Friends with Kids – 2 Buckets

The poster for Friends with Kids, the new film from Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein), is brilliant in the way that it pointedly expresses the essence of the piece. Above a photo of the attractive thirty-something cast… [Read more]

Zookeeper – 2 Buckets

With a children’s film like Zookeeper, in which a talking gorilla voiced by Nick Nolte orders 30 oranges at a T.G.I. Fridays as part of a rendezvous away from his Franklin Park Zoo home, reassuring the terrified waitress that he is… [Read more]

Bridesmaids – 3 Buckets

When a new comedy actually delivers laughs, it is a borderline miracle — a gift that should be cherished by all moviegoers (OK, maybe not those younger than 15 or 16, in this case). So rarely do we actually get to laugh out loud with any frequency at the movies; in fact, the last time [...]

Away We Go – 1 1/2 Buckets

Sam Mendes’ Away We Go manages to infuse the worst two types of American indies—an empty, but contemplatively-styled mumblecore and a forcibly quirky “charmer” designed with mainstream cross-over potential—into a single movie. As it meanders along, viewers are often reminded that they’re confronting real emotions in the presence of authentic characters, but this is all [...]