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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Mustard Uncut

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Monsters vs. Aliens has failed with the Rotten Tomatoes creme de la creme, managing only a 58% positive. And it only hit 55% with Metacritic. What
does this signify? Any shot at a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination is most likely dead, for one thing. It certainly doesn't mean any less box-office dough.

JoeMo says "see it only if you need a retro-monster fix, and in 3-D to offset the no-D script." Lou-Lou calls it "a clunky and wildly unimaginative" film that "really doesn't have a clue what to do with the 3D technique." And yet the Village Voice's Robert Wilonsky gave it a full thumbs-up, calling it "a milestone," and the Oregonian's Shawn Levy gave it a near-rave.

Monsters vs. Aliens "has bells and whistles, superb technical sophistication and dazzling visual effects, sound, fury and Reese Witherspoon," wrote Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday. "What it doesn't have is heart.

"At a recent Saturday morning screening full of youngsters and their adult charges, nary a giggle or delighted gasp could be heard, maybe because references to Dr. Strangelove are lost on the SpongeBob SquarePants set. Either that, or even little ones appreciate a good story. And that's precisely what's missing from Monsters vs. Aliens, which is nominally about a bunch of government-sponsored monsters that do battle with an evil alien squid craving world domination.

"That's plot, not a story. And too often, Monsters vs. Aliens is about things, not characters. One exception is B.O.B., a forgetful blue gelatinous blob that, as voiced by Seth Rogen, not only elicits but earns his laughs. As for the rest of the movie, it will recede into your own B.O.B.-like memory bank, dissolve quickly and disappear forever."

Winner Called<< previous | next >>Baghdad's Still There

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 27, 2009 at 11:34 AM

comment #1

bildeaux says ...

Italics are cool.

Posted by bildeaux at March 27, 2009 12:11 PM

comment #2

TheCahuengaKid says ...

I dunno...
I saw it at an early screening and everyone laughed all the way through - my 18-year-old son included. Personally, I loved it - lots of retro-gags on '50s sci-fi monsters, etc.

Posted by TheCahuengaKid at March 27, 2009 12:26 PM

comment #3

Wrecktem says ...

What will Katzenberg's excuse be when this hugely important 3D release opens to $20m less than Kung Fu Panda? What will he tell his investors when the only Dreamworks animation release of 2009 (releasing in spring!) will barely eke out $150 million?

Posted by Wrecktem at March 27, 2009 12:32 PM

comment #4

rr3333 says ...

Who's Jeff going to blame for the italics?

Posted by rr3333 at March 27, 2009 12:57 PM

comment #5

Gordon27 says ...

"No shot at a Best Animated Feature Oscar, I suppose."

Coraline, Up, and ?

Posted by Gordon27 at March 27, 2009 2:08 PM

comment #6

count.olaf says ...

The Princess & The Frog?

Posted by count.olaf at March 27, 2009 2:14 PM

comment #7

Gordon27 says ...

"What will he tell his investors when the only Dreamworks animation release of 2009 (releasing in spring!) will barely eke out $150 million?"

My guess is he'll remind them that 'Shrek the Fourth' is coming out in 2010.

Posted by Gordon27 at March 27, 2009 2:29 PM

comment #8

Josh Massey says ...

Coraline, Up and 9, most likely.

Posted by Josh Massey at March 27, 2009 3:01 PM

comment #9

Gordon27 says ...

Great, so now there's going to be '9' and 'Nine' coming out in the same year?

Posted by Gordon27 at March 27, 2009 3:16 PM

comment #10

Chase Kahn says ...

Dreamworks just isn't on the same level right now as you-know-who. "Kung Fu Panda" was alright, but I still don't get how people fell for the "Shrek" movies -- yuck.

Posted by Chase Kahn at March 27, 2009 4:05 PM

comment #11

D.Z. says ...

Josh: More like Ponyo. If the Suckademy won't nominate Bashir, they won't even look at 9.

Chase: Pixar's films are just annoying in the opposite way.

Posted by D.Z. at March 27, 2009 5:42 PM

comment #12

hunterd says ...

annoying because they're TOO filled with plot, characters, emotions, and ingenuity?

Posted by hunterd at March 27, 2009 6:11 PM

comment #13

D.Z. says ...

No, annoying, because they try to pad the film with pointless detail at the expense of being entertaining.

Posted by D.Z. at March 27, 2009 6:50 PM

comment #14

Gordon27 says ...

DZ: Shut the fuck up, you stupid piece of shit.

Posted by Gordon27 at March 27, 2009 9:16 PM

comment #15

Wiggumx says ...

DZ: You are so wrong on this. And you're normally wrong. But you're really, REALLY wrong this time. Please just let it go.

Dreamworks can put out a successful animated film, but they mostly can't put out a good one. I guess it doesn't matter, to some extent, as long as the coffers are filled.

Posted by Wiggumx at March 27, 2009 11:12 PM

comment #16

D.Z. says ...

Wiggum: Dude, Pixar's movies are tech demos with happy-go-lucky characters running around the screen for 90 minutes or so.

And Dreamworks put out some Satoshi Kon, Nick Park, and Mamoru Oshii, while Lasseter can only come up with Toy Story 3, Cars 2, and the occasional Miyazaki-wannabe.

Posted by D.Z. at March 28, 2009 1:54 AM

comment #17

Cde. says ...

Dreamworks didn't produce those films, D.Z. They were only US distributor. The exception is Wallace and Gromit, but while they put up funding, the team that created the film was Aardman, not the nefarious 'Dreamworks Animation'.

Posted by Cde. at March 28, 2009 6:16 AM

comment #18

D.Z. says ...

Cde.: They still released them, while the "I promise to bring back 2-d" company has only now gotten that frog movie out so far since he purged all those old-time animators from the company when he joined forces with Der Mouse.

Posted by D.Z. at March 28, 2009 10:06 AM

comment #19

vp19 says ...

If Pixar had handled "Monsters vs. Aliens," how would it have been a different film?

Posted by vp19 at March 28, 2009 3:44 PM

comment #20

Ghost072 says ...

Saw this last night, purely because it was in 3D. With the 3D, it was an enjoyable 90 minutes; without the 3D, it would have been good for a few laughs due to Rogan's character and that is about it. Pixar continues to run circles around Dreamworks, as evidenced by the fact that the Up trailer got more laughs than the entire Monsters vs Aliens feature. Looks like Up will make really good use of 3D, as well, based on the trailer.

Posted by Ghost072 at March 28, 2009 4:47 PM

comment #21

D.Z. says ...

vp: I'm guessing that it'd be re-titled to Monsters and Aliens, and be about the various adventures that they have while learning about life.

Posted by D.Z. at March 28, 2009 4:47 PM

comment #22

Cde. says ...

I believe Lasseter was actually responsible for re-hiring a lot of 2D animators who had been laid off before he took power. I don't like how he threw out Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois though. Not one bit.

Posted by Cde. at March 28, 2009 7:01 PM