Movieline Online

THE PINK PANTHER 2: When an actor is so closely associated with a role the way Peter Sellers was as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, attempting to replace him with another comedian (even one as gifted as Steve Martin) risks trampling on the very memory of what made the films successful. So it’s tempting to dismiss both films in this franchise reboot sight unseen, if only to preserve those precious slapstick experiences. But as a comedic foil for the next generation, I’m sure Martin’s take on the bumbling French detective is perfectly acceptable. In fact, this second installment adds a supporting cast that takes much of the weight off his shoulders, including Lily Tomlin as a Clouseau’s frustrated political correctness counselor and Alfred Molina as one member of a detective “Dream Team” charged with hunting down another master thief on the loose. I’m still not sure why Martin took on the challenge of topping Sellers classic creation; it’s really a no-win situation. While his gift for spasti...

INKHEART: Movies have turned to literature for inspiration since the very beginning of cinema. And although success in both mediums is measured by the same barometer – good storytelling – films can often get by on a sliding scale of style over substance. With Inkheart, director Iain Softley certainly has his heart in the right place adapting Cornelia Funke’s novel about Silvertounges, rare individuals who can literally bring books to life when they read out loud. Brendan Fraser plays just such a man, who unwittingly reads a trio of villains into the real world while his wife is sent back into its pages, setting himself and his daughter on a quest to track down the rare volume and rescue her. Although Fraser has more than a decade of experience starring in similar family friendly fare, it’s actor Paul Bettany (A Knight’s Tale) who shoulders most of the dramatic weight as Dustfinger, a mysterious magician who simply longs to return to his comfortable literary surroundings. Inkheart, like...

THE SEVENTH SEAL: When a film becomes as iconic as The Seventh Seal it runs the risk of becoming an unwatchable antique. Like a piece of fine china kept behind protective glass, audience’s tend to admire it by reputation rather than dusting it off and appreciating the actual craftsmanship that went into its creation. Certainly, Ingmar Bergman’s film has much more to offer than its oft-repeated image of Death as a pale, moon-faced chess player. In fact, much of The Seventh Seal carries over the blissful joie d’ vive of the director’s previous film, Smiles of a Summer Night, only balanced with the thematic weight of religious meditation and questioning of faith that would mark his later work. But there I go again, making the film seem like an unwieldy, unwatchable chapter of cinematic history rather than a living, breathing entity unto itself. Frequent Bergman collaborator Max Von Sydow is charged carrying the weight of the director’s loftier ideas in the form of Antonius Block, a knight...

TRUE BLOOD – S1: The death of the vampire has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, with the success of HBO’s latest series and the teenage tsunami that is Twilight, you could say that the undead have never been so healthy. Of course, both Stephanie Meyer’s work and True Blood emphasize the more feminine aspects of everyone’s favorite bloodsucker, turning up the heat on Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill’s (Stephen Moyer) interspecies flirtation like a cat on a hot tin roof. Taking full advantage of pay-cable’s forgiving sex and blood standards, producer Allan Ball has fashioned an adults-only version of Dark Shadows. And like most soap-operas, the real appeal lies in getting to know the characters, like our herione Sookie Stackhouse, a mind-reading waitress, Jason, her oversexed brother, Tara, her smart-mouthed friend, and Bill, the gentleman vampire who comes strolling into town for the first time since the Civil War. Relevant social drama plays out in the background, with vampires fighting ...

WOODSTOCK – 3 DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC: If there’s one thing we can all take away from this historic amalgam of mud, musicians and unsullied idealism it is this: boy, those hippies smelled bad! Thankfully, the new collector’s set doesn’t come in a scratch ‘n sniff package, but that’s about all it doesn’t include. Of course, the main attraction is the documentary itself, which waffles between iconic concert film (Joe Cocker, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix perform, among others) and warts-and-all time capsule of the Love Generation’s greatest success. This director’s cut adds quite a bit more to the film, allowing director Michael Wadleigh to insert several extended montages (like the post-fest, post-apocalyptic clean-up sequence) that studio suits suggested he trim in the theatrical release. And a full disc of extras adds even more, including 15 never-before-seen performances from the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival and The Grateful Dead along with a heavily edited From Festival to Featu...

THE SWEET PUSSYCATS: The world probably wouldn’t be a whole lot different without the Italian Sex Comedy. But it would be a lot less fun. Graced with the presence of the luminous Edwige Fenech, The Sweet Pussycats follows the genre’s standard operating procedure, with several suitors pursuing several scantily clad ladies who have their own romantic agendas. The set-up this time revolves around a pair of aristocrats fighting over the rights to a local castle who pledge to bequeath the estate to whoever can bed a pair of local virgins first. Fenech plays a visiting ex-lover who is looking for her own angle, while a handsome nephew is the story’s wild card, attracting the attention of every female character in the film and threatening to ruin the contest before it’s even begun. For all the flesh on display (Fenech fans take note, she bares quite a bit more than usual), director Josef Zacher’s production is fairly chaste, more interested in slapstick and sexual innuendo than the act itself...