Movie Summaries and Movie Reviews By Michael The Moviegoer

Usually when a film wins the Oscar for Best Picture, the director of that film goes on to have a long career of interesting and important films. Poor Bruce Beresford. Nothing he’s done since 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy” has resonated with anyone.

“The Other Guys” is laugh-out-loud funny. A firey send-up of the buddy-cop action genre. After a string of disappointments, Will Ferrell returns to his A-game. This is the kind of movie that made Ferrell a comedy star in the first place.

In 1998, Todd Solondz made a brilliantly edgy slice of indie cinema called “Happiness” in which nobody was even close to being happy. Dysfunctional relationships and sexual frustration infected every character. The performances were daring. The final scene one of the greatest ever. I thought Solondz was some kind of genius. Until now.

The trailer and poster for “Middle Men” promises a movie that could be the “Boogie Nights” of internet porn movies. But George Gallo is clearly not as skilled or as visionary a filmmaker as Paul Thomas Anderson. So what we’re left with is a teaser of a film that actually plays like a feature-length trailer for the film we’d like to see.

Angelina Jolie is a double (or triple) agent in the new action spy thriller “Salt”. I was astonished by its stupidity. Even by the fact that the script, director and the actors were all taking it so seriously. How did they keep a straight face without cracking up?