Matt Damon's latest film proves to be an accurate dramatization of one of America’s most amazing stories: the triple agent take down of Archer Daniels Midland Company, one of America’s premier agricultural giants. Mark Whitacre, biochemist, executive and self acclaimed whistleblower, managed to play the super spy, liar extraordinaire and top executive conspirator. He kept it up long enough to take down the management of ADM, embarrass the FBI and steal over 9 million dollars. What’s more, the story is true and the new film The Informant! is extravagant and bright. READ MORE

District 9, the chilling new movie by Neill Blomkamp, is a tense nightmare of violence, brutality and inhumanity. History is littered with horrific stories of degradation, subjugation and extermination, making District 9 not seem extreme, but probable. The less powerful, undesirable or “savage” among us often face the anger, intimidation and ugliness of those in control.

District 9 succeeds in ripping away the façade of civilized humankind to expose a putrid underbelly of avarice, hatred and excuse-making. Not to seem too harsh, but the plot: humankind setting up a “slum” to separate the “prawns” (nickname for the aliens) from decent, God fearing folk is all too real in human history.

Aliens, the aforementioned Prawns, have landed…or rather parked a massive space ship over Johannesburg, South Africa for some unknown reason…perhaps fate, bad luck or just blind coincidence. The aliens, a particularly disgusting looking bipedal race resembling shrimp, are starving. The prawn’s leaders are presumably dead and the ship out of fuel so in skewed compassion the South African’s set up a refugee camp close to the city. READ MORE

Funny People is a strange and appealing film. Starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and the ubiquitous Jonah Hill, the film revolves around the brutal and crushing world of stand up comedy. Ah you think it’s all scatological, fart and penis jokes, well apparently you couldn’t be more wrong, well at least not only those. Stand up comedy is about death, dying and the horror of being on stage when nobody’s laughing. READ MORE

Low expectations, weak trailers and little word of mouth led me to believe that The Ugly Truth had little to recommend it. True enough, there was little hope but, and other critics be damned, the movie is not as bad as I expected. Don’t worry, The Ugly Truth is by no means the latest Sleepless in Seattle and yet, for the dog days of summer, it could have been far worse.

Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler star as Abby Richter, television producer, and Mike Chadway, shock television host, for a local television channel. The ratings have been approaching zero and getting worse when the channel’s manager picks Chadway from the public access channel to spice things up. His show, appropriately named  The Ugly Truth, is about the battle between the sexes. Apparently, according to Chadway, women have taken to the trenches and are losing horribly. The abrasive and hyper-masculine host believes it’s his personal responsibility to rescue women, and thereby men, from themselves. READ MORE

See what's brewing in the movie junkie realm as Luke, Craig and Susan discuss the latest Harry Potter film. Is the cast aging well, or will they soon go from battling death eaters and evil nemeses to battling male pattern baldness and weak 401(k) returns? Which performance, described by Craig as "masterful", only achieved mundane status in Luke's opinion? Not only is Susan "completely wrong" about something right off the bat, she also fails to anticipate how many times the guys have seen the movie. Everyone will be surprised by what Craig has to say about one of the female leads. What's happening to our cast? Does the film have us spellbound? Click to find out.

READ MORE

I get the sense I’ve seen I love You Beth Cooper again and again and again and again. There is almost nothing new in this latest incarnation of the now classic nerd meets hottie genre, at least nothing I haven’t seen 50 times before. So many great teen romantic comedies: Pretty In Pink, Can’t Buy Me Love and my personal favorite Better Off Dead have great acting, terrific characters, good plot and great story elements, why oh why do we need one that has none of these.

I don’t want to be totally negative…after one of the worst beginnings in film history I love You Beth Cooper does begin to pick up a little steam and made me at least want to stay to the end (I was prepared to walk out), but it never reached even lukewarm on my movie meter. Though many of the films mentioned above have elements in common with the film there was nothing I could think of that makes I love You Beth Cooper unique. READ MORE

An amazingly vacuous film about an amazingly vacuous character, Bruno is not the movie that its big brother Borat was. Sacha Baron Cohen’s newest film reaches the same level of disgusting, mind blowing outrageousness without the sense of innocence the Borat character brought to the screen. Bruno, the man, is an obnoxious twit with no redeeming qualities, even when he attempts charity. In fact you’ll be hard pressed to find a character worth sympathy or admiration in the film. Just as in Borat, Cohen attempts to humiliate and expose the famous and not so famous at every turn, a noble task indeed, but in this case not quite so successful. His own egocentrism overwhelms theirs negating the charm of Cohen's other "B" character.

Bruno begins in Austria with the title character filming his popular fashion show. Naturally the young man rubs too many people the wrong way until his popularity wanes, his show is cancelled and he’s blackballed from TV, film and even fashion. The young Bruno chooses the obvious place to regain his popularity and become world famous…America. Sure enough he and a rather lame assistant travel to the United States to seek his fortune. READ MORE

Does Michael Bay's second Transformers flick float like a butterfly and sting like a Bumblebee? Or have the giant mechanized heroes gone from Hasbro to Has-been? In this review episode, Luke, Craig and Susan suss out the complexities of all things Autobot. Which of Megan Fox's features has Craig mesmerized? Ok, to be fair, which of her features doesn't have Craig mesmerized, but which one does he mention, to Susan's surprise?

From effects to casting to Autobot archaeology, we do our best to unravel it all. Has this toyline turned comic turned TV series turned into a movie that's too complicated for our allegedly adult attention spans? What has Craig saying filmmakers might have finally crossed the line from comedic to crass? Who was Luke's favorite character? How long will it take us to toss out the word "anthropomorphize"? What crucial question does Susan forget to ask, to Craig's dismay? You're just a click away from finding out.

READ MORE

This is the week we've all been waiting for, well many of us at least. Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen looks to be the action junkie's fix for the rest of the year. I'm reserving judgement on the quality of the film, but the trailers seem way too action driven and missing much of the charm and fun of the original. I hope I'm wrong and the characters remain more important than CGI. Hollywood sometimes forgets that we went to see Indiana Jones, because it's Indiana Jones, not for the incredible special effects. A mistake I've seen over and over in the film industry. Here's hoping... READ MORE