Film

Best movies of the aughts: Part two

Critic shares the rest of his favorite films

[caption id="attachment_11364" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will be Blood""][/caption] Carey Norris herein completes his survey of the best films of

Film

Best movies of the aughts: Part one

Critic Carey Norris bravely faces list-making anxiety

By Carey Norris

I love making lists, but it’s hard work. There were many wonderful films the last 10 years, and I haven’t seen everything, so ranking them is difficult. If I had made this list yesterday or tomo

Film

Fantastic Mr. Fox rocks

Wes Anderson's has crafted an excellent adaptation, one painstaking frame at a time.

By Carey Norris

Wes Anderson, director of Rushmore and The Life Aquatic, has always enjoyed the retro in his movies, so it’s no surprise to see him embrace stop-motion animation, a medium that saw its heyday decades

Film

2012 blows up the world real good

2012 may be the hugest, craziest, most preposterous disaster film ever made

By Carey Norris

For those of you thought Earthquake was lame, Independence Day was weak tea and The Poseidon Adventure was for pussies, check out 2012 , the hugest, craziest, most preposterous disaster film ever made

Film

Paranormal Activity yields big scares

Paranormal Activity builds scares out of shadows, loud noises and anticipation.

By Carey Norris

I love gore as much as the next guy, probably more, but the best horror films prove that real scares lie in dread and anticipation more than bloodletting. The new film Paranormal Activity is an ingen

Film

The magical adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze's WTWTA may be the most honest film ever made about the wildness of childhood.

By Weekly Staff

Expanding and expounding on a beloved children’s book can be a recipe for disaster. Recent films based on How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat all but proved that expanding on these p

Film

Good comedians wasted in Couples Retreat

Couples Retreat is as bland and predictable as a bad marriage.

By Carey Norris

Lots of marriages fail due to lack of spontaneity, when things become bland, predictable and overly familiar. The same could be said of Couples Retreat , the new romantic comedy that strands some grea

Film

Zombieland proves that the undead genre still has plenty of life

Zombieland is not a parody of or a post-modern commentary on the zombie genre -- like, say, Shaun of the Dead -- but it is still a total blast.

By Carey Norris

Zombies are scary by virtue of their relentlessness and their ability to overwhelm and overrun almost anything, but there has always been great potential for comedy there as well. Zombieland is not

Film

Sidewalk highlights: Sunday

By Carey Norris

So Long Are You Young: Samuel Ullman’s Poem and Passion • Sunday • 12:45 p.m. • Young & Vann Bldg. Samuel Ullman should be better known here in Birmingham. He has a building named after him at

Film

Sidewalk highlights: Saturday

By Carey Norris

Official Rejection • Saturday • 1:30 p.m. • Carver Theatre Film festivals are fun for those of us who attend them, but they’re deadly serious for the people who made the films we’re watching. Dire