In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a flashy, video-gamey film based on the Scott Pilgrim comic series written by Toronto’s Bryan Lee O’Malley, the titular character discovers that he’ll have to fight for his own life to win the heart of the girl he loves.  

Being involuntarily forced to leave his ordinary life behind, Scott Pilgrim soon finds himself facing an entire league of evil exes and he’ll need to defeat them all to be with Ramona Flowers, the girl of his dreams.

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The American: Movie Review: Hidden from critics until just before its release, the dirty secret about "The American" turns out to be that it's an "art film." Heavens, no! Director Anton Corbijn has crafted a quiet, haunting European thriller, drained of emotion and moving to its own deliberate pace.

It's the second film from Corbijn, a famed photographer and music video director who's closely associated with the bands Depeche Mode and Joy Division (among others). His first film, "Control," was a beautiful, austere black-and-white biopic of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.

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Nimrod Antal’s Predators is a pseudo-sequel/reboot of the sci-fi action franchise that manages to pump new life into a series that many left for dead. Working from a story idea by producer Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror)

The film takes the action back to a locale similar to the one in the Arnold Schwarzenegger cult classic as it amps up the action and gore. To be sure, these are cosmetic concerns but what really makes the film work is its veteran cast and a clever script that’s far more entertaining than it has any right to be.

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The biggest blockbuster of the summer is released this weekend, and it’s not even the best movie released this weekend (that would be The Kids Are All Right, my favorite of the year). Since Inception was 2 ½ hours long, I figure I can write a slightly longer review.

There are so many things about this film I’d like to cover. Director Christopher Nolan spent $160 million on this, and you can see every bit of that on screen. It’s surprising the studio let him run with this. After all, it’s not like his expensive Dark Knight. Since that’s a Batman film, it was a safe bet. I enjoyed Nolan’s Dark Knight, but I didn’t care for Insomnia.

And I thought Memento (the movie that plays backwards) brilliant. This guy can obviously write and direct interesting stuff. But the king of the $150 million budgets, James Cameron, did a movie called Strange Days which tackles a few of these similar themes (and is better in many ways).

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Having seen "The Last Airbender" bring in untold millions at the box office despite the worst reviews in many a year, I confess myself discouraged at the prospect of reviewing "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." This is a much better film than "Airbender," which is faint praise, but it's becoming clear that every weekend brings another heavily marketed action "comedy" that pounds tens of millions out of consumers before evaporating.

I use the word "consumer" deliberately. This genre doesn't require an audience in the traditional sense. It attracts children and young teenagers with the promise of cinematic fast food: It's all sugar and caffeine, no nutrition. In place of a plot there's a premise, in place of carefully crafted action there are stupefying exercises in computer-generated imagery, and in place of an ending there's a hook for the sequel and, if all goes well, a new franchise.

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Director M. Night Shyamalan has made a name for himself for coming up with small-scale-yet-interesting thrillers, often with twist endings. Some are pretty awful ("The Happening" and "The Village"), yet some I feel are simply fantastic ("Unbreakable" and "Signs"), while one, "The Sixth Sense," has become a cultural juggernaut. After all, How many times have you heard "I see dead people"?

His latest film, "The Last Airbender," is the first film he has made based off of a previous source material, and considering the main problem Shyamalan has is that he isn't very good at writing, I was reasonably excited for "The Last Airbender."

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A pair of females hide their intelligence in The Hedgehog (Le Herisson), a fine and delicate French film. One is a woman who describes herself as short, ugly and overweight and it's hard to disagree. The other is tiny, awkward and young, like a small bespectacled bird. Both are largely invisible, except to each other.

Mona Achache gives us a lesson in how to make a first feature as she contemplates her subject. It's nearly all set in one location, an elegant apartment building in a desirable street of Paris; it has a small but perfectly chosen cast; and it's based on a book by Muriel Barbery that sold 1.2 million copies in France alone. Perfect, as long as you can persuade the writer to trust you with her book.

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Cast: Vincent Lindon, Firat Ayverdi Director: Philippe Loiret Welcome is a film which will have you thinking long after the credits roll.

It's the story of Kurdish refugee Bilal (underplayed with quiet resolve by Firat Ayverdi) who is determined to make it to England to see his recently emigrated girlfriend and to get a better life.

So, initially he tries to get through the French border in a lorry along with a group of fellow refugees - and it's all going well until they hit Calais and Bilal, wearing.

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What can’t Helen Mirren do?  Her brilliantly chameleon-like abilities are apparently limitless.  There’s a joke in the film when someone asks her crippled Nevada brothel owner character Grace ‘Who do you think you are?  The Queen of England?”  And of course, she is that too.

Mirren brings all of her luminous beauty, not disguised under her rather sedate seventies wardrobe, with soulfulness we wouldn’t expect from a woman in her job but of course, must expect.  People are unexpected and Mirren epitomises it.

Sergio Peris-Mencheta, a Spanish actor who plays Bruza her young lover, is a find.  He is a boxer Grace’s husband (Joe Pesci) has taken under his wing, has animal magnetism, something we haven’t seen lately, plus heart, sweetness and tenderness mixed with the violence of his calling.

Bruza falls utterly, selflessly in love with Grace, which is dangerous to his health as Charlie (Pesci) is a brutally violent, selfish man, and criminal.  He neglects Grace until he discovers she has interests elsewhere and his ‘love’ turns to jealous ferocity.  Who does ferocity better than Pesci?  His all consuming evil contrasts well with Bruza’s warm-hearted innocence.

Love Ranch is a character study, Grace’s story; an older woman resigned to a loveless marriage and proscribed life, who has a shot at new life with a hot young Mexican fighter.  It is exciting, romantic and incredibly moving.  The kicker is that its tragedy unfolds and resonates right down to South America, where Bruza was a hero.

There’s a lot going on in this loosely fact-based film on the proprieters of the first legal brothel in Nevada.  It is a fascinating and dangerous world, sleazy and compelling.  Gina Gershon, Tary Manning and Bai Ling are their girls, who not only enjoy their job but also adore their boss Grace.  Charlie describes them as “psychotic whores”, and has affairs with them.  It’s a life cobbled out of lawlessness, control and mob connections but there is underlying humanity.

Charlie’s the only fly in the ointment and in Pesci’s talented hands, he is unforgettable.  He’s sociopathic, involved in shady mob and government dealings, sure of his power and influence, believing himself innocent of murder and sinned against.  Yet another muscular performance from the king of mean.

It’s an amazing story of brothel owners who not only fought to legalise prostitution in Nevada but also opened the first and made a go of it for a long while.  Strangely, for a film about a brothel, there is surprising little sex or salaciousness.

Hackford knows how to make a story get under our skin; his sensitivity and efforts have paid off.  Love Ranch is certain to be remembered during awards season and could land the big prizes.   It’s Hackford’s best film and deserves a wide release, although at this moment, it isn’t getting one.

A movie opening this weekend I wanted to like so much. After seeing the trailers months ago, I was eagerly anticipating its arrival. And you won’t find four more talented people in a movie all year (Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly, and Catherine Keener). And the studio even set me up with an interview with Tomei. Nothing like sitting in a cabana near a swimming pool, talking to a woman I loved in so many films, and wanting to ask her “Why wasn’t this movie better?”

The movie opens with the clichéd scene of the pathetic, lonely man. He’s caught taking care of himself (for some reason, he does that with rap music blaring in the living room, and heavy metal blaring from his headphones in the bedroom…and with an ex-wife that conveniently shows up and has a key to his house).

What takes down this amazing cast, are two brothers – Jay and Mark Duplass, who wrote and directed this film.The gave us Baghead (What? You missed that one?) and this genre called “mumblecore.” Nothing more annoying than when you have to spend a review explaining a new genre of film, so I’ll skip that. Let’s just say…they get to do a lot of improvising with the script. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t (just ask Christopher Guest). Here, it sometimes does, but usually doesn’t.

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