Marley Shelton

In a recent TV interview, Tarantino said he and Rodriguez had always wished those low-budget flicks were as good as their posters -- and they set out to achieve that, decades after the movies' heyday. With an obvious passion for the genre, the pair has recreated the experience of being at some cheap Texas drive-in with two features, fake coming attractions, missing reels, local ads, and announcements from theater management. Even if you don't catch on to everything, just watching the package is a complete thrill.

Continue reading: Grindhouse Review

I'm willing to accept that. The teenybopper genre is meant to appeal to a younger, less cynical audience. However, it's painful to think that a high school crowd might actually flock to this irresponsible goofball comedy about the ditzy blonde captain of the cheerleader quad, Diane (Marley Shelton), who marries the star quarterback (James Marsden, X-Men) and is pregnant with his baby. Perhaps I'm underestimating teen standards. I sure hope so.

Continue reading: Sugar & Spice Review

Great casting is absolutely vital to a puckishly impudent comedy like "Bubble Boy" -- the story of a happy-go-lucky, immune-deficient geek who zip-locks himself into a homemade portable orb to travel cross-country and stop the wedding of the girl he loves.

Put somebody like Adam Sandler, David Spade or Seth Green in the title role, and this childlike weirdo with matted hair and a whiney voice would lose all his sweet qualities and quickly become intolerably abrasive.

But Jake Gyllenhaal, who made such a lasting impression as future NASA scientist Homer Hickman in the little-seen coming of age picture "October Sky" -- is absolutely brilliant in the role. His exaggerated wide-eyed naivete has just enough pepper to make you laugh with him, not at him. His hyperactive enthusiasm at taking his first steps into the world ("Dog poo! Aweeeesome!") is so real that you don't just laugh, you smile. He makes the character three-dimensional and 100-percent lovable, but in an ever-so-slightly ironic way that requires a ton of talent to maintain.

Continue reading: Bubble Boy Review

The last thing I wrote in my notes at the preview screening of "Uptown Girls" was "could have been worse." I guess that means some part of me was somewhat charmed by this silly, weightless yet self-serious modern fairy tale of a dead rock star's impetuously carefree daughter who must come to terms with the real world when her accountant absconds with her inheritance.

But the contrived story gets by only on the middling magnetism of its stars: Brittany Murphy as flighty, Peter-Pan-syndromed Molly Gunn and 8-year-old Dakota Fanning as Ray, an uptight little rich girl who slowly loosens up when Molly takes a job as her nanny.

As they learn neatly packaged life lessons from each other and grow into more well-round people, the laughs are often predicated on either Murphy's pratfalls (beautiful actresses playing clumsy is Hollywood's idea of making them seem "common") or the cuteness quotient of a pretty blonde child wearing Chanel, listening to Mozart, acting snooty and speaking in multi-syllabic words she can hardly wrap her mouth around.

Continue reading: Uptown Girls Review

You know something is just not right about a movie when even the most insignificant supporting characters have more charisma and personality than the leads.

Such is the case with "The Bachelor," a comedy about an heir to a $100 million fortune who has 24 hours to get married or be cut off without a dime.

Chris O'Donnell (Robin in the recent "Batman" movies) is said heir, a commitment-o-phobe from central casting named Jimmy whose persnickety, cantankerous grandfather (Peter Ustinov) kicks the bucket and reveals in his videotaped will that -- surprise! -- he's a millionaire. But grandpa is also obsessed with begetting a family legacy and decrees that Jimmy, his soul heir, gets zip unless he's married by his 30th birthday. Unfortunately grandpa has the bad timing to die two days before the deadline.

Continue reading: The Bachelor Review