Drama
Rod Lott
Nearly every scene of the made-for-HBO Game Change, I recall from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's excellent nonfiction book of the same name. But the movie directed by Jay Roach (of the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents franchises) tells only half — maybe even just one-quarter — of the story, ignoring the 2008 presidential-campaign narratives of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for the one it finds most compelling: that of Sarah Palin and John McCain, and not the other way around.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Seven's not a lucky number in the case of Seven Psychopaths, writer/director Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated In Bruges. In fact, the math is all wrong, as I kept waiting for its disparate elements to add up. Unfortunately, it never did.