Roger Ebert Movie Review

Weekend Box Office: February 6-8, 2009

He's Just Not That Into You tops the box office with $27.8 million

Daily Box Office: Wednesday, February 11, 2009

He's Just Not That Into You tops Wednesday's box office with $1.8 million

"The International" (R, 118 minutes). A big international bank has an assassination program to protect its shady investments in arms deals, and Clive Owen of Interpol teams with Manhattan DA Naomi Watts to stop them. Lots of financial skullduggery and a sensational shoot-out in the Guggenheim Museum. Directed b y Tom Twyker ("Run, Lola, Run"). Rating: Three stars.

Confessions of a Shopaholic / **1/2 (PG)

"Confessions of a Shopaholic" (PG, 112 minutes). A wining performance by Isla Taylor as a compulsively shopping ditz who wins fame and love and pays her bills and is still a ditz. Taylor reminded me of Lucille Ball, and I liked the movie about as much as I disliked "Sex and the City." Rating: Three stars

Friday the 13th / ** (R)

"Friday the 13th" (R, 91 minutes). About the best "Friday the 13th" movie you could hope for. Its technical credits are excellent. It has a lot of scary and gruesome killings. Not a whole lot of acting is required. It is an unremitting exercise in nihilistic despair. Rating: Two stars.

He's Just Not That Into You / ** (PG-13)

"He's Just Not That Into You" (PG-13, 129 minutes). Why does it mean when a guy doesn't call a girl back? Maybe, just maybe, it means he's just not that into her. Based on this self-help book, connecting stories starring Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Connelly and Ginnifer Goodwin, who should be able to figure this out for themselves. Rating: Two stars.

The Pink Panther 2 / ** (PG)

"The Pink Panther 2" (PG, 92 minutes). Inspector Jacques Clouseau joins an international Dream Team to prevent the theft of the pink diamond that is France's pride. Steve Martin and a truly gifted cast are never fully realized in a comedy that doesn't pop out the supporting characters and lacks pay-offs to sight gags, so we're not nudged to laugh. Rating: Two stars.

Push / *1/2 (PG-13)

"Push" (PG-13, 111 minutes). A gaggle of paranormals fight in Hong Kong for I'm no quite sure what purpose, although it involves a briefcase as the MacGuffin, and many examples of the Talking Killer Syndrome. Dakota Fanning has a lot of pluck to travel alone at her age and meet up with these strangeos. With Chris Evans, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis and Djimon Hounsou. Rating: One and a half stars.

The Class / **** (PG-13)

"The Class" (Unrated, 129 minutes). A high school classroom turns into a microcosm of French society in this brilliant film, about student-teacher dynamics. Based on a novel by a teacher, François Bégaudeau, who plays himself, it shows a teacher who wants to excel and finds it is the students who, in the end, determine that possibility. Winner of Cannes 2008, a 2009 Academy nominee for best foreign film. Rating: Four stars

Coraline / *** (PG)

"Coralline" (PG, 101 minutes). An unpleasant little girl finds a tunnel opening from behind a painted-over door in her house, and follows it into a parallel world where her parents are replaced by Peter Mother and Other Father, whose eyes are sewn-in buttons. Inspired animated images by Henry Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas"); worth seeing for its artistry and the grotesque story, but maybe too scary for younger kids. The 3-D adds nothing. Rating: Three stars.

Fanboys / *1/2 (PG-13)

"Fanboys" (PG-13, 90 minutes). A carload of "Star Wars" fans make a cross-country odyssey in hopes of breaking into Skywalker Ranch, and stealing a print of "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" so they can see it before anyone else. Along the way they encounter many "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" stars in cameo roles, compete in trivia Q&As, and are rather admired by the movie, which might have been better if it had poked a little fun at them. Rating: One and a half stars.

Great Movie: Waking Life (2001)

by Roger Ebert It is hard to say how much of Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" (2001) is a dream. I think all of it is. His hero keeps dreaming that he has awakened. He climbs out of bed, splashes water on his face, walks outside and finds himself dreaming again. But the film isn't one of those surrealist fantasies with pinwheels coming out of the hero's eyes or people being sucked down into the vortex. It's mostly conversational, and the conversation is all intriguing; the dreamer must be intelligent.

Movie Answer Man: Does IMDb's top 250 films list
Have a long-term memory gap?

Q. Am I alone in thinking that in recent years the Internet Movie Database voting system has been skewing its Top 250 list to the relative detriment of the world's great classic films? Specifically, and to be blunt, I'm talking about what seems to be ballot stuffing on the part of a predominantly buzz-motivated teen population for certain fashionable fanboy films. Short of scrapping the voting system altogether, I wonder if it wouldn't be more fair for the IMDb to begin an entirely new count and then put a moratorium on the polling of any new film for, say, at least one year from its release date. By keeping any candidate beyond the Academy Awards' marketeering season would mitigate the temporal zeal and level the playing field somewhat. "Casablanca" had to wait and work to build its reputation. Why shouldn't "WALL-E"? I have doubt the IMDb will act on this as the all-American obsession with "the best of tops" is firmly part of their bread and butter, but perhaps with a petition, we could move the gods. Soren Rasmussen, Paris A. Keith Simanton, IMDb's managing editor, replies: "Our Top 250, as voted by users, is just that, a list of the Top 250 films as voted on by our users. It's not a classic (ah, there's a subjective term!) list by any measure, nor is it a critic's list. We leave that to the professionals. "We do get bouts of irrational exuberance for some titles. I rather like it and find it analogous to my own experience. I've often felt more fondly about a film upon leaving the theater than my tempered opinion of it as the weeks and months pass. Our "this too shall pass" approach has proved itself out as this inflation value of the new is not a recent phenomenon. In 1991, "Beauty and the Beast" was the No. 1 title on the Top 250 and now it's not even in the chart; great movie though it is, things do tend to balance out over time. "At any moment there are always some recent titles in the list but they do find their level eventually. Some of them even continue to maintain a high level, one I personally would not have accorded them. We do appreciate the suggestion, however, as we're always looking for ways to improve the service, and this kicked off a great internal debate."