At this point in his widely mocked career, it can be hard to fathom that Matthew McConaughey was pegged as a young Paul Newman when he first started popping up on magazine covers and movie screens in the mid-'90s. The laconic dreamboat sinks further into Tab Hunter dreamboat territory as a moony adventurer in Fool's Gold (Warner Bros.), a featherweight adventure comedy pairing the frequently shirtless actor with his How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days co-star Kate Hudson. It's perfect summer entertainment—silly, pretty, stupid, and utterly disposable…
The only problem with Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind (New Line) is that only the middle act fully exploits the awesomeness of its central premise: After accidentally erasing the contents of a video store, Mos Def and Jack Black recreate all the lost films in low-budget versions directed by and starring themselves. But there's nothing wrong with the rest of the big-hearted movie, which soft-pedals some ideas about the importance of community and the nastiness of homogenization…
Since Tyler Perry broke through with Diary Of A Mad Black Woman, Hollywood has been struggling to figure out how to water down his mix of overt Christian themes, racial-identity politics, and aim-for-the-rafters broad comedy to make it more palatable for the masses. Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (Universal) does as savvy a job as any so far, mainly by giving an ensemble loaded with big comedic stars like Martin Lawrence, Mo'Nique, Mike Epps, and Cedric The Entertainer all the room they need to operate. Of course, it would help if they were funnier…
Alison Eastwood makes her directorial debut with Rails & Ties (Warner Bros.), a sloggy drama starring Kevin Bacon as a locomotive engineer coping with tragedy and illness in the most movie-friendly ways possible. The execution is Lifetime-ready, in spite of the Eastwood pedigree and a cast that includes Marcia Gay Harden…
Something like The Incredible Journey with a child protagonist instead of a pack of cute animals, Under The Same Moon (Fox) traffics in the broad, sweeping emotional gestures of a Disney film, for better and worse. Better: Adrian Alonso's perky performance as a 9-year-old Mexican boy who sneaks into America and travels cross-country to reunite with his mom in L.A. Worse: a heavy-handed, shallow, symbolic immigrant-experience plotline, laden with mawkish attempts at audience manipulation.