The Movie Blog

Bollywood and kung fu make for an explosive–and comedic–combo in this film that travels all over Asia. Worldwide star Akshay Kumar plays a Delhi cook who departs his native India for China in search of adventure. CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA also stars Deepika Padukone, Mithun Chakraborty, Ranvir Shorey, and Gordon Liu.

Filipino director Brillante Mendoza brings a frank, gritty immediacy to SERBIS, a multi-character, day-in-the-life portrait of a family-run movie house in the Philippines. Only this isn’t your typical movie house. It’s actually a downtrodden venue that shows graphic double features and allows the clientele to make their own sexual connections in the dark shadows. Today is a very important day, for Nanay Flor, the family matriarch, is going to discover if she won a years-in-the-making bigamy case against her husband. Meanwhile, her children are involved in dramatic situations of their own. Alan has just learned troubling news about his girlfriend, and Nayda is married but attracted to her cousin Ronald. As the day develops and the verdict comes down, the Pinedas struggle to focus on the daily tasks associated with the theater, even as their own personal conflicts threaten to overwhelm them.<br><br>Shot on video, SERBIS recalls films from the Dogme 95 movement. Mendoza and screenwriter Armando Lao have clearly constructed these dramatic situations, yet they are shot on consumer video with such energy that the film often feels like a documentary. Mendoza pulls no punches, showing multiple scenes of behind-the-scenes sexuality that are even more graphic than the X-rated behavior unfolding on the cavernous theater’s silver screen. SERBIS provides a realistic, unflinching glimpse into this hyper-sexualized world.

As a mall security guard, Paul Blart is devoted to keeping crime and mischief out of the New Jersey shopping center where he works, even if he isn’t allowed to wear a gun. But Santa’s helpers decide to be naughty, taking Paul’s loved ones hostage, so he has to use all his training to save them. Kevin James (THE KING OF QUEENS) brings the laughter–and the pain–as the titular law enforcer.

This biopic from executive producer Sean “Diddy” Combs explores the life and death of East Coast rapper Notorious B.I.G. Newcomer Jamal Woolard stars as Biggie Smalls, but big names fill out the rest of the cast: Angela Bassett plays the rapper’s mother, Derek Luke costars as Combs, and Anthony Mackie plays rival Tupac Shakur. Bassett’s real life counterpart, Voletta Wallace, acts as one of the film’s producers.

In an adaptation of Elmore Leonard¿s best-selling crime novel, the beautiful Carmen Colson (Diane Lane) and her husband Wayne (Thomas Jane) become entangled in a scam with a bumbling, small time con artist (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and his over-the-hill hitman partner the Blackbird (Mickey Rourke). Ultimately, it all comes down to one wife, one husband, two killers… and one lethal killshot. A Quentin Tarantino presentation.

Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in this thriller about a woman whose husband and brother-in-law are in comas after a car crash. But when her difficult brother-in-law wakes up, he claims that he’s her husband, causing her to question if souls can move between bodies. Lee Pace trades in the sunny world of PUSHING DAISIES to play evil brother Roman.