Letters to Juliet is like a puppy. It’s sweet, cute, and relies on long looks from its big eyes to get away with being bad. And it’s so adorable that you don’t want to be mean to it, but sometimes you have to be stern so it knows that something is not okay.

When Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) takes the stage at an Expo at the beginning of Iron Man 2, he does so in a manner completely befitting his self-assured bravado – by jumping out of a plane and landing on a platform covered with scantily clad dancers. It’s a move that only a man who knows he’s got a hit on his hands could make. Which is also why, though Steve Jobs is too scared to do it, director Jon Favreau can pull it off. He knows that the Iron Man franchise is returning as reigning champ and is going to set the bar for summer movie blockbusters.

Somehow, The Human Centipede (First Sequence) has slithered its way into theaters. Arguably, this indie horror, written and directed by Tom Six, should have never made it out of the damp corners of a genre geek’s hard-drive. But it did, and we have IFC to thank. Or hate. Centipede is surely to draw strong opinions on both sides, but what’s certain is that it’s a film that cannot be unseen.

With a rash of slasher film remakes in the past decade, it was inevitable that Nightmare would get its own update. In the company of more conventional films like Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and countless imitators, there’s probably no other horror movie of the era more worthy of a fresh look by a new audience.

It’s just too easy. When a film is titled The Greatest and it’s not the greatest, it’s just too tempting to make wordplay of it. But I’ll try to resist.

Bearing the title of The Losers, the underachiever of a film — a veritable step-bastard of The A-Team, too, in more ways than one — sets the bar pretty low. The moniker is supposed to be ironic, of course. But after sitting through the 98-minute film, it just proves to be true. That isn’t to say the Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard)-directed film isn’t fun. As anyone who’s been through high school knows, the aimless slackers can be a hoot. The Losers rise to meet such ascribed low expectations, and dodge anything of intelligence or quality like it’s trigonometry — under the cover of bazookas, quips and bullets.

The least offensive thing about Kick-Ass is its title. The most offensive? That’s way too hard to pinpoint.

Is The Eclipse a ghost story? Not completely. Will it haunt you? Absolutely.

”Just accept it.” That’s the advice given to Perseus when he discovers a sword from the gods in the forest. There’s no good explanation for it and no explanation is attempted. The same advice holds true for Clash of the Titans. It’s an action movie made for thrills. That’s it. Just accept it. It’s conceivable you might enjoy it.

If time travel were real, and it were possible to go back in time and change the future, I would return to the moment just before entering the theater for Hot Tub Time Machine and take myself out, Tonya Harding-style, because that would be more humane than sitting through the film. Another alternative would be to go back and stop writers Josh Heald, Sean Anders, and John Morris from scripting the damn thing in the first place.

It’s simply amazing how wonderfully director Atom Egoyan squanders his incredible cast in his latest film, Chloe. He manages to take a sexual thriller like Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction and turn it into Ishtar.

Attendees at SXSW 2010 were treated to a “super secret screening” of Centurion, directed by Neil Marshall, the man behind one of the best horror films in recent memory, The Descent. Marshall’s recent Doomsday was a bit of a miss, so I was anxious to see what Centurion might hold in terms of the director’s art and style this time around. The blood work and gritty sensibilities clearly mark this as a Marshall film, but the overall blandness does as well. Centurion, for all the booming, blood and promising historical context, is a pretty boring film.

MacGruber, which began as a small Saturday Night Live sketch back in 2007, has today turned into a feature-length film thanks to director Jorma Taccone (writer on SNL). Suffice to say, if you don’t care for the skit, which parodies the popular MacGuyer character from the late ’80s, you won’t care for the movie. MacGruber solicits audible laughs through absurdity and shock, which is, of course, expected. It’s hard not to chuckle at Will Forte bunny-hopping around nude with a celery stalk up his ass, or Val Kilmer playing a villain named Dieter Von Cunth; and the various occasions to declare that it’s time “to pound some Cunth.” MacGruber is pure blockbuster silliness, executed in a decently (if not impressively) seasoned way.

Folks at SXSW were probably a little bit confused when they heard a documentary called Bear Nation was screening, and that it had nothing to do with the animal. Well, at least not in the literal sense. The film is actually a look at a sub-culture of the gay community that is traditionally identified by their bear-like characteristics — namely, big and hairy. Directed by Malcolm Ingram, Bear Nation is a charming and forthright look at this brotherhood of burly men. The film poses more questions than it answers, but on the whole it’s an intriguing and enlightening anthropological excursion.

For a film that has such little action and movement, Helena from the Wedding is surprisingly captivating and in the most subtle of ways. Director Joseph Infantolino leverages all the drama of an extended stare and implications of the classic, troubled exchange between couples: “You OK? I’m fine.” Surrounding three-and-half couples that spend a New Years Eve in a snowy cabin, Helena packs an impressive spectrum of relationship conditions — newly weds, divorce, pregnancy, cheating, spousal inequality, wandering eyes — into the small vacation home. With the cold backdrop and dreary domestic scenarios, Helena may not be a particularly bright yarn, but it’s intensely genuine and emotionally vibrant.

Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass may turn out to be the most exciting film of SXSW 2010. The odd-ball take on modern-day superheroes is a supremely twisted, fun take on the genre tale that lives up to its name, despite some missteps here and there.

Most know the generic meaning of a “mama’s boy.” A son walking into the bathroom while his mom is taking a shower — see-through shower curtain, mind you — is something a touch beyond that descriptor. Marisa Tomei being that mother aside, the parent-son relationship depicted in Cyrus is a pretty taboo one. It’s with that unconventional context that the Duplass brothers (The Puffy Chair) bring us a film that is at once creepy, meaningful and most of all damn funny — not to mention one of the best films of SXSW 2010.

There are so many mysteries on the island, it feels like you’re never going to get any answers. Is there a way off the island? Can the others on the island be trusted? And are dead people really speaking to the living? Just when the questions make your head start to spin, you remember that Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t on a plane that crashed and you’re not watching “Lost,” you’re watching Shutter Island.

Cupid! Hey, Cupid! Come over here and shoot me. Right through my eye, please, because it would be less painful than having to watch Garry Marshall‘s latest confectionary concoction. Valentine’s Day is already a manufactured holiday filled with cute rhymes in lacey cards, candied hearts that induce nausea, and flowers, flowers and more flowers. There’s little need for another gag-inducing love-fest unless it’s good. And Marshall’s Valentine’s Day is not.

There’s a sweetness to Alice Sebold‘s 2002 mega-bestseller “The Lovely Bones” that belies the story of a young girl’s brutal rape and killing. That same sweetness, so magnificently captured on the page, is missing from Peter Jackson‘s film adaptation of Sebold’s book.

The average (sex) teen-aged boy thinks (sex) about sex (sex) every 7 seconds (sex). While this might be an old wives’ tale (like that one about hairy palms) you wouldn’t know it from Youth in Revolt. It’s a quintessential coming of age story revolving around sex, sex, and more sex.

Crazy Heart could also be known as The Wrestler: The Musical: washed up has-been tries to piece together a life out of a once-successful career while fighting addiction, trying to reconcile with an estranged child, and wooing a younger woman. But whereas Mickey Rourke played a wrestler, Jeff Bridges plays singer/songwriter Bad Blake and provides a soundtrack to his misery. Fittingly, his music is the music of pain: country.

Five minutes into A Single Man, fashion designer Tom Ford‘s directorial debut, you realize you’re seeing art. At first it seems to be that highly esoteric, stylistic art meant to alienate and rise above the masses. Then the film morphs into art in its purest form. For here is a visionary creating his masterpiece and [...]

“Elementary, my dear Watson.” If you just became indignant about the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote that famous line, you will likely not enjoy Guy Ritchie‘s Sherlock Holmes, because you will never get past the overhaul of the famous detective (Robert Downey Jr.) as an action star who jumps out of windows, [...]

James Cameron‘s Avatar is decidedly one of the (if not the) most anticipated films of 2009. This weekend, the nearly $250-million alien tale of epic proportions hits theaters. And it’s about time. Avatar is more than 15-years in the making. Poor Cameron had to wait for technology to catch up to his vision for the ground-breaking yarn before it could be fully spun. The film’s visuals clearly benefited from this extended period of study and execution. The writing and the plot, on the other hand, didn’t. As Avatar’s appearance continued getting better with time, its story and structured waned. Considering the holiday time of year, it’s ironic that to enjoy Avatar is to revel in the wrapping. Remember that when opening your presents in the coming weeks.

There’s nothing better than an uplifting movie to please the masses that’s released just in time for the holidays. And if it involves sports, score! In fact, this year there are two to pick from, both focusing on a person who inspires others to achieve athletic greatness: The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock and Invictus [...]

The long and winding road leads… well, I don’t know where. In The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy‘s recent short novel, it seemingly leads to hell.

McCarthy’s writing is also the basis for the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men; his latest work is more like “No Old Men in the Country,” with most of the weak and infirm having perished after an undefined apocalypse. There’s a shared bleakness in both stories, a belief that evil exists in the world, and it is on the verge of invading your life.

Better than the first one. Still sucks.

That’s the distilled version for those who are sick and tired of hearing about “The Twilight Saga” and vampires (other than True Blood, of course) and debates over which side you play for — Team Edward or Team Jacob.

When it comes to the word precious and movies, it’s tough not to think of a kidnapped girl trapped in a hole trying to lure a small dog over the edge. ”Here Precious,” she calls out in The Silence of the Lambs, a movie still terrifying today. While vastly different films, Precious is just as frightening, and the title character suffers just as much as that poor, kidnapped woman. In fact, it’s arguably worse to watch Precious’s plight, for she’s a captive of not just one lunatic, but her family, a city’s bureaucracy, and her own, crippling self-doubt.

I am beginning to question my commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Director Richard Kelly had an avid fan after Donnie Darko, but his most recent follow-up, The Box, just doesn’t deliver. See, The Box would be really interesting if it wasn’t so boring. That may seem obvious, but something about the movie should be since most of it is a garbled mess.

When you take all the kid stuff out of Disney’s A Christmas Carol, it’s quite a good film. But those meddling kids…

As one of the most oft-told holiday stories, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol hardly needs any summary: crotchety old man gets visited by three ghosts and sees the error of his ways. Been there, seen it. Maybe even read it.

As the vampire-version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Willow liked to say, ”Bored now.” Maybe that’s not completely true for every minute of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, but it certainly applies more often than not.

It feels like the fun wonderment of Where the Wild Things Are has been clobbered with a dirt clod and killed. What was once a fun and light-hearted story – at least to my childish mind – has been completely turned around to be a sad, melancholy story of losing innocence and growing up.

With the groundswell of support that’s spreading Paranormal Activity across the U.S. beyond its paltry initial distribution, the film is clearly going to the sleeper success of the year. And considering it’s mockumentary style and subject matter, not to mention to a painfully low budget of $15,000, comparisons to 1999′s Blair Witch are spot-on. Yet whereas Witch was a pretty disturbing affair and took audiences to a different level of cinematic experience, Paranormal Activity does not. The real phantom here is the idea that Paranormal Activity is the scariest film in recent memory, and good enough to deserve one million votes to expand nationwide. It’s not. Activity‘s meager roots make it a solid accomplishment, to be sure, but the film, aside from two choice scenes, is largely pretty boring and lacks the convincing nature that made the Blair Witch so ground-breaking.

In a cutthroat world where luck is just as important as skill, only a few survive. And when every day is a struggle, the hope of finding some happiness along the way just seems unobtainable. Yet it’s this one simple, common goal — wanting to make it in a world that’s harsh and unforgiving — that unites a group of strangers. No, they’re not a bunch high school kids at a performing arts school. In Zombieland, they’re the sole survivors of the human race when everyone else is either dead or the living dead.

Fame is fleeting. Even those who do get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight all too often find themselves back in the dark, only a faint memory in the minds of their once adoring fans. For the new cast of Fame, they barely get fifteen seconds and hardly justify a thought once the theater threshold has been crossed.

Scientific tales that take the thinnest threads of theories and stretch them to exotic ends can be a lot of fun. The Matrix taught us our world may not be as real as we think. Terminator warns of the dangers in advancing robotic technology. And Surrogates suggests that living life by mechanical-proxy may be a better way to go. Some of these stories are thorough and game-changing, and others like Surrogates, are just skin-deep. The Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3)-directed film, however, does get a knod for supporting the idea that people truly are ugly on the inside.

Megan Fox may have been oddly cast as Sam Witwicky‘s girlfriend in Transformers, but the role nevertheless heaved the toe-thumbed hottie into men’s dreams and women’s fears. But as the co-lead in Jennifer’s Body, there is no better fit than Fox. Chalk that up to the young actress having a knack for playing an aloof, predatory vixen — go figure! — and writer Diablo Cody‘s (Juno) superb ability to give her characters the wittiest, sharpest of tongues (not to mention teeth). Less perfect is the overall story. While Jennifer’s Body will gift you with terms like “wetty” and “freaktard,” there’s less to take home from the narrative. Lesbi-gay (that’s another term for the film) director, Karyn Kusama (Æon Flux), succeeds at adding an excited style and pace to Cody’s story, which is BFF with the film’s one-liners.

Isn’t it nice when filmmakers are so excited about the final product that they add an exclamation point to the title? The Informant! It’s about a whistleblower! It stars Matt Damon! It’s going to be great!

If only that sense of excitement carried through the film’s entirety, but most scenes in The Informant! are punctuated by a couple good lines – maybe calling for some italics to indicate a key word or two – but then they just slowly… trail… off….

Writer and director Robert D. Siegel isn’t pulling any muscles with the broad themes at play in Big Fan: loser has one shot at something wonderful, but luck isn’t on his side. If it sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because Siegel is still coaching out of his old playbook – the one he used when writing The Wrestler. The change for Big Fan is that the loser isn’t trying to reclaim the spotlight, but rather he’s always outside the ring. Or I should say the stadium, since Paul (Patton Oswalt) can’t actually afford tickets and listens to the Giants play from the parking lot with loser pal Sal (Kevin Corrigan). When Paul gets a shot at meeting his favorite player ( Jonathan Hamm) it all goes terribly wrong. (In a strip club nonetheless; I kept looking for Marisa Tomei to strut on stage.)

Whiteout is a term commonly used to refer to a type of weather condition that severely impairs one’s visibility of the environment around them — say, a blizzard. Director Dominic Sena uses this force of nature to push around the characters in his new film, Whiteout, yet he comes across as the only one who has lost the ability to see. Why the studio didn’t put this film out in the cold to wander off and die is a mystery. What is clear is that Whiteout is a perfect storm of bad acting, bad direction and even worse writing. Sena and his cast are probably wishing for another kind of whiteout right about now — the kind that will remove this film from their resume.

A scorched, post-apocalyptic Earth has been the setting for many an epic blockbuster, but rarely an animated feature. Director, Shane Acker , carves a lonely rumbled path in his computer-generated debut film, 9 — a hauntingly magical yarn, spun more for adults and those with darker dispositions than innocent ankle-biters. The grunge patina and creepy cloth creatures (known as Stitchpunks) should be your first clue that 9 isn’t a happy tale to curl up with at night. While Acker’s plot is manifestly stitched together from other well-worn stories, his visual treatment is as pure and creative as they come.

You might wonder if Gamer and All About Steve are worth the cost of admission this weekend. You and us both. You see, Tim and I have a little confession to make. We’re not some powerhouse outlet drawing millions in advertising that allows us to lay back waiting for the next screening. Obviously, you would think that, right? We have day jobs, other commitments and hustle our pretty little asses off to make Popscorn a site you want to visit every week. So when an upcoming film screens just once at 10:30AM and the other doesn’t at all, you can see how bringing you an informative, appropriately salty look at that movie would be problematic. Instead, here’s an uninformed and overly salty opinion of these two illusive films we couldn’t see (and probably won’t).

Director Rob Zombie recently said that he would “never” bring audiences a third installment of his Halloween films, following the release of his sequel, Halloween 2, this weekend. Let us all take a moment to respond with a collective, “Thank You!” As reboots/re-imaginings/regurgitations go, Zombie’s Halloween of 2007 was a noteworthy effort, largely in showing a different, interesting perspective on the origins of Michael Meyers. Zombie carries that same narrative vision into Halloween 2, but frustratingly manages to butcher the story from beginning to end. Michael’s accomplished pursuit of nubile prey trails Zombie’s ability to ferret out and eliminate any residual value from his original, inspired direction. And not unlike many scenes in the film, audiences are left standing in a sad, bloody mess.

One hundred and forty minutes is an awful lot of foreplay for a 10-minute payoff. Yet that’s what Quentin Tarantino is requiring of audiences who commit to his latest film, Inglourious Basterds.

Set in Nazi-occupied France, Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino doing what he does: taking serious and bloody topics and approaching them with a quirky, irreverent eye. The “basterds,” besides being poor spellers, are a group of soldiers (many of them Jewish) with one mission and one mission only: killin’ Naatzis. Naughtzis? Gnat-zees? (It’s tough to phonetically spell Nazis the way Brad Pitt manages to drawl the phrase in the film.)

Exactly how would the world react if suddenly a spaceship carrying crustacean-like aliens took up residence in the airspace above a populated city? Most would probably imagine a battle for species supremacy like that seen in Independence Day. First-time director, Neill Blomkamp, pictures the scenario a bit differently. In District 9, aliens and humans manage to avoid a violent meet-and-greet and come to carve out some semblance of coexistence along the lines of South Africa’s apartheid. Blomkamp, who is originally from South Africa, embraces this theme of pervasive segregation yet applies a sci-fi sensibility that will surely surprise audiences. While the film touches on being overpopulated with irony and allegory, District 9 is one of the best films of its category in years — a stunning, seamless weaving of reality and fiction, complemented by a story-without-borders that will keep you wanting more.

When Cliff (Steve Zahn) calms his wife’s fear of the beach hike ahead by saying, “Nothing bad ever happens in Hawaii,” you know A Perfect Getaway is going to a pretty cheap trip. It’s doubtful one expects a genre-bending slick, sophisticated thriller considering the late-summer timing and Resident Evil mainstay Milla Jovovich at the helm, but you’d at least hope for something less eye-rolling and anticipated. Getaway is more of a roller-coaster afternoon at Busch Gardens on a hot humid day than a picturesque Hawaiian vacation. Director David Twohy wants to keep audiences guessing with blunt, repetitive misdirection. Instead, his jerky style just comes off as conspicuous and trying. Ultimately, you just have to sit back with full awareness of the lurching ahead and the expectation that the ride will be over in short time.

If there’s a secret ingredient, you can bet it’s butter. Butter makes everything better. And there is absolutely no substitute for it in cooking. Using something like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter is a joke and an insult to cooks everywhere. So the fact that Nora Ephron’s latest concoction, Julie & Julia, doesn’t come out of the oven just right makes one wonder if the director didn’t somehow substitute oleo for the real deal.

Julie & Julia is based on two true stories, one following Julia Child’s rise to culinary magician and Julie Powell’s magical transformation, via the kitchen, from low-level bureaucrat to published writer. Rather than complement each other like fish and chips, the two stories are like pairing Kobe beef with a side of McDonald’s french fries.

Though it happens all the time in movies or in sitcoms, I’ve never actually known someone to make a deal with a cabbie that the size of the tip decreases every minute, meaning the longer the ride the smaller the tip. But a similar deal should have been struck with Judd Apatow about his new film, Funny People: The longer the film, the worse the review. And clocking in at over two and a half hours, Funny People loses a good rating.

Youngsters are often used in horror movies as disturbing devices because people naturally don’t expect evil to come from innocent, wide-eyed cherubs. The juxtaposition of cute and conniving is a palpable one, but it’s getting old. So much, in fact, you have to wonder when characters in film will finally get wise to the truth that nefariousness knows no height, especially when the ankle-biter’s name is Esther. Audiences certainly understand this, which is why Orphan, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax), is immediately recognizable and almost entirely predictable. Most of us have seen the likes of The Omen, The Good Son and Joshua — the list is a long one — and can readily dictate the tempo of such films. Orphan, like a Von Trap child, falls right in line with the rest. Nevertheless, the film surprisingly manages to push the convention in a number of interesting ways, which makes it worthwhile for any fan of the genre.