question: Thought not without its funny moments, Anger Management is ultimately stale and disappointingly one-note, especially considering its capable cast.

numbered reviews: 1. A perfectly dreadful affair that makes no sense, has almost no good laughs and finally just sinks like a rock in a Beverly Hills swimming pool.
2. There are some good jokes that are well suited for each individual actor, but when brought together their brands of humor clash.
3. Everyone who avoided About Schmidt and other recent Nicholson movies on the grounds that he was actually playing characters instead of mugging will be happy to know he does no acting here whatsoever.
4. Peter Segal directs individual sequences with a steady hand, but slack editing and a meandering and muddled plot make the film seem slow.
5. To say I hated this is a grandiose understatement.
6. The concept is inspired. The execution is lame. Anger Management, a film that might have been one of Adam Sandler's best, becomes one of Jack Nicholson's worst.
7. The only thing you'll be mad about is spending 10 bucks to watch Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler try too hard.
8. Some of the movie is so primitively staged that you can almost hear someone leafing through the book of instructions that came with the camera.
9. A lazy, tired comedy in which Sandler does what he's done too many times before, and Nicholson does ... very little.
10. What's most astonishing is that a film populated by two madmen can grow so wearying and dull.


question: Wild Hogs is a dreadful combination of fish-out-of-water jokes, slapstick, and lazy stereotypes.

numbered reviews: 1. Truly awful, monumentally inept, wholly unwatchable.
2. I'm not sure how well it speaks of a comedy if the funniest scenes come during the closing credits.
3. Fluff aimed at conservative Middle America, a cynical go-with-the-demographic-trends movie that's shallow and stupid, but featuring big names guaranteeing box office success.
4. This isn't a movie with any meaningful insights to share about the heartfelt concerns of the over-forty set, but is rather an ill-conceived, "coming-of-age" style misadventure which could just as easily have revolved around some recent high school grads.
5. Perhaps I was in a good mood, perhaps my expectations were so rock bottom, but hell, I didn't hate it...
6. Disneyfied Easy Rider for the suburban set.
7. I can only assume a bike wreck is much more gruesome than a car accident. Luckily, I have never seen one, but after watching Wild Hogs, I can imagine.
8. No.
9. Instead of opening up the throttle, Hogs ends up idling and spreading exhaust.
10. Becker is handy with a camera and totally knows where the film's bread is buttered, focusing all his energy and attention on his four stars.


question: A Royal Affair is a lavish and sumptuous costume drama with a juicy story to back it up.

numbered reviews: 1. It is certainly competent, lovely to look at, but leaves little lasting impression.
2. Arcel directs with sympathy for all three of the main characters and doesn't make pure villains of the others.
3. Gorgeously photographed if familiarly constructed, it's more or less catnip for urban foreign film aficionados and the NPR set, breathing life into period piece lust and intrigue.
4. Perhaps there's only so much to be done with a costume drama about illicit affairs and would-be coups.
5. Although the brazen lovers, bellicose ministers and backstabbing handmaidens are familiar elements, the film is so handsomely mounted that we happily endure the ride until the turning of the screws in the tragic last act.
6. The film ends not on a happy note, naturally, but on a moment of hope. Love may not conquer all, but it has a power all its own.
7. What a piece of work is this historical drama.
8. Despite the presence of illicit sex, insanity, a smallpox epidemic and a climactic double beheading, this is a rather bloodless 'Affair.'
9. In the immortal words of King Louis XVI -- or was it Mel Brooks? -- it's good to be the king.
10. The characters in the story are interesting, even if they are not quite as interesting as the historical people on which the characters in this film are based.


question: With a deliciously wicked performance from Angelica Huston and imaginative puppetry by Jim Henson's creature shop, Nicolas Roeg's dark and witty movie captures the spirit of Roald Dahl's writing like few other adaptations.

numbered reviews:
1. A minor but very enjoyable Nicolas Roeg fairy tale.
2. Some kids will love it, some may find disturbing.
3. Deliciously cruel to children, Roeg remains true to Dahl's underlying sense of real horror.
4. A wildly entertaining fairy tale.
5. A skewed, dark adaptation of Roald Dahl's story featuring one of Anjelica Huston's most energetic performances.
6. As in his best films, here Mr. Roeg is a master of capturing the slightly off kilter sense of an apparently normal world. His camera is unobtrusive, and then suddenly it tilts a bit to jolt.
7. The wizardry of Jim Henson's Creature Shop and a superbly over-the-top performance by Angelica Huston gives The Witches a good deal of charm and enjoyment.
8. Strange and scary enough to fascinate parents and offspring alike.
9. A truly magical film from Nicolas Roeg that finally gets undermined by muppetry.
10. Quite the entertainer. It's a little scary, but not too frightening for children.