Like a lot of this summer's blockbusters, Poseidon (Warner) wasn't as bad as some critics claimed, though it was easily the weakest of the crop, and the biggest box-office flop. The main problem? Nobody thought about how to update The Poseidon Adventure in a way that would comment on recreation and catastrophe in 2006. Still, the capsizing sequence is scary, and some of the individual setpieces—like a harrowing trip through a tight pipe—are suitably pulse-pounding…
Horror films don't get much prettier than Silent Hill (Sony), which takes place in an abandoned West Virginia mining town where ash rains from the heavens in thick grey snowflakes. The establishing shots raise the possibility that this will be the first passable videogame-to-movie adaptation, but such hopes are dashed over the butt-numbing two-hour-plus fiasco that follows…
Lindsay Lohan has developed into such a grotesque tabloid-magnet that it's hard to remember that just a few years ago, she seemed like a bright young comedic talent. The gimmicky 'tween rom-com Just My Luck (Fox) doesn't do her any favors. The story of New York's luckiest woman and unluckiest man tries to grow with Lohan, but in every way, it's less sophisticated than Freaky Friday…
The overarching mystery plot of Veronica Mars: The Complete Second Season (Warner) sags in the middle, but Rob Thomas' teen-detective show is still one of TV's best—it combines the dense plotting of a novel with a Joss Whedon-esque wit, a sparkling lead turn from Kristen Bell, and some of the most endearing—albeit occasionally thorny—supporting characters around…
There aren't many living architects famous enough to get name-dropped by Jay-Z in television commercials. In fact, there's only one: Frank Gehry, whose fascinating life and career is documented in Sydney Pollack's compelling but frustratingly sycophantic Sketches Of Frank Gehry (Sony). Pollack's doc about his close friend alternates between grimy, hand-held video (for interviews) and rapturous film (for shots of Gehry's buildings), but it retains a respectable distance from its subject, leading to a far-from-intimate portrait of a complex, contradictory figure.