Baby Mama No Bundle of Joy

Subprime rom-com maxes out the clichés

(NEWSER) - Chick-lit flick Confessions of a Shopaholic is one victim the credit crisis should have claimed, say critics. Isla Fisher stars as a credit card addict who lands a job at a financial magazine, but her considerable comic gifts are wasted by a script that turns her into a "babbling ninny," Moira Macdonald writes in the Seattle Times. More»

(NEWSER) - Tearjerker novel Nights in Rodanthe left some critics sobbing and others scowling. Now Unfaithful co-stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane are reunited for the movie version of the Nicholas Sparks romance, with a similar divide. The actors' "natural rapport" makes for a movie "one either utterly succumbs to or stubbornly resists," Brian Lowry writes in Variety. More»

Stale stereotypes abound in update of '30s satire

(NEWSER) - The modern update of 1930s socialite satire The Women is meeting scorn from critics. Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, and the rest of the big-name cast do their best, Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone, but they struggle "with a script that resists being crowbarred into the 21st century." More»

Chick flick laffer helps spark 17% ticket surge

(NEWSER) - Comedy sparked a box office comeback this weekend as Baby Mama banked $18.3 million from mostly female film-goers, Variety reports. Also fueling the 17.2% hike over last year's frame were stoner sequel Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay with $14.6 million in second, and Jackie Chan's Forbidden Kingdom with $11.2 million in third. More»

But Nicolas Cage seems to get it: critics

(NEWSER) - Critics agree: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is ridiculous. But they're divided over whether the silliness of the sequel, once again starring Nicolas Cage as the devilish superhero, is funny or just bad.

• In the Merced Sun-Star , Roger Moore calls the movie "a profoundly silly mash-up of comic book and quasi-religious 'prophecy' about a motorcyclist who sold his soul to the devil." It beats the original: "This time around, Cage and everybody else on board are in on the joke," and that makes it "almost a great bad movie."