Cinematic comedy can be considered the oldest film genre (and one of the most prolific and popular). Comedy was ideal for the early silent films, as it was dependent on visual action and physical humor rather than sound. Slapstick, one of the earliest forms of comedy, poked fun at farcical situations of physical mishap and indignity, usually in pratfalls, practical jokes, accidents, acrobatic death-defying stunts, water soakings, or wild chase scenes with trains and cars. [Burlesque is another form of early comedy, characterized by unrefined and broad humor, designed to produce ridicule.] Pioneers in the early days of silent cinema and film-making, the Lumiere Brothers, included a short comedy film in their very first public screening in 1895 titled Watering the Gardener or “The Sprinkler Sprinkled” (L’Arroseur Arrose). Its predictable subject matter included a man with a garden watering hose who was tricked into being soaked by a prankster child.
The major hallmark of Sennett’s career work was inventive, visual, improvised comedy displayed in short silent films that moved frantically. His early short comedies featured wild slapstick chase finales, visual gags and stunts, and speedy, zany action. The action appeared all the more frantic and frenzied by his use of a filming technique whereby he shot the pictures at a slow camera speed, and then accelerated the frames in the projector during playback. He often cast vaudevillian, burlesque, and circus performers in his films. Those with exaggerated or grotesque looks (obese, cross-eyed, lanky, leering, pop-eyed, etc.) were chosen to add to the unreality of the situations. His most popular pictures involved his bumbling comedy policemen, the Keystone Cops. There would be flying pies, bricks, careening vehicles with people hanging off, crashes, and other dangerous-looking stunts. Cinema’s first custard-pie-in-the-face was in Sennett’s silent film comedy A Noise From the Deep (1913), in which comedian Mabel Normand, a farmgirl threw a pie into the kisser of obese farmhand Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

The Terminator is a blazing, cinematic comic book, full of virtuoso moviemaking, terrific momentum, solid performances and a compelling story.

The clever script, cowritten by director James Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd, opens in a post-holocaust nightmare, A.D.2029, where brainy machines have crushed most of the human populace. From that point, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the cyborg Terminator is sent back to the present to assassinate a young woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) who is, in the context of a soon-to-be-born son and the nuclear war to come, the mother of mankind’s salvation.
A human survivor in that black future (Michael Biehn), also drops into 1984 to stop the Terminator and save the woman and the future. The shotgun-wielding Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast in a machine-like portrayal that requires only a few lines of dialog.

Water for Elephants is a ridiculous title. Although it makes more sense when you realise that it’s a crossover of two cinematic achievements of the 20th century… namely Titanic and Dumbo. Titanic in the way that this epic romance drama has been constructed, and Dumbo in the subject matter, story and special effects. Lavish, historic sets filled with extras in accurate costume and circus animals form the backdrop to this swirling romance about a young man, who happens to jump a circus train, become an indispensable asset to the traveling show before trying to steal the star attraction from her manager and conductor husband.
Water for Elephants stars famed Twilightstar Robert Pattinson in a mature developmental leading role as Jacob opposite Reese Witherspoon in one of her more physical performances as the star attraction Marlena. The two have good believable chemistry, yet their solid performances are outranked by even better supporting roles from Hal Holbrook as Old Jacob and Christoph Waltz as August.
Water for Elephants echoes the reasons that circuses were so popular with a full spectrum of grand unpredictable entertainment. You hardly even notice that two hours have flown by and the production values, solid performances, sharp writing and vivid visuals compose a rich, convincing and entertaining story to match Titanic on many levels. It’s not perfect… but that’s the beauty of the circus.

With The Ward, horror legend John Carpenter returns for his first feature film directorial effort since 2001′s Ghosts of Mars, and while it does little to disprove the prevailing belief that he’s in the artistic nadir of his career, I can’t say it’s his worst effort to date.

It’s hardly a home run comeback for Carpenter, but seeing as his previous directorial efforts were Ghosts of Mars, Vampires and Escape from LA, The Ward just might be his best feature film in 15 years (his two entries in the Masters of Horror TV series outshining anything else he’s done over this time). The makeup effects are solid, and there are some effectively grisly death scenes, plus the plot has a climactic twist that, while unoriginal, still attempts to reach beyond genre expectations.
If the climax strives to break from horror conventions, however, the rest of the movie wallows in them. Every night seems to culminate in a thunderstorm, every spooky noise has to be investigated, every dream sequence takes place in a dingy basement. The storytelling is lazy, repetitive and “haunted” by jumps in logic, false emotion and pointless scenes that add little to the overall plot. While the cast as a whole helps keep the material together, Heard’s star turn is forced; her overly earnest performance “feels” like acting.
As a theatrical release — Carpenter or no Carpenter — The Ward is underwhelming, but as direct-to-video fare (It will hit home video a little over a month after its theatrical release.), it’s more palatable, a flawed but competent and intriguing mystery with enough of a slasher edge to please fans of edgier material than ghost stories typically provide.

Hapless preteen Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) endures bullies, swirlies, morons, and wedgies while navigating the treacherous world of middle school and recording his traumas in his personal journal in this family-oriented comedy inspired by author Jeff Kinney’s best-selling series of illustrated novels. Try as he might, Greg just can’t understand who thought it was a good idea to place kids who haven’t even hit their first growth spurt in the same school as kids who get a five-o’clock shadow by lunch time. Realizing that he’ll have to get creative if he hopes to survive until high school, Greg concocts a series of get-cool-quick schemes that all go hopelessly awry. Despite the fact that he’s viewed as a dork by his peers, Greg never loses hope that someday, when all is said and done, he’ll be able to look back on his middle school experiences and laugh. Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris co-star in this comedy from Hotel for Dogs director Thor Freudenthal.
The responsible film guardian will feel anxious early on in the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid instalment as the title milksop is humiliated a dozen or so times in the opening sequence, a family trip to a roller-skating rink.

First, middle-school student Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) is forced to recall a scalding public embarrassment – peers shrieking at his eye-patch-sized swimsuit at a pool. Then he’s cowering in a washroom stall, bound in toilet paper. After that, he’s tricked into eating pizza someone sat on. Next comes a bungled attempt at dancing with a cool, towering blonde.

The Conspirator released just in time for the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, director Robert Redford and writer James D. Solomon achieve something that many schoolteachers and professors fail to do: make history not only come alive, but also relevant to our current times. The Conspirator centers on this lone, mourning-draped woman and on Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), a lawyer before the war, then a captain of the Union army, wounded in battle. He is asked by his mentor, Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), to serve as Mary Surratt’s defense counsel during the tribunal. Aiken is initially appalled by the idea, as his deep-seated Union loyalty makes him as desiring as the rest of the stricken nation for justice to avenge this scurrilous act. But his belief in the rule of justly applied law, and in the rights and protections affirmed by the U.S. Constitution, inspires him to investigate further and mount a spirited defense.
It has a couple of weak spots, most notably two soldier buddies of Aiken (one of whom is an annoyingly off-period Justin Long) who behave like frat boys goofing off during a Civil War re-enactment. Their presence seems forced and unnecessary, and detracts from screen time that would have been better spent on some of the real conspirators. And Mark Isham’s generic, forgettable score adds little to the proceedings. But the story is intriguing, the script is thought-provoking, the production design and photography beautifully detailed, and Redford directs with a steady, well-balanced hand. Robin Wright, James McAvoy, and Kevin Kline all provide exceptional acting fuel for the film.