Author: Bob Westal

As bad buddy cop comedies go, “Cop Out” is perhaps one of the better ones. Taken as a piece of storytelling, it’s guilty of the capital cinema crime of trashing itself: repeatedly disrespecting its own reality. On the other hand, taken as a way to kill some time watching fairly skilled comic actors like Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan and Seann William Scott be funny in a loose and genial way, it’s reasonably enjoyable. That, however, does not excuse its numerous sins. Directed by Kevin Smith but written by the TV scriptwriting brother act of Mark and Robb Cullen, “Cop Out”…

A once influential theatrical artist with a flair for surreal provocation and a madcap sense of humor makes some questionable decisions and winds up in a world where, at least for the moment, no one much cares for his stories. Doe this remind us of anyone we know? Well, ex-Monty Python animator and trouble-plagued big budget cult movie director Terry Gilliam has made no secret of the autobiographical nature of “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” Between that, the tragic death of Heath Ledger midway through filming, and the numerous references to the grim reaper that fill this dark and occasionally…

The hype around “Paranormal Activity” is more than justified, but it still isn’t much more than an extremely well-made engine for getting a roomful of people to squirm, giggle, and actually scream in near unison. In a way, it’s entirely unfair that I’ve given this barebones video terror flick a slightly higher rating than an artful and far more fully developed horror construction like “Drag Me to Hell, but life isn’t fair and dramatic depictions of creeping death are even less so. “Paranormal Activity,” which has been making the film festival rounds since last year, starts out in true post-“Blair…

David Mamet’s third film starts out exactly like the Mamet cop movie you think you want to see – a detailed, literate, and darkly funny police procedural. But what begins like a sort of dry run for the classic ‘90s TV series, “Homicide: Life on the Street,” right down to its Baltimore locations, becomes a somber examination of the meaning of being Jewish in modern America and, more broadly, the dangers of excessive identity politics. Indeed, the warning the film delivers about the dangerous side of ethnic identity is so stark that it’s easy to wonder whether the Mamet of…

I’m 17 years late getting on board the “Army of Darkness” cult train, but I’m pretty glad I finally did, even if I’m not certain I’ll be taking many repeat trips. A sequel to Sam Raimi’s late 80s horror comedy non-sequel, “Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn,” “Army” drops most of the horror of the prior film and combines Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” with bargain basement Tolkien and a huge dose of imaginative slapstick comedy in the vein of classic era Warner Brothers cartoons and the Three Stooges. The result is a pretty rich broth…

I come from the near future with an important message: it’s not in any way essential that you see “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” But if someone you like wants to see it, it won’t kill you to watch it and you might even like it a little. Based on the very successful 2003 bestseller by Audrey Niffenegger, this science-fantasy tearjerker is the story of Henry (Eric Bana), a research librarian cursed with a really, really, really rare genetic condition which makes him randomly travel through time, mostly at important points in his own life or the lives of those closest…

“In the Loop” is a broad and harsh satire in which the feckless and self-serving behavior of political operatives in Britain and the United States threaten to lead inexorably to a completely needless war. To all appearances, the war is not waged for any logical reason, but only to further the personal agendas of a few ego-addled politicos. Farfetched, isn’t it? Directed by acclaimed British TV comedy veteran Armando Iannucci (“I’m Alan Partridge”), “In the Loop” is largely an extension of the 2005 miniseries, “In the Thick of It,” with the Oscar-nominated screenplay penned by Iannucci and a quartet of…

In 1934’s “Manhattan Melodrama,” Clark Gable’s virtuous gangster literally goes to the gallows for the sake of his friendship with William Powell’s honest but sincerely conflicted politician, now the governor of the state. As Gable nobly refuses Powell’s offer of a reprieve – he deserves his fate – and prepares to meet his end, they shake hands, a bit dewy-eyed. Thirty-four years later, Oscar (Walter Matthau) and Felix (Jack Lemmon) in “The Odd Couple” are pretty clearly in the throes of one hilariously complex love/hate relationship but, when their friendship is healed by the end of the film, even the…

Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 landmark is in many respects the ultimate “arty foreign flick.” Credited with launching the mid-century foreign film craze on college campuses and boho communities around the U.S., Sweden’s “The Seventh Seal” is frequently listed alongside “Citizen Kane,” “The Seven Samurai” and “The Rules of the Game” as one of the top four or five greatest works of film art. It’s also a serious contender for the most parodied film of all time, having been sent up in innumerable places and contexts including Woody Allen’s “Love & Death,” “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey,” and the “Cheating Death” segment…

Being in the same general ethnic/religious cohort doesn’t give me the right to speak for writer-director Sam Raimi and his co-writer brother Ivan, but this Jewish kid was just a little bit traumatized when he first learned about the traditional Christian concept of hell. Judaism has no hell other than guilt and death, so learning about the fire, the pitchforks, and the eternal torment – and that millions believed that, by virtue of my non-Christianity, I was going to suffer all of it – was a little traumatic. I hadn’t even done anything bad enough yet to be grounded. In…