A conspicuously charming kids' film [but] adults who slobber over The Chorus are kidding themselves if they think it's sophisticated, realistic, or original. 
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Groucho Reviews
Latest Film Reviews
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Les Choristes (The Chorus) (2004)
A conspicuously charming kids' film [but] adults who slobber over The Chorus are kidding themselves if they think it's sophisticated, realistic, or original. -
Dopo Mezzanotte (After Midnight) (2004)
A beautiful and beguiling film about love, cinema, and love of cinema...has the quirky, breezy quality of a bicycle ride by night. -
Paper Clips (2004)
Has powerful moments, mostly courtesy of the Holocaust survivors, but the interviews and narration sound overly coached, and...the film is given to repetitive overstatement. -
Politiki kouzina (A Touch of Spice) (2004)
The Greek-Turkish co-production A Touch of Spice has a lot on its plate. In my neck of the woods, Greece's official selection for the 2005 Best Foreign Language Oscar is getting a Thanksgiving-week o... -
Cirque du Soleil: Anniversary Collection—1984-2005 (DVD Box Set) (2005)
A bargain for lovers of splashy, outre entertainment. -
Coach Carter (2005)
A rather exceptionally counter-cultural "teen movie"...raises authentic youth concerns and answers them with convincing integrity. -
Saint Ralph (2005)
Light lessons about pain, endurance, and commitment...Likeable to a point, but in the end, Saint Ralph winds up incredible, manipulative, and strictly for the choir. -
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
A bloated melodrama more interested in poses than inner lives (according to some Japanese-culture-vultures, it gets the poses wrong, too). -
Bad News Bears (2005)
Profanity does not a creatively satisfying comedy make....slim characterization and an overfamiliar premise...[relegate] Bears to lazy, hazy, summer-daze mediocrity. -
2046 (2005)
Rapturous cinema of the senses...proves once again that nobody does swoony romantic longing, and heartache, like Wong Kar-Wai. -
Going Shopping (2005)
Like the funky little shop at its heart, Going Shopping may not look like much from its exterior, but a little browsing turns up unexpected treasures. -
Save the Tiger (1973)
Lemmon turns in showy, theatrical work that's appropriate to the not-terribly subtle film around him, but the whole enterprise is one that's best avoided... -
Ellie Parker (2005)
Watts' performance is brave and jazzy, but Coffey's riffing lacks lasting impact. -
Hulk (2003)
The Universal Studios brand famously adorns the best Hollywood monster movies. Now two men named Lee have joined forces to reinvent the monster movie and the comic-book movie in one collective stroke... -
Mysterious Skin (2005)
Araki embraces the mysteries of human sexuality with a refreshing lack of hysteria and a brace of empathy. -
Heights (2005)
Diverting and well-acted...There are eight million stories in the naked city, and Heights is five of them. -
Jumanji (1995)
Like the rest of Johnston's oeuvre, Jumanji puts vivid characters through paces that will quicken any child's pulse. -
Just Friends (2005)
Brush aside the pratfalls, cheap-shot fat jokes, and creative variety of crotch attacks, and what's left? Not a lick of emotional sense. -
Yours, Mine & Ours (2005)
Plays like a giant warning to get out of town before Cheaper by the Dozen 2 opens. -
Rent (2005)
[Afield] from its off-Broadway origins, but the intimacy afforded by the camera and...most of the original cast occasionally restore the emotional vitality of the piece. -
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005)
Though Agrelo blunts the competitive drama by visually excluding the opposition, the kids' talent and infectious spirit carries the day for Mad Hot Ballroom. -
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Wright's ability to evoke sympathy for even the marginal characters--partly by exercising ingeniously economical staging to catch them in private moments--distinguishes this Pride & Prejudice. -
Ballets Russes (2005)
The utterly charming dance-history doc Ballets Russes traces the legendary ballet company from its 1909 inception to its 1962 dissolution. Clearly, the Ballets Russes, in its various incarnations, re... -
Chicken Little (2005)
Far more manic than funny, Chicken Little tries to spin the kiddie standard about a little chick convinced the sky is falling into a depressingly "hip," Shreky-green comedy act. -
Bee Season (2005)
Myla Goldberg's novel Bee Season becomes one of the fall's funkiest pictures, as directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel. A husband, wife, teenage son, and 11-year-old daughter comprise the appare... -
Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
On the evidence of Jumanji and its sideways sequel Zathura, children's author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg has a thing for exorcising childhood trauma by elaborately laying waste to family home... -
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)
Writer-director Shane Black's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Black wrote the influential buddy-cop movie Lethal Weapon and the underlooked The Long Kiss Goodnight, but also overkilled with the profane The Las... -
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)
Triumphant coming-of-age drama (complete with horses!) [aimed] at little girls and their captive-audience fathers. -
North Country (2005)
Feature films about sexual harassment are hardly a dime a dozen, so Niki Caro's North Country—gawky though it may be at times—comes as welcome. -
Quality of Life (2005)
Benjamin Morgan's provocative debut Quality of Life is a true San Francisco movie. Shot and edited in the Mission District, this fly-on-the-wall drama about graffiti writers makes brilliant use of lo... -
Domino (2005)
Mysterious daddy issues, a color scheme that washes everything in fluorescent urine and lime-green Jello, and....editing so jittery it'll send you into rapid eye movement. -
In Her Shoes (2005)
[Jerks] every tear in the "chick-lit" book...but the fertile combination of Hanson, Grant, and the stars allows blossoms of truth and humor to spring up out of the mulch. -
Bad Timing (1980)
Exemplifies the rich, acquired taste of the Roeg film. -
Oliver! (1968)
Makes an epic impact, fully exploiting cinema to chase the intensity of a live musical while also allowing time for intimate expression of character. -
Lady in White (1988)
Far from perfect, but what it lacks in finesse, it makes up in shaggy-dog charm....the fun is in the journey. -
YES (2005)
Few filmmakers could be consciously redolent of Moliere, Dylan Thomas, and James Joyce and pull it off, but apparently writer-director Sally Potter is first in that class. -
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Tinkers around with an intriguing premise but with little creative facility for dialogue or structure...[splits] the difference between fans and neophytes, impressing neither. -
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Charming...inspired....ridiculously entertaining. -
Good Night, And Good Luck. (2005)
A theatrical movie infused with the energy of live TV....Good Night, and Good Luck. reminds us that, when played right, journalism is a dangerous game. -
Waiting... (2005)
A movie for young people, and they're welcome to it. Anyone older than teenage already will have seen every joke in Waiting... in more finely crafted, funnier movies.