In “The Kingdom,” an elite FBI unit led by Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) is dispatched to investigate a devastating terrorist attack on American oil workers living in a compound in Saudi Arabia. To find the killers, the investigators must learn to work with conservative Muslim locals who oppose the American presence in their Holy Lands.

Given the provocative premise and locale, I wondered going in whether to expect another entry in the recent spate of thoughtful meditations on terrorism (“Munich,” “Syriana,” etc.). Instead, director Berg and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan serve up a paint by the numbers…
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This turbulent decade has borne out the old adage that good art arises out of bad times. While the peace and prosperity of the late nineties brought us toothless best picture winners like “Titanic” and “Shakespeare in Love,” (Damn you Bill Clinton!), today’s films roil with a new, bracing cynicism. The frenetically, paranoid “Syriana” held up a mirror to America’s addiction to oil and the Middle East entanglements that it has engendered. “Good Night and Good Luck” was a stinging indictment of the Post-September 11 press and its failure to confront a government running rough-shod over the rights of its…
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As Oscar Frenzy emerges from its hibernation and prepares for the upcoming awards season, I wanted to touch on some of the more promising films that were released earlier in 2007. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the films I’ve seen during that time (if there is a hue and cry for my thoughts on “Disturbia” or “The Hitcher” remake, I will gladly oblige). Rather, I thought I would be remiss if I did not give these films of Spring and Summer their due.

Breach (* and a 1/2 out of ****)

“Breach” is the…
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The documentary “Jesus Camp” is an all-access pass to the “Kids on Fire” summer camp for Evangelical Christian pre-teens. There, kids are trained to become “Christian Soldiers” on a mission to spread scorched-earth fundamentalism throughout what the organizers refer to as “this sick, old world.”

The camp’s children and adult counselors open up for the cameras with an unguarded (and often cringe-inducing) honesty. At a church service, eight-year-olds speak in tongues, their bodies vibrating, their eyes wet with ecstatic tears. Toe-heads cheerily pledge to bring the same fervor to their Christian faith that Muslim suicide bombers bring to theirs…
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It’s unfortunate that filmmakers feel the need to inject a white protagonist into any film exploring a non-Anglo culture. Want to make a film about 19th century Japanese Samurai? Okay, but there had better be a role for Tom Cruise in it. (See “The Last Samurai.” Or actually don’t.) The African diamond trade and its role in funding murderous rebel groups? Okay, but I better spend most of the film looking into Leonardo DiCaprio’s dreamy, blue eyes. (“Blood Diamond.”)

In “The Last King of Scotland,” we are treated to a biopic of the infamous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as…
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It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when liking our leaders became more important than respecting them. I am no expert on politics, but I have always gauged that moment to have occurred in 1992, when then-candidate Bill Clinton answered a question from the audience during a campaign appearance about whether he wore boxers or briefs. Later, President George H.W. Bush refused to answer the same question, believing his underwear to be none of anybody’s business. He was right, of course, but he lost the election anyway. Clinton went on to become a two-term president, and Bush went home…
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After lacerating rock musicians, small town theater troupes and dog shows, Christopher Guest’s new film “For Your Consideration” takes on Hollywood and a topic near and dear to this website’s heart… Academy Award buzz. After a movie website predicts Oscar gold for the B-List cast of a movie that hasn’t even finished filming, the set is thrown into a tizzy… with predictable results.

Very predictable results. While watching this toothless satire, I was reminded of a tagline from a film noir poster that read: “No one is who they seem.” The opposite is true here. Every character is exactly…
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There will been many comparisons between Darren Aranofsky’s new film “The Fountain” and “2001.” This is not surprising, given that both films are thematically driven sci-fi epics that feature: (1) long voyages through space and (2) monkey cameos.

But tonally, the two films could not be more different. Kubrick’s masterpiece is cinema as mathematics, a ruthlessly rational argument that human evolution has been stymied by our dependence on technology. “The Fountain,” on the other hand, is an unapologetically emotional exploration of love and death; it does not try to make you think. It tries to make you feel…
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Every year, critics present one independent film with the “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” seal of crossover approval. The seal, given with the condescending tone normally associated with a Special Olympics medal ceremony, is meant to assure mainstream filmgoers that an indie is neither too urban nor gay to offend, and not too esoteric to confuse.

This year, critics have chosen to champion the inoffensive, yet thoroughly enjoyable road movie, “Little Miss Sunshine.” In it, a likeable family from Arizona, the Hoovers, drive their adorable, eight-year-old daughter Olive to San Diego so that she can compete in a children’s…
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