Getting Screwed By Your Contractor? Need help? Click Here.

By Harvey Karten (AZR) - Who's to say that "Pan's Labyrinth" is an art film while "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is mere comic-book fantasy for the younger set? Surely not Guillermo del Toro, credited for directing both, using the kind of imagination that most of us are said to lose by the time we're fourteen years of age. "Pan's Labyrinth" gets its "art" label partly because of its original title, "El labyrinto del fauno," but largely because it's anchored by an actual historical event, the Spanish Civil War, whereby in the fascist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world. Let's say, then that "Hellboy II" may be (hopefully) not set during any realistic period, though its Manhattan location brings to mind Al Pacino's character, Lt. Col. Frank Slade's comment in "Scent of a Woman," calling New York "freak show central." Where else can people who look like Hellboy aka Red (Ron Perlman), a literally flaming woman, Liz (Selma Blair), and a goggled, green, something from the depth of the ocean, Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) appear on the streets without regular human beings looking twice?

By Harvey Karten (AZR) - One of the errors of omission that critics make when they write about what they see is that we emphasize story over film-making art. In other words we review movies from a literary standpoint instead of a cinematic one. Are the characters believable? Does the narrative move forward at an appropriate pace? Are the actors sleepwalking through their roles, or are they well cast and emoting as expected? When we review an animated work, however, style IS substance. We want to delight in the magical ways the animators show off their skill in designing the action, making inanimate objects lifelike and enchanting. The story is secondary. "Wall-E" is one such victory of style over substance. Though the story mixes genres in a creative way—comedy, sci-fi, satire, romance—the robotic antics become tiresome with an overdose of "character development" until the automatons reconnect with human beings on a nearby galaxy.

By Harvey Karten (AZR) - Moviegoers across our fair country have accepted, may even embraced, the idea that summertime calls for light fare: books we can read at the beach, theater that leaves us feeling good, and big-studio movies that allow us to check our brains at the door. Prone as we critics are to seek out indies that help us to explain the human condition, there are exceptions that give us hope for big-studio fare. Pixar studio's "Wall-E" is one major offering this summer that appears to have almost unanimous critical acceptance. But for the most part, we understand that the megaplex will offer the likes "Hellboy 2" and "The Incredible Hulk," "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" and "The Love Guru."

By Harvey Karten (AZR) - If you're now or ever was a card-carrying fraternity member, you'll recall what you went through to turn from a mere pledge to a brother. If your experience was like mine, your final days as a pledge was called "hell week," when you had to scrub the meeting-room floor with a toothbrush, rattle off the names of the fraternity founders on four hours' sleep, and perhaps got taken with your fellow pledges to the woods, miles away, and dumped at midnight. This was all in the cause of bonding with your fellow pledges, we were later told, and likewise, in Timur Bekmambetov's graphic action adaptation of Mark Miller and J.G. Jones's comic strips, one young man goes through far more hell before induction into a grown-up fraternity. "Wanted," composed of breathless action with a few pauses to explain what's going on in a convoluted plot, is filled with car crashes, people smashing through windows, one spectacular view of a derailed train, guns that shoot bullets as though they were curve balls—in short, everything that summer actioners are and should be about. Best of all is the casting of James McAvoy, who turned in a terrific performance as Idi Amin's naďve Doctor Nicholas Garrigan in "The Last King of Scotland," sporting a flawless American accent: not the easiest trick to learn if you're a Glaswegian by birth.

By Harvey Karten (AZR) - Take a look at this week's New York Times best sellers and you'll find titles like "The Secret," "Quantum Wellness," "Just Who Will You Be?" "Letters to a Young Sister," "The Power of Now," and "The Five Love Languages." One would think that by now every bit of advice to readers would be exhausted. What's new under the sun? Vulnerable that we are, we gobble up the latest counsel from "Oprah" magazine and sex advice from "Cosmopolitan" as though every new issue does more than reinvent the wheel. Does any of this counseling help? Who knows? Sometimes what seems to be computer-driven print in these books and magazines, filled as they are with gobbledegook like "be here now" is ripe for satire. That's where German-born director Marco Schnabel comes in with his debut feature. "The Love Guru" is one such attempt to parody the self-help industry, and in addition is a spoof not of gurus in general—contrary to what some Hindus protesting the movie think—but of people who set themselves up to be gurus, or teachers, but who are phonies interested only in women, fancy cars, and real estate in Monte Carlo, Paris, and New York.

Now, if it's questionable that self-help books really assist anyone to master the difficulties of living, there's no question that "The Love Guru" is a dud—maybe not so for audience members who are easy to please, who think that summer movies should be exempted from critical appraisal. The film does not work as satire because Mike Myers, who is in virtually every frame, laughing at his own jokes (well, somebody has to laugh at what passes for humor), knocks out wisecracks that are persistently redundant, stupid and coarse. While there's nothing wrong with vulgarity, if you want to have successful sight gags that are down-and-dirty, make sure that Judd Apatow is connected with your production. Clearly Mr. Apatow is not around.

By Harvey Karten (AZR) - Who would have guessed that an arty director like Ang Lee, known for "Brokeback Mountain," "The Ice Storm," "Sense and Sensibility" and "Eat Drink Man Woman" helmed a blockbuster like "The Hulk" in 2003? Money talks, I guess. The choice of Taiwan-born Mr. Lee for that film may have been unfortunate, a critical and popular disappointment which at a long 138 minutes was talky and filled with psychobabble about repressed childhood memories. That problem seems to have been corrected with the choice for director of Louis Leterrier, who, true to his last name has dug in his heels, kicked up the dirt, and sent out a blazing summer movie which the Marvel Comics crowd must have been waiting for. Co-director of "The Transporter," about a man who works delivering packages but who breaks the rules, and "Transporter 2," about a mercenary accused of kidnapping the son of a high U.S. official, Leterrier knocks out a movie that's weak on romance and wit, which for humor relies on two cameo performances and just two or three humorous remarks, but tears up the screen with powerful roars and some stunning scenes of Brazil and New York by cinematographer Peter Menzies.