So, a second week without Justin here to volley wit and keep me on the windy side of care, as someone once said. It's like I'm alone in an empty theater...ECHO......Echo....echo...

Tropic Thunder: "It's as 'high concept as 'high concept' can get: a group of spoiled actors (including Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr., and Jack Black) making a Vietnam war movie accidentally stray into an actual armed conflict. Hilarity, presumably, ensues. Well, surprisingly, hilarity does actually largely ensue, thanks to a cleverer-than-necessary script (by Stiller and the talented character actor/writer Justin Theroux) that is big, bold, and even somewhat daring, and stellar comic turns from Stiller, Black, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, 'Undeclared''s Jay Baruschel, an unrecognizable Tom Cruise, and, especially, Downey whose performance here may (I'm predicting) be one of the rare comedic roles nominated for an Oscar. As Australian five-time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus playing the movie-within-a-movie's African American sergeant Osiris (in full blackface and fuller accent), Downey makes the sort of risk-taking, button-pushing comedy choices that can either sink a movie or send it skyward. Huge laughs and highly recommended."

Wall-E: "It's a Pixar movie. If you need more of a recommendation to see this new animated film about a lonely little robot in a dilapidated future, then I don't know where you've been hiding for the last ten years, or what happened to your judgment. This company has saved animation, creating hilarious, touching, sophisticated films cartoons that put the 'all' back in 'all ages entertainment'. Plus, it's message about the direction the human race seems to be headed in fits in nicely with the underrated 'Idiocracy', Mike Judge's similarly-frighteningly-satirical dystopia. Two must-sees in one week!"

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2: "Sometimes my fingers just refuse to type something. Does something with this title actually exist? 'The Sisterhood...of the Traveling Pants...Two.' Yup, not dreaming. Well, I may have to recuse myself from reviewing this one, as I haven't seen the first one, and because I can't imagine a future dystopian enough for me to see this one, oh, and because I'm a boy. I hear the titular pants get lost, though, so- big doin's..."

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: "Documentary about, well, the title should give you some clues, but I'll elaborate. Father of gonzo journalism, author of two of the best books I've ever read ('Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' and '...on the Campaign Trail '72, if you must know), notorious drug connoisseur, and cult figure Thompson was, and remains, a personal hero and, although this film doesn't really soft-pedal his decades-long decline into literary irrelevance or his anarchic (but largely humanistic) conduct, it still presents a thoughtfully-reverent portrait of the man and his work, culminating with his self-designed funeral bacchanal, wherein his ashes were fired out of a huge freaking cannon. We shall not see his like again..."

Encounters at the End of the World: "Director Werner Herzog is back with yet another beautiful, dazzling, sobering documentary, this time about the fragile, savage beauty that is Antarctica. Herzog specializes in people on the fringes, who follow their obsessions to sometimes disastrous ends (the Amazon, lighter-than-air aircraft designer in 'The White Diamond', self-proclaimed bear expert Timothy Treadwell in 'Grizzly Man', self-taught pilot and POW Dieter Dengler in 'Little Dieter Needs to Fly'), perhaps because Herzog, too, is such a person (see Les Blank's documentary 'Burden of Dreams' to see the excruciating pains Herzog went through (including hoisting a steamship over a rainforest mountain' to make 'Fitzcarraldo'), and here, with his examination of the unforgiving wastes of Antarctica and the people who choose to live there, he seems to have taken it as far as he can go."

Priceless: "America's favorite French waif Audrey Tatou returns in this melancholy comedy (melanchomedy?) about a conwoman, a lonely bartender, some misunderstandings, some revenge- you know the drill. Tatou is still looking for another role as winning as 'Amelie' (and to make people forget about 'The DaVinci Code', perhaps, and this one got some decent reviews."

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