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summary judgmentSummary JudgmentHighlights from the week in criticism.2NA=1154&NC=1208&DI=4098&PS=58335&PI=7315SummaryJudgmentfalsefalseCulturespacernotembeddedsummary judgmentYuppie-sploitationBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on The Brave One and In the Valley of Elah.noYuppie-sploitationThe critical buzz on The Brave One and In the Valley of Elah.nospacer205150The Brave OneZoe Kravitz, Jodie Foster, and Victor Colicchio in The Brave Onefalsefalse1/123125/123064/2156591/2173285/070914_SJ_braveOne.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123064/2156591/2173285/070914_SJ_braveOne.jpg205150http://img.slate.com/mediafalse20094710518PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:18 PM63374706318338727120094710518PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:18 PM63374706318338727120094710518PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:18 PM633747063183387271false200791441106PMFridaySepSeptember169/14/2007 8:11:06 PM633253830660000000200791441106PMFridaySepSeptember169/14/2007 8:11:06 PM633253830660000000The Brave One (Warner Bros.). Jodie Foster's top-flight performance as a softie, liberal public radio host turned stone-cold vigilante killer lends a touch of class to this "upscale revenge drama" (the Onion A.V. Club). The Los Angeles Times isn't alone in seeing a contradiction in terms: a movie "trapped in a no man's land between seriousness and pulp trash." But most critics think it works—reprehensible or no. Despite himself, the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter gives in: "You may hate yourself for yielding to the expertise of the manipulation, but the vicarious thrill of 'The Brave One' is the sense of pulling your own trigger on pure evil and watching the bullet tear through." And at least Scott Foundas, in the Village Voice, thinks that mechanism—turning liberals against their better instincts—makes this an important movie: "more worth writing, talking, and thinking about than anything that has tumbled off the Hollywood assembly line in a good long while." (Buy tickets to The Brave One. Read Eric Lichtenfeld's Slate piece on vigilante movies.)—Sept. 14truenotochyperlinkno2007910121109PMMondaySepSeptember129/10/2007 4:11:09 PM633250230690000000200791443941PMFridaySepSeptember169/14/2007 8:39:41 PM633253847810000000summary judgmentThe Western Lives OnBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on 3:10 to Yuma and Shoot 'Em Up.noThe Western Lives OnThe critical buzz on 3:10 to Yuma and Shoot 'Em Up.no3:10 to Yuma (Lionsgate). Critics like this Western, in part because it feels familiar—it remakes the 1957 classic of the same name and is steeped in the conventions of the genre, though it's more expressive and violent than the original. In The New Yorker, David Denby writes, "I found myself settling into its stern logic and its physical splendor with a grateful sigh." At the same time, the new film is too elaborate for some: The Village Voice's J. Hoberman sighs, "What's lost in [director James] Mangold's rough-hewn exercise in barroom-brawl baroque is the original one-on-one." As the New York Times explains in a review of a new special-edition DVD, the original film was "a psychological drama, as intense as a Bergman marital duel, but played out in a forceful exchange of looks and gestures." In any case, reviewers think performances are fine—especially Russell Crowe as the brilliant psychopath at the center of the movie and Peter Fonda as a grizzled bounty hunter. (Buy tickets to 3:10 to Yuma. Buy the original 1957 version on DVD.)—Sept. 7truenotochyperlinkno20079434457PMTuesdaySepSeptember159/4/2007 7:44:57 PM63324517497000000020079710139PMFridaySepSeptember139/7/2007 5:01:39 PM633247668990000000summary judgmentThe Latino JobBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on Ladrón que roba a ladrón and The Nines.noThe Latino JobThe critical buzz on Ladrón que roba a ladrón and The Nines.noLadrón que roba a ladrón (Lionsgate). A bunch of Latino immigrants, trusting in their invisibility in a casually bigoted Los Angeles, set out to pull off an outrageous heist. This describes the plot of Ladrón que roba a ladrón ("A thief who steals from a thief"), but also the production: As critics note, "the film bears a suspicious, almost lawsuit-worthy resemblance to the Ocean's movies" (Nathan Rabin, the Onion's A.V. Club). So much the better, most reviewers think. USA Today's Claudia Puig fully endorses the caper, writing: "It's not a watered-down imitation or a south-of-the-border remake. It is clever, funny and very entertaining." The movie's political message is played lightly, but the Austin Chronicle hears it loud and clear: "Ladrón is grand Hollywood entertainment for and about a long-ignored culture that's just now starting to sense the potential vastness of its own economic and political influence. To make an intelligent heist film is difficult work; to shoot an entertaining sociological study is near impossible. To manage both at the same time has got to be some kind of minor miracle." (Buy tickets to Ladrón que roba a ladrón.)—Aug. 31truenotochyperlinkno200782711231PMMondayAugAugust138/27/2007 5:12:31 PM633238171510000000200783151649PMFridayAugAugust178/31/2007 9:16:49 PM633241774090000000summary judgmentNanny BoresBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on The Nanny Diaries and The King of Kong.noNanny BoresThe critical buzz on The Nanny Diaries and The King of Kong.nospacer205150The Nanny DiariesNicholas Art and Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diariesfalsefalse1/123125/123064/2156591/2171735/070824_SJ_Nanny.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123064/2156591/2171735/070824_SJ_Nanny.jpg205150http://img.slate.com/mediafalse20094710517PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:17 PM63374706317932474720094710517PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:17 PM63374706317932474720094710517PMTuesdayAprApril134/7/2009 5:05:17 PM633747063179324747false200782433444PMFridayAugAugust158/24/2007 7:34:44 PM633235664840000000200782433444PMFridayAugAugust158/24/2007 7:34:44 PM633235664840000000The Nanny Diaries (MGM). Everyone compares this film to last year's The Devil Wears Prada (both films are based on dishy novels that send up Manhattan's elite). Unfortunately for The Nanny Diaries, it's very much the loser. New York magazine's David Edelstein calls it "a grim slog"—and few critics would disagree. The highlight is unequivocally Laura Linney, who "delivers a masterpiece of Cruella De Vil-level toxin" (per the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter) as the evil mom/boss Mrs. X. (Although she still doesn't live up to Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly.) The mopey Scarlett Johansson and her shiftless protagonist don't fare as well. The New York Times' Stephen Holden smirks that she "may smolder invitingly in certain roles, but The Nanny Diaries is the latest in a string of films that suggest that this somnolent actress confuses sullen attitudinizing with acting." (Buy tickets to The Nanny Diaries. Read Dana Stevens' review of The Nanny Diaries in Slate.)—Aug. 24truenotochyperlinkno200782010635PMMondayAugAugust138/20/2007 5:06:35 PM6332321199500000002007824125850PMFridayAugAugust128/24/2007 4:58:50 PM633235571300000000summary judgmentSupergoodBlake WilsonThe critical buzz on Superbad.noSupergoodThe critical buzz on Superbad.noSuperbad (Sony). Last month, the New Yorker's David Denby lamented the state of romantic comedy, as epitomized by Judd Apatow's phallocentric Knocked Up. But this teen sex comedy, co-written by that film's star, Seth Rogen, and co-produced by Apatow, has him rethinking his position: "I recently wrote that I could happily do without any more movies devoted to the breaking of the male bond. Yet here's an uproarious and touching picture on that theme." Superbad follows two high-school nerds in their mock-epic quest to score booze and get laid. It's incredibly (incredibly!) obscene and, critics think, extremely hilarious. David Edelstein of New York magazine notes "a nonstop stream of F- and P- and D-words that would make David Mamet sit up and salute." But as the New York Times' Manohla Dargis writes, the film is attuned to "[t]he divide between what a man says … and how he really feels inside … no matter how unapologetically vulgar their words, no matter how single-mindedly priapic their preoccupations, these men and boys are good and decent and tender and true." In a phrase: Classic Apatow. (Read Dana Stevens' review of Superbad in Slate. Buy tickets to Superbad.)—Aug. 17truenotochyperlinkno200781360150PMMondayAugAugust188/13/2007 10:01:50 PM6332262491000000002007817122107PMFridayAugAugust128/17/2007 4:21:07 PM633229500670000000200311442523PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:25:23 PM631781583230000000200311442523PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:25:23 PM631781583230000000falsetruefalsefalsefalsefalsetrue20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001102623213PMFridayOctOctober1410/26/2001 6:32:13 PM631397035330000000