Shark Tale comes from at least some of the people responsible for Shrek, and there may even be a few moments that will remind you of the latter film, and also of Shrek 2 (Shark Tale‘s shrimp, in fact, almost seem lifted directly from the Shrek flicks). However, there’s a gap about 20,000 leagues wide […]
The so-called portmanteau film — a collection of stories in a single vessel — is by its very nature a tricky proposition. Even the best of them — Julien Duvivier’s Tales of Manhattan, the multi-director Dead of Night — rises and falls on the quality of the individual episodes. Duvivier’s film, for example, soars in […]
I hardly needed to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show again to write this review. That said, I watched it anyway — if for no other reason than that I had an excuse to do so. And seeing the film anew reminded me that there’s really a lot more to it than its status as […]
Even while ruminating over the idea that Woman, Thou Art Loosed would likely sell a lot more tickets if it lost that final “d” in its title, I still held some hopes for the film before seeing it. After all, it boasted a generally recognizable cast and director, an actual (albeit small) releasing company and […]
There’s a certain unschooled line of thought running through many of the things being said about Jehain Noujaim’s documentary Control Room. Time and again, her “objectivity” is trotted out as something apparently surprising in the wake of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. I’m not sure what’s surprising. Noujaim’s previous work as co-director on Start-up.com and as […]
Francis Veber is probably better known for his writing than for his direction — and best known for having penned La Cage aux Folles, which spawned the U.S. remake The Birdcage. (Hollywood seems to like remaking Veber’s scripts and films, having annexed The Tall Blonde Man With One Black Shoe, The Toy, Les Comperes and […]
The Forgotten is very aptly named: I’d forgotten a lot of it by the time I hit the lobby (I think I was trying to block its pervasive preposterousness and rampaging ridiculousness from my mind). Not that I didn’t enjoy the film in bits and pieces — mostly for its unintended hilarity (there are far […]
As a mere boy, I bumped into Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle on television — and didn’t like it. Many years later, I saw part of his Traffic — and didn’t like it. With that, I wrote off Tati’s work as something just not for me. And it was with that in mind that I faced […]
Five years after M. Hulot’s Holiday Tatit came out with Mon Oncle. The latter film makes up for the fact that it lacks some of its predecessor’s charm by instead actually having something to say. Again, the plot is minimal: M. Hulot wanders through the modern world (1958), casually and accidentally disrupting the lives of […]
If ever a movie deserved the half-star rating, it’s this one. But this …thing is just so incredibly bad and astoundingly wrong-headed that it gets at least a one-star rating for its uncanny ability to make the viewer stare at the screen in glassy-eyed, open-mouthed wonderment. First-time director Gary Preisler has a few writing and […]
Yes, this is a stunt picture (I don’t think anyone would deny that a movie in which only the actors are real could be anything but). That said, several films that we now regard as classic or semi-classic — King Kong being the most famous — were originally stunt pictures as well. So that can’t […]
The Beloved Rogue (1927) is probably John Barrymore’s greatest silent film, with the possible exception of the previous year’s Don Juan. It’s as worthy a representation of the Great Profile in the silent era as Svengali and Twentieth Century are in the age of sound pictures. Likewise, it’s a reminder that the great Barrymore was […]
I spent a good deal of time during Richard Loncraine’s Wimbledon thinking: You know, Resident Evil: Apocalypse is really loud (since it was playing in the next auditorium, and could be heard through the wall). I spent some more time mulling over the fact that Kirsten Dunst has rather odd teeth. And I then I […]
Let’s just get this out of the way: Zatoichi does indeed include a big tap-dancing production-number finale complete with overhead Busby Berkeley shots, as reviewers have made much of. And, yep, the splashy ending actually works within the confines of this original and unique film. What I’ve not seen really addressed, though, is why it […]
Greta Garbo makes her Cinema in the Park debut — and on her birthday, aptly enough — in Fred Niblo’s 1928 romantic spy thriller The Mysterious Lady. Garbo’s greatest work was arguably in the talkies (though it’s a wonder her career survived the first few of those!), with movies like Grand Hotel, Queen Christina and […]
One person’s profound is another person’s pretentious twaddle. And I am very much in the minority where Before Sunset is concerned — 126 glowing reviews versus six naysayers. Because I lean toward the latter, regarding it as pretentious twaddle. Here’s the scoop: Back in 1995, Richard Linklater contrived a little romantic film, Before Sunrise, about […]
Somebody get Larry Cohen a movie he can call his own — please! The genial exploitation schlockmeister behind It’s Alive!, The Stuff, Q: The Winged Serpent and The Ambulance keeps coming up with scripts and concepts that would no doubt have turned out better had Cohen himself directed them. First there was Phone Booth and […]
Despite my once having appeared on FOX News Radio as a guest on Alan Colmes’ show debating the FOX Movie Channel’s banning of Charlie Chan films, I confess to only a minimal firsthand knowledge of FOX TV’s news coverage prior to watching Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism. Oh, sure, I knew that […]
Warning: This review is not intended for fans of the Resident Evil video games. I have no idea how faithful this film is (or isn’t) to its sources, nor how much it might please (or displease) fans on this basis. The movie certainly plays like a video game — with one basic, very contrived goal […]
Before there was a Rocky Horror Picture Show phenomenon, and before midnight movies like Phantom of the Paradise, Tommy and Carrie were the order of the day, there was Harold and Maude. Director Hal Ashby’s cult classic spoke to the generation of the early 1970s much as Richar Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night and Karel […]
Is this the worst movie ever made? No, but it’s certainly a strong contender for the most loathsome piece of self-serving, hypocritical trash ever to ooze its way out of a studio. It’s also quite possibly the most morally reprehensible film ever to slither by the MPAA with a PG-13 rating. Not that it’s uncommon […]
