on a hilltop, working on a weapon specially ordered by a mystery woman (Tekla Reuten) and frequenting a whorehouse where he repeatedly asks for the dark and beautiful Clara (Violante Placido)

Get Low

Get Low is a quiet character study populated with ludicrous personalities who may have seemed more at home in a backwoods comedy. All the farcical elements are here. There’s a violent, reclusive loner with an epic beard, the loner’s former lover, a funeral director on the verge of bankruptcy, a slow-witted funeral assistant, a no-nonsense Southern preacher and a balled-up wad of greasy, delicious hermit money.

Winter’s Bone

How far would you go to save your family? Sure, sure, you’d keep your crazy, ageing mother at home to avoid the trauma of an assisted living facility. You might even offer to do the laundry and keep things functioning in her wake. In a dire need, you might help pay bills or watch over younger siblings when your parents weren’t around. But would you shoulder your way into a drug den to find out truths you may be better off not knowing

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a disorganized mess. It’s an overly ambitious, poorly thought out, complete and utter failure made by and populated with talented people who should have known better. Watching it, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back , except that, as much as Kevin Smith seemed to realize he was poking fun at and laughing with the slacker generation he helped give voice to, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World hasn’t the slightest idea its main character is a pathetic buffoon

Step Up 3D

Coming off like some wild, two-bit half hour slice of late night zealotry on public access television, Step Up 3D is quite possibly the least self-aware film I have ever seen. It gushes about dance moves changing the world, about step battles setting an entire generation free, all the while, thrusting, gyrating, twisting and shimmying with a lunatic confidence only known to naïve idealists and the few people who really have figured it all out. This brash devotion to the power of dance is, in all honesty, confounding, and it has forced me to wonder if maybe a well-placed Charleston really can set us all free. Then I remember this film is called Step Up 3D , and it’s not only probable but entirely likely, it really is just full of shit

Flipped

Rob Reiner has been a great director. From the 1980s through the first couple years of the 1990s the man put out classic after classic, be it incredible comedies like The Is Spinal Tap , truly terrifying horror like Misery , unforgettable fantasy like The Princess Bride , or hard-hitting drama like A Few Good Men . Then came North , a film that was considered by many to be the worst film of 1994

The Other Guys

The cop comedy took a beating earlier this year when Kevin Smith’s Cop Out emerged not just as the most unfunny movie of his career, but also his biggest hit. Adam McKay’s The Other Guys isn’t quite brilliant enough to make up for it, and doesn’t come close to the sublime weirdness of his previous film Step Brothers , but it is a much funnier attempt to inject comedy into the familiar cop procedural, and yet another chance for audiences to stumble in on his long collaboration with Will Ferrell and marvel at what they come up with. The central problem this time around is that, unlike the happily rambling Anchorman and Step Brothers , The Other Guys relies on plot and a lot of it, getting its cop characters wrapped up in financial scandal and armed robbery and kidnapping that’s way too much for McKay and his co-writer Chris Henchy to handle. The best moments, as in all of McKay’s movies, are when the myriad bizarre characters have the time to bounce off one another, which luckily happens just enough in The Other Guys to make up for long stretches of dull and derivative plot. At the center of it all, as always, is Ferrell as Allen, a buttoned-up version of his usual manchlid who was perfectly happy as an accountant for the police force until he was, for some reason, bumped up to detective.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

Truly great family films happen when audiences of all ages can enjoy whatÂ’s up on screen, from toddlers to octogenarians. These kinds of movies have deep stories with real messages, engaging characters and, typically, genuine humor. Pixar has cornered the market on this since Toy Story first came out in 1995, but there have been plenty of non-animated films that have hit this bar as well

Comic Con Preview: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

In Star Wars: The Force Unleashed , Starkiller was already one of the most powerful Force users in the galaxy. Where do you go from there, though? At Comic Con, Lucas Arts gave gamers an exclusive demo of The Force Unleashed II to show us how Starkiller’s grown since the last game concluded. The level we saw takes place on Kamino, the ocean planet where Emperor Palpatine raises his clone army

Comic Con: Mega Man Fans Will Get What They Always Wanted

Capcom held a panel about its future titles today and unfortunately Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune didn’t divulge many new details about the recently-announced Mega Man Universe . However, he did hint at other big developments with the franchise. Inafune stated that 2010 would be a big year for the franchise beyond what was already announced

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