Roger Ebert Movie Review

Weekend Box Office: June 6-8, 2008

Kung Fu Panda tops the box office with an estimated $60.0 million

Daily Box Office: Sunday, June 8, 2008

Kung Fu Panda tops Sunday's box office with an estimated $17.2 million

"You Don't Mess With the Zohan" (PG-13, /// minutes). Adam Sandler's new comedy is shameless in its eagerness to extract laughs from every possible breach of taste or decorum, and why am I even mentioning taste and decorum in this context? He plays a Mussad counter-terrorist who sneak out of Israel to become a New York hair dresser. His superhuman abilities make him a super-warrior and lover, in a movie that's a comic hymn to vulgarity. Co-starring John Turturro, Lainie Kazan, Rob Schneider, Emmanuelle Chriqui. Three stars.

Kung Fu Panda / *** (PG)

By Roger Ebert "Kung Fu Panda" is a story that almost tells itself in its title. It is so hard to imagine a big, fuzzy panda performing martial-arts encounters that you intuit (and you will be right) that the panda stars in an against-all-odds formula, which dooms him to succeed. For the panda's target audience, children and younger teens, that will be just fine, and the film presents his adventures in wonderfully drawn Cinemascope animation. (It will also be showing in some IMAX venues.)

Shotgun Stories / **** (No MPAA rating)

By Roger Ebert Jeff Nichols' "Shotgun Stories" is shaped and told like a revenge tragedy, but it offers an unexpected choice: The hero of the film does not believe the future is doomed by the past. If it were, most of the key characters would be dead by the end, an outcome that seems almost inevitable. Here is a tense and sorrowful film where common sense struggles with blood lust.

The Promotion / ** (R)

By Roger Ebert "The Promotion" is a human comedy about two supermarket employees who are always ill at ease. It's their state of being. I felt a little ill at ease watching it because I was never quite sure whether I was supposed to be laughing at them or feeling sorry for them. It's one of those off-balance movies that seems searching for the right tone.

The Foot Fist Way / ** (R)

"The Foot Fist Way" (R, 87 minutes). Danny McBride stars as Fred Simmons, an offensive, ignorant owner of a Tae Kwan Do studio, who has no idea how insulting and appalling his behavior is. He idolizes Chuck "The Truck" Wallace (Ben Best), who hires on for a personal appearance at the studio, and quickly seduces Fred's wife Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic). Children should not be allowed within a mile of this film, but it will appeal to "Jackass" fans and other devotees of the joyously ignorant. Rating: two stars.

The Children of Huang Shi / **1/2 (R)

"The Children of Huang Shi" (R, 125 minutes). Based on the true story of George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a British journalist who was sent to China in the 1930s to cover warfare, and became the guardian of 60 orphans. Touching, magnificently photographed, but dramatic and romantic tension never coil very tightly. Also starring Radha Mitchell, Chow Yunfat and Michelle Yeoh. Rating: Three stars.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster / ***1/2 (PG-13)

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster" (106 minutes). Chris Bell is one of three muscle-building brothers. Although he no longer uses steroids, his doc seems to establish that their evil has been much exaggerated. What is disturbing, he says, is how their use demonstrates the American obsession with physical perfection and winning. A rare doc where if you agree with one premise you are likely to disasgree with the other. Rating: Three and a half stars

Great Movie: My Man Godfrey (1936)

By Roger Ebert When Carole Lombard and the family maid discuss the newly hired butler, we can read her mind when she says, "I'd like to sew his buttons on sometime, when they come off." In 1936, when elegant men's formalwear didn't use zippers, audiences must have had an even better idea of what she was thinking. The two women both have crushes on Godfrey (William Powell), a homeless man who Lombard, competing in a scavenger hunt, discovers living at the city dump. Lombard wins the hunt by producing Godfrey at a society ball and then, during an argument with her bitchy sister and loony mother, hires him to be the butler for her rich family. "Do you buttle?" she asks him, so crisply and directly that she could mean anything, or everything. Her romantic obsession is hopeless because Godfrey has transformed himself overnight from an unshaven bum into a polished, sophisticated man who prides himself on his proper behavior. When she grabs him and kisses him, he regards her with utter astonishment.

Movie Answer Man: The slithery villains of 'Indy'

Q. I know it's ridiculous to think of an "Indiana Jones" movie without snakes, but can you tell me if there are a lot of snakes in the movie? My wife has a really extreme phobia of snakes, but we would like to see it. Is it loaded with snakes or is there just one part with the extremely large snake? Is there a cue I could give my wife to tell her it is time for a restroom break or should I simply sneak out and see this one on my own? Any insight you could give me would be much appreciated. Justin Keith, Statesboro, Ga. A. Not snake-heavy as "Indy" movies go. Besides, nothing a snake could do would equal the experience of being pulled alive into an anthill of giant man-eating ants.

People: Tarsem and the legend of "The Fall"

by Roger Ebert Tarsem was talking about how he risked almost everything he owned to make a movie that nobody, nobody at all, was willing to finance for years. The movie is "The Fall," which will be on my list of the year's best films, and is setting box office records on the art house circuit. It is almost impossible to describe. You can say what happens, but you can't convey the astonishment of how it happens.