Moneyball Hits It Out of the Park

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."

New script turned movie from feature film into 'dramatic recreation'

(NEWSER) - Since Sony pulled the plug on Steven Soderbergh’s $58 million Moneyball with only 5 days until shooting, the question has persisted: What would cause a studio to shut down a Brad Pitt vehicle it’s already sunk $10 million into? Sony co-chair Amy Pascal finally addresses that question, telling the Los Angeles Times Soderbergh’s new script “wasn’t at all what we'd signed up for.” More»

Brad Pitt ages in reverse thanks to a special-effects miracle

(NEWSER) - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is enjoyable and visually striking, but many critics feel David Fincher and Brad Pitt fail to mine the story of a man who ages in reverse for moments of real emotional depth. Pitt “gives you no hint what his character makes of the changes,” writes David Edelstein in New York, “he just stares ahead and lets his makeup do the acting.” More»

Crime drama could net legendary director first best directing Oscar

(NEWSER) - He may be 83, but in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Sidney Lumet musters the “wide-awake elegance of a virtuoso half his age,” EW's Owen Gleiberman says, producing a vivid crime melodrama critics unanimously place among the year’s best. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play brothers whose botched robbery of their parents’ store “approaches the scope of Greek tragedy,” Slate's Dana Stevens says. More»

Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones return for alien flick

(NEWSER) - Sure, no one was that desperate for a Men in Black 3—but it's actually a pretty good summer movie. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back defending the planet from aliens, and this time, Josh Brolin's along for the ride as a young Jones.

• The movie "turns out to be so much fun," writes AO Scott in the New York Times . While it "carefully fulfills its blockbuster imperatives—with chases and explosions and elaborately contrived plot twists—it swerves into some marvelously silly, unexpectedly witty, and genuinely fresh territory."