Sweet but not saccharine, cute but not sick-making, Monsters, Inc. isn’t in the same league as Shrek, but then it really isn’t meant to be. Shrek was an animated film for adults that had sufficient whimsy to also appeal to children. Monsters, Inc. is an animated film for children that has enough savvy humor to […]
The 26-year-old comedy classic is back on the big screen in a stunningly restored print that not only captures the inspired lunacy of the British comedy troupe in their prime and at their most controlled, but reminds us what an exceptionally accomplished piece of filmmaking Monty Python and the Holy Grail actually is. While the […]
Some critics are using last year’s In the Bedroom as a cudgel against Brad Silberling’s Moonlight Mile. The “raw honesty” of Bedroom’s much-acclaimed angst-fest is being trotted out as a measure of the “falseness” of Moonlight Mile. Now, why is Moonlight Mile being called “false?” Simply because it allows its characters to both grieve and […]
As I walked up to the Fine Arts Theater, I couldn’t entirely suppress a slight chuckle at the marquee’s bold proclamation of Mostly Martha’s star, Martina Gedeck. Indeed, when I went inside, I just had to ask, “So is Mostly Martha pulling in the Martina Gedeck crowd?” The irony is that while there isn’t, of […]
If you hate musicals, stay away. If you hate opera, run for your life. If you want to see the most intoxicating, mind-bending, dazzling, nonstop display of sheer cinematic invention in ages, then waste no time in getting to Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!. This is The Goods. This is what filmmaking ought to be about […]
There’s a scene early on in Frank Capra’s 1936 classic, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, where Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) is packed off on a train by the townsfolk of Mandrake Falls, Vt. on his trip to New York to collect his $20 million (interestingly, the amount of Sandler’s guaranteed salary for the new version) […]
View him as you like — preposterous self-indulgent fake, cinematic visionary, or deeply disturbed individual — there’s no denying that David Lynch is unique. Nobody makes movies quite like his. Perhaps nobody wants to. At his best (The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet), his work is challenging, thought-provoking, and shot through with keen, albeit often peculiar, […]
When people see the name Barbet Schroeder, there’s an immediate tendency to think, “Oh, Reversal of Fortune.” In fact, they might do better to more warily think, “Oh, Single White Female.” And while Murder by Numbers isn’t quite in that latter league of silly suspenser, it’s closer to that than to Reversal of Fortune. Murder […]
A friend of mine came up to me part way through My Big Fat Greek Wedding and asked how I liked it. “It reminds me a lot of a TV sitcom,” I remarked. That’s not terribly surprising when you scan the credits of director Joel Zwick — Family Matters, Full House, Joanie Loves Chachi, Happy […]
I couldn’t help but spend a great deal of the seemingly interminable running time of My Wife Is an Actress thinking of the moment in Stardust Memories when Woody Allen is asked if he finds it hard directing himself and answers, “No, I just find it hard to resist the temptation to give myself too […]
Martin Lawrence has to be the singularly most untalented, most obnoxious, most misogynistic and most racist comedian working in movies today. That’s a lot of mosts, but “most overpaid” can easily be added to the list. Lawrence was reportedly paid $20 million for starring in National Security. I can’t think why, since I’ve yet to […]
Any film version of Nicholas Nickelby that casts Nathan Lane as theatrical impresario Vincent Crummles and Barry Humphries (in his Dame Edna drag incarnation) as Mrs. Crummles is clearly a Dickens of a departure from Masterpiece Theatre-dom. (In fact, I can’t completely suppress a smile just thinking about Alistair Cooke screening this.) However, don’t get […]
As clever as a firkin full of simians and as stylish as they come, writer-director Fabian Bielensky (a former assistant director with one previous screenplay, La Sonambula, to his credit) has fashioned what may just be at the top of the list of con movies. It’s certainly the perfect summer entertainment — a refreshing antidote […]
Don’t be fooled by the clever and entertaining trailer for this one. It’s yet another of the comedy dogs from the Columbia kennel, and it might actually be worse than such gems they sent our way this year as Joe Dirt and The Animal. Granted, Columbia wasn’t responsible for Freddy Got Fingered — or the […]
Eight years ago David Atkins wrote one of the most bizarre and original screenplays of the 90s, Arizona Dream — a work that managed to mix Eskimos, used cars, accordion playing, turtles, stand-up comedy, fantasy, Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, and Lili Taylor into a strangely cohesive and compelling whole. Now, Atkins appears on […]
Made several years ago (so Josh Hartnett as a high-school kid isn’t the stretch it might seem), Tim Blake Nelson’s O was shelved following the events at Columbine High. The distributors thought that this story of high-school violence was too near the real-life events to be released, even though the actual connection is fairly tenuous. […]
It started life back in 1960 as little more than a vanity vehicle for the “Rat Pack” — Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. It wasn’t a very good movie, despite being directed by legendary Hollywood filmmaker Lews Milestone. But it didn’t have to be very good. The whole […]
This movie is about exactly what you expect. I can just hear the pitch that director/co-writer Todd Phillips gave the studio: “It’s like Animal House, only the guys are 30 years old, see? And they’re trying to relive their college days.” This is what is known as putting a fresh spin on threadbare material. Well, […]
The Kinks’ Ray Davies once sang, “People take pictures of each other, just to prove that they really existed. People take pictures of each other — and the moment will last them forever, of a time when they mattered to someone.” In One Hour Photo, Sy Parrish (Robin Williams) remarks, “If pictures have anything to […]
This movie is what happens when you put the son of director Lawrence Kasdan, the son of Tom Hanks and the daughter of Sissy Spacek (Schuyler Fisk) together. It’s known as being “connected,” in the Hollywood lexicon. It’s how you line up a supporting cast that reads like a Who’s Who of comedy — Catherine […]
This is either the worst good movie I’ve ever seen or the best bad one. I can’t decide exactly which is the case with this deliriously trashy period melodrama. But make no mistake — good, bad or utterly awful — Original Sin is not only trashy melodrama, it revels in the fact. Writer/director Michael Cristofer’s […]
