Film Review

Is it possible that Tina Fey can tarnish her sparkling comic reputation with one rotten movie?

 That may be the only interesting thing about the regrettable “Baby Mama,” a movie so bad that Fey would be wise to hope it disappears quietly from movie theaters asap, so that we can all get back to adoring her work — in front of the camera, and behind it — on “30 Rock.”

Film Review

As he did with “The Station Agent,” Tom McCarthy forges a community of outsiders with “The Visitor,” an endearing serio-comedy that explores the immigration issue with intelligence and compassion.

It’s so good, it may even melt the vitriol in an old, cranky xenophobe like Lou Dobbs. So imagine what it will do for you.

I can say without reservations that it’s the closest thing to nirvana to grace the big screen yet this year. Ditto for its star, the celebrated character actor Richard Jenkins.

Film Review

If just one lesson is to be learned in this newest offering from the Judd Apatow school of contemporary comedy, it’s that dating and working together just don’t mix. Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) is the co-star (with Billy Baldwin!!!) of one of those curiously popular “CSI”-like TV shows, and Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) composes the scores for the show. They’ve been together for 5 1/2 years and they make, as the celebrity press suggests, an “adorable couple.”

 So when, only minutes into the film, Sarah announces to Peter that she’s breaking up with him — while he’s standing there, stark naked, as seems to happen quite often in Apatow-produced films — he can only make sad puppy eyes as she walks out of his life, with nary an explanation.

Film Review

There’s enough hot air in “Flight of the Red Balloon” to make you steam over its vaporous examination of a Parisian mother, her son and his Chinese nanny.

Little transpires beyond the mundane in this experimental film from Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien (“Three Times”), built entirely on improvisation. The idea is interesting in theory, but a disaster in execution.

Nothing’s left to the imagination, at least when it comes to Jason Segel’s anatomy, in the new comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Just a few minutes in, when the title character, played by Kristen Bell, is breaking up with Segel’s character, Peter Bretter, there he is, in all his glory, stark naked, fully frontal, getting the bad news.

 Segel, who was Nick on “Freaks and Geeks,” Eric on “Undeclared,” and now is Marshall on “How I Met Your Mother,” credits his show-all scene to Judd Apatow, who produced those shows as well as “Sarah Marshall."

While you weren’t paying attention, the Independent Film Festival of Boston got big. A staggering 96 films are included in this year’s incarnation, which runs April 23-29 in Somerville, Cambridge and Brookline. In addition, there will be filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions, and parties.

And look at the names this year’s event is attracting: Oscar-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley and Mary Stuart Masterson, who’s making her directorial debut.

And local filmmaking success story Brad Anderson will help kick things off on Opening Night, when he’s on hand to screen his new film, “Transsiberian.”

Film Review

I like George Clooney. The rugged good looks. The gravelly voice. And during interviews, he’s open and honest and often amazingly self-deprecating. Just ask him about “Batman & Robin” some time; you’ll get an earful about how he helped destroy the franchise.

 It’s that sense of humor and his comic acting ability that earns this guy a whole lot of extra credit. Check out his timing in the “Ocean” movies, his way with facial expressions in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” or his physical presence in his “Welcome to Collinwood” cameos. Then remember, for heaven’s sake, that he was the voice of Sparky the Dog in “South Park!”

Film Review

Keanu Reeves is a lot of things, but complex isn’t one of them. That doesn’t dissuade him from trying, though, in the gritty dirty-cop thriller “Street Kings.”

As the shoot-first, ask-for-clemency-later detective Tom Ludlow, Reeves is only the king of vapidity. He’s as phony as his tightly stretched latex face.

Nothing new, I know, but this is one movie where his lack of gravitas actually serves him well, playing an emotionally bankrupt cop whose idealism has given way to cynicism and dread in the wake of his wife’s recent death.

It’s the age-old question that’s been kicking around Hollywood since the days of the silents: What exactly does a producer do?

 British producer Jeremy Thomas, who’s coming to town next week to be honored with the annual Coolidge Award, still hasn’t figured it out. But he’s comfortable offering up one simplistic description: “You take charge and you make things happen.”

What’s scarier — tracking down a terrorist or eating a month’s worth of Big Macs?

There may be only one man who can answer that question.

Film Review

No one has done a better job of setting the honky-tonk rock of The Rolling Stones to film than Martin Scorsese.

Imagine “Goodfellas,” “Casino” or “The Departed” without the pulsating thunder of a Stones tune to underscore the anger, rebellion and catharsis of fighting against the machine. The truth is, you can’t. Just like you can’t imagine a better man than Scorsese to direct the 18th documentary about the World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band.

Film Review

Though it doesn’t quite live up to its title, “Flawless” shines as a multifaceted diamond heist film that effectively blends the Swinging-Sixties stylishness of “Mad Men” with the politics and intrigue of “Inside Man.”

The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF), headquartered at Brandeis University, seems to have every aspect of Jewish-related films covered. Amidst the year-round business of maintaining the largest archive of Jewish films in the world — outside of Israel — restoring old Yiddish films, and distributing 350 titles at international festivals and film programs, they put on one heck of a local festival every spring.

The world of rock ‘n’ roll first took notice of the scrappy Brit band the Who well before they started smashing their instruments. On their way to leading the second wave of the British Invasion, they were called the Detours, then the Who, then the High Numbers. By the time documentary director Murray Lerner started catching them on film, at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, they were again, and forever, the Who.

 Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon and John Entwistle — monster rockers all. The first three were crazed performers; just Entwistle stood still, only his fingers flying. Oddly, despite the popularity of their insane stage shows and the rough-hewn songs on their string of polished albums — including the massively successful “Tommy” — the band had only one Top-10 hit: “I Can See for Miles” reached number 9 in 1967. In Lerner’s newest music film, the career-spanning “Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who,” singer Daltrey and guitarist Townshend — the living half of the band — recall their early days and heyday, accompanied by footage of the band’s rise and various falls.

Film Review

Hollywood has never let a good story get in the way of a mediocre movie. But it deals a particularly bad hand to the less-than-crackerjack blackjack saga “21.”

Culled from Ben Mezrich’s best-seller, “Bringing Down the House,” “21” takes a can’t-miss tale about a group of MIT eggheads scoring millions counting cards in Vegas and turns it into craps.