Bring Tissues for Marley & Me

(NEWSER) - Foreign audiences are totally into Marley and Me, the Owen Wilson/Jennifer Aniston vehicle, which topped the international box office last weekend with $14.2 million, Variety reports. Marley’s success—it’s beating Watchmen, among others—runs counter to traditional wisdom about foreign taste for US yuks leaning more to boorish guy movies. Strong showings for Confessions of a Shopaholic and Bride Wars seem to confirm the trend. More»

Jasons Bateman, Sudeikis star in Seth Gordon's comedy

(NEWSER) - Horrible Bosses is shockingly crude and a bit “uneven,” but it’s also amusing, critics say—because we can all identify with such workplace horrors. (Except maybe Jennifer Aniston as a crude, harassing dentist.)

• The film is “frequently very funny,” writes AO Scott in the New York Times . For one thing, it “does not bother to cut its coarseness with a hypocritical dose of sweetness or respectability,” he notes. “The laughter is mean but also oddly pure: it expels shame and leaves you feeling dizzy, a little embarrassed and also exhilarated.”

Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson star in Pixar film

(NEWSER) - Just because it’s Pixar doesn’t mean it’s good, as Cars 2 proves. Its worst offender: sidekick-turned-lead Mater, voiced by Larry the Cable Guy.

• “Maybe the company was tired of turning out one masterpiece after another and decided to coast for a while,” suggests AO Scott in the New York Times . The film “takes the bold, arguably generous, and ultimately calamitous step of pushing its lovable, goofy second banana to the center of the action.” Mater is the “redneck Jar-Jar Binks.”

Farrelly brothers film stars Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis

(NEWSER) - The Farrelly brothers’ new film, Hall Pass, tells the story of two men given a week off from marriage. Don’t expect any surprises:

• “The Farrellys are exploring nominally adult realms, like marital fatigue and cheating, but too often these apparent good intentions get the best of them and their timing,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times . Plus, they’re “oblivious to camera movement, blocking, lighting and all the filmmaking rest.”

It's a forgettable movie, but Aniston, Sandler make it entertaining

(NEWSER) - Critics think Just Go With It isn’t too memorable—a 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes , though fans are much kinder at 79%—but they say stars Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler turn in solid performances:

• To AO Scott, it will forever be just “‘that one with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in Hawaii,’” he writes in the New York Times . “Which pretty much sums up both the appeal and the limitations of this passive-aggressive, naughty but nice, sometimes obnoxious and occasionally quite funny late-winter romantic comedy."