http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey RSS Feed for Inq Col Carrie Rickey en-us Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:07:48 GMT http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091119_newmoon.html Something about Bella Swan brings out the sexy beast in boys - likewise their gallantry. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091120_Kurosawa_s_classic_mystery_retold_from_four_perspectives.html Seeking shelter from a driving rain, a priest and a peasant huddle under Kyoto's dilapidated Rashomon Gate. They shake their heads in bewilderment at a mystery that cannot easily be solved in 11th century Japan, where feudal wars have left Kyoto - and the truth - in ruins. A woodcutter, who claims to have witnessed a rape and a murder in the woods, joins the pair to talk about what occurred. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091114_Our_critics__selections.html 2012 Nobody makes doomsday movies with happy endings like Roland Emmerich. And this one, starring John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor, is the biggest, loudest example of Emmerich's philosophy that it's OK if eight billion people die so long as eight movie stars - and the dog - live. PG-13 http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091113_Harrowing_plot__heroic_performances.html Admit it. At least once on the bus, you've recoiled from another passenger. Maybe it was the waxy skin or the vacant expression or the inarticulate voice. You just didn't want to know from her. Or maybe you thought you knew all there was to know. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091113_Watch_the_world_go_kaput_3_years_hence.html Nobody makes doomsday movies with happy endings like Roland Emmerich. However hard it is to imagine, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow are merely serene overtures to the bombastic opera that is 2012. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091113_Offbeat_comedy_on_class_clashes.html Raquel has served the Valdes family, an upper-middle-class Chilean clan, for 23 years. From washing the laundry to preparing meals to dressing the kids and getting them out the door, Raquel is the oil that keeps this domestic engine running. Lately, that engine has been sputtering. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091110_Grace__A_well_told_story_of_Act_1__at_least.html Grace Kelly, bricklayer's daughter and alabaster goddess, was a stunner from East Falls who shone briefly, and memorably, on screen before she became Her Serene Highness, Princess of Monaco. Twenty-six when she wed, she was 52 when she died in an automobile accident. Her life divides into two acts of equal length. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091107_Our_critics__selections.html An Education Carey Mulligan shines as the Oxford-bound honors student courted by a mysterious suitor twice her age (Peter Sarsgaard) in this resonant story directed by Lone Scherfig from Lynn Barber's memoir. PG-13 http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091106_Nice_effects__but_spirit_needs_to_visit.html As Ebenezer Scrooge (not to mention The Grinch), Jim Carrey aims to put a lump of coal in the Christmas stocking and a lump of emotion in the throat. That he fails is not for lack of effort. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/carrie_rickey/20091106_A_South_African_tale_in_living_color.html Based on the improbable-but-true saga of Sandra Laing, the dark-complected daughter of light-complected Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era, Skin is a surreal melodrama of arbitrary racial labeling that estranged a woman from herself, her family of origin, and the father of her children.