The Savages: Savagely Good

Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill star in baseball flick

(NEWSER) - Moneyball is a big hit with critics, even if its premise—a film about baseball statistics—might sound boring at first. Here’s what they say about the film, which stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill:

• Built on a "sharp, sleek script," Moneyball "takes all this seemingly dry, dusty, inside-baseball stuff and turns it into the kind of all-too-rare pleasurable Hollywood diversion that gives you a contact high," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times .

Playful 60s love/music comedy is more party than plot

(NEWSER) - Critics agree that the soundtrack of Pirate Radio can't be beat, and the top-notch cast is a joy. So when it comes to the shaky plot and pacing, some can turn a blind eye:

• "There’s no denying the comic energy of the cast," Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone. "Couple that with blasts of Brit rock from the Beatles and the Stones to Dusty Springfield and David Bowie, and the ship is unsinkable."

Adultery story fails to seduce critics

(NEWSER) - The Other Man, based on a story by The Reader author Bernhard Schlink, has a starry cast including Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, and Antonio Banderas—and critics say they're wasted on this schlocky adultery story.

• It's "a muddled little dud of a melodrama," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "Nap-inducing" at the start, it smacks viewers with a "whopping plot gimmick" that fails to convince.

Top-notch performances make prize-winning play work as a movie

(NEWSER) - Doubt erases any qualms over whether the claustrophobic, Pulitzer Prize-winning play would work on the big screen, say critics. A "frighteningly good" Meryl Streep stars as the hardline principal of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, Lou Lumenick writes in the New York Post. A game of cat-and-mouse begins when Streep's nun suspects a priest, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, of molesting the school's first African-American student. More»

Sorkin writes, Nichols directs, Hanks stars, movie shines

(NEWSER) - Charlie Wilson's War, the darkly comedic true story of the largest and most successful covert operation in US history, leaves critics mostly charmed. The Mike Nichols project featuring Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts "is that rare Hollywood commodity these days," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy, "a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups." More»