“Sex and the City: The Movie”
The gals are back. And Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have made the leap from the small to the big screen without breaking a Manolo heel or losing their fab chemistry (though friendships are tested). Does that mean the movie is great cinema? TV critic Joanne Ostrow, who tag-teamed the Post review and found the film too episodic, put it this way: “Other than the fact that they looked fabulous, there wasn’t enough story to keep it going. And what there was, was predictable. Tedious, even. Overall, I think the inanity worked better on television.” But I wrote that the film “pushed all the buttons hit so expertly on the HBO series. There’s some terrifically deft dialogue. There’s the sense of New York as a place. And running alongside the movie’s couture splendor are some believable relationship hurdles. . . . To borrow a favorite Carrie phrase, ‘me likey.’ ” R. 2 hours, 25 minutes. Lisa Kennedy
“Leatherheads”
Slapstick meets screwball in “Leatherheads,” an amiable valentine to an era of breakneck repartee, bathtub booze and anything-goes gridiron warfare starring George Clooney. The setting is 1925 Duluth, Minn., home base of the Bulldogs, a rough-and-ready pro football team in an era when pay was low, glamour was nil and rulebooks were rarely consulted. Then Princeton football star Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford is enticed to join the teetering Bulldogs for a percentage of the gate, promoting him as the sport’s first superstar. Following Rutherford is Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), a feisty Chicago Tribune reporter. Clooney, who co-wrote the film (along with Denver’s Rick Reilly), is unabashed in his affection for period Americana and old-school filmmaking, and re-creates it with impressive technical polish.PG-13. 1 hour, 54 minutes. Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“The Foot Fist Way”
“The Foot Fist Way” suggests that everything we’ve always feared about strip-mall martial-arts teachers is true. Devoted but rotten taekwondo instructor Fred Simmons can neither fight very well nor live up to the philosophy he preaches. It’s probably destined to become as popular among guys who live in their parents’ basements. R. 1 hour, 27 minutes. Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
