All Authors >

TOM MEEK

Latest Articles

Elegy

Sex and power dominate in this Roth adaptation
Cruz, who bares all in her finest performance since her days as Pedro Almodóvar’s muse.

By: TOM MEEK | August 20, 2008

Fly Me to the Moon

Doesn't muster much buzz
First chimps and now bugs get to go into orbit — that’s right, the title of this film refers to the common housefly.

By: TOM MEEK | August 13, 2008

Hell Ride

Spaghetti western and Hell's Angels turf war
Bishop the director loses touch with Bishop the actor, and then, as scriptwriter, he sails overboard with inane cunnilingus cockamamie.

By: TOM MEEK | August 05, 2008

Step Brothers

Farting sets the standard of good taste
Step Brothers should answer any doubts as to whether Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are cinema’s reigning lovable losers.

By: TOM MEEK | July 23, 2008

Space Chimps

Witty and ingeniously conceived
Audiences may be ga-ga over WALL•E these days, but as far as space-faring animation for the family goes, Space Chimps is a respectable also-ran.

By: TOM MEEK | July 16, 2008

Meet Dave

A humorless ET-tale
Murphy gives it his best shot, but the humorless script and the overuse of funhouse FX by director Brian Robbins implode Dave on the launch pad.

By: TOM MEEK | July 16, 2008

Wanted

A knockoff lacking zing
Leveraging the graphic novel by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, the film manages one juicy nugget of inspiration with its bland protagonist.

By: TOM MEEK | June 25, 2008

The Happening

Shyamalan has lost his sixth sense
If you’ve ever seen a M. Night Shyamalan film, you know what’s happening.

By: TOM MEEK | June 18, 2008

Control freaks

Get Smart dumbs down
Back in the ’60s, those crafty cranks Mel Brooks and Buck Henry spun the red-scare spook biz into a sit-com full of wit and absurdity featuring rival agencies KAOS and Control.

By: TOM MEEK | June 17, 2008

Mother of Tears: The Third Mother

Schlock of the finest cult caliber
Horror impresario Dario Argento rounds out his “Three Mothers” trilogy some 30 years after he titillated gore fanatics with Suspiria and Inferno .

By: TOM MEEK | June 04, 2008

The Strangers

A home-invasion nightmare
Bryan Bertino’s psycho-thriller gets the job done for nearly two-thirds of its length. But when it shows its hand, it folds.

By: TOM MEEK | May 28, 2008

What Happens in Vegas

Clunky and predictable
Despite its aching predictability, Kutcher’s clunkiness, and Tom Vaughan’s jerky direction, the film and the couple actually grow on you — mostly thanks to Diaz.

By: TOM MEEK | May 14, 2008

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay

Too much melodrama
The tone shifts erratically, but not enough to blunt the appeal of a bottomless bikini party or Neil Patrick Harris downing ’shrooms and ravaging a whorehouse.

By: TOM MEEK | April 30, 2008

88 Minutes

Beat the clock or die
Al Pacino may have The Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon to rest his laurels on, but some of his later endeavors, like this ill-conceived thriller, are best forgotten.

By: TOM MEEK | April 23, 2008

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Nobody knows
Last time we saw documentarian Morgan Spurlock, he was downing McDonald’s fries in Supersize Me.

By: TOM MEEK | April 16, 2008

Prom Night

A bloodless slasher flick
The original Prom Night (1980) wasn’t all that original.

By: TOM MEEK | April 16, 2008

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

A limp comedic effort
Judd Apatow gave the dick joke a shot of Viagra in Knocked Up and Superbad .

By: TOM MEEK | April 16, 2008

Big screen fairy tale
Hong Kong action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li don’t stray too far from type in this big-screen fairy tale: Chan plays a drunken kung fu master and Li’s a stoic monk with lethal reflexes.

By: TOM MEEK | April 16, 2008

The Ruins

Vegetation and gore
A group of archæologically minded twentysomethings check out an ancient Mayan temple in the Mexican jungle and wind up with hell to pay.

By: TOM MEEK | April 09, 2008

Leatherheads

A plucky play that takes its eyes off the ball
Behind the camera and in front of it, George Clooney has glorified screwjobs (Chuck Barris) and romanticized bygone eras.

By: TOM MEEK | April 09, 2008

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next >