If you see Testimony (1988) — Tony Palmer’s unusual biopic on Dmitri Shostakovich — it will come as no surprise that the filmmaker worked with Ken Russell on Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1966) during Russell’s BBC days. (You might be more surprised to find that he co-directed Cream’s Farewell Concert for […]
It’s fascinating to look back on the original reviews for Costa-Gavras’ Missing (1982). Most gave the film high marks for drama, performances and the sheer chutzpah of daring to make a film that concludes U.S. government officials knew of and were even implicated in the murder of left-wing American journalist Charles Horman in Chile in […]
Laurent Cantet’s Heading South is a good movie that thinks it’s a daring one — and it may be, but it’s also a movie that hedges its daring and often seems unclear on just what point it’s out to make. The story — set in the late 1970s in Port-au-Prince, Haiti — concerns three (well, […]
With Gridiron Gang you get almost exactly what you think you will: The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson) teaches a bunch of delinquents self-respect and the meaning of teamwork by turning them into a football team while they’re in juvenile prison. In other words, it’s another “true story” — or in this case, “TRUE STORY” — […]
Such an odd little movie. Everyone’s Hero is a mighty well-intentioned children’s feature, with nary a naughty word in the dialogue. It has a distinct nostalgic palette, prettily recreating the Depression Era with viewer-friendly CGI animation. It’s got one of those “keep slugging no matter what the obstacles” themes that kindergarten teachers love. It also […]
The Protector is at least four stars’ worth of guilty pleasure, and maybe more. It’s hands down the best kung-fu movie ever made — with all that implies. That means the film is delirious in its absurdity, raging in its preposterousness, jaw-droppingly bad in its acting, astonishing in its feats of derring-do, spotty in its […]
Back in the late 1950s, there were these nifty toy cars made in several pieces and held together by rubber bands. The objective was to propel the car into a wall so the pieces would fly apart like in a real wreck. It could then be reassembled and you were ready for your next head-on […]
The tagline for Allen Coulter’s Hollywoodland — “Living in Hollywood can make you famous. Dying in Hollywood can make you a legend” — raises the questions of just what constitutes a legend and whether George Reeves qualifies as one. His status as TV’s Superman in the 1950s makes him a nostalgic figure with baby boomers, […]
Early in Jean-Jacques Beineix’s directorial debut, Diva (1981), the character Gorodish (Richard Bohringer, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover) is described as “going through his cool period.” Much the same could be said of Beineix with this film — a work that simply oozes cool, but in a very special way. Beineix […]
Generally speaking, Louis Malle’s films are a little too restrained for my taste, but as with most things, there are exceptions. With Malle the exception is his semiautobiographical 1987 work, Au Revoir, Les Enfants, a film where his restraint is less pronounced than usual. Malle’s approach is perfectly suited to the subject — not in […]
The only real problem with Who Killed the Electric Car? is the predictable one of “preaching to the choir.” Let’s face it, the primary audience for this film — for this type of film — is made up of people already sold on its basic premise. Does anyone really think the core viewership will drive […]
Neil LaBute is neither stupid nor untalented. I say this upfront because questions concerning both topics are apt to arise from anyone who actually sits through his remake of Robin Hardy’s 1973 film The Wicker Man. I should also note that I am not coming to this as someone with any kind of “how dare […]
There’s long been a tendency to be harder on Victor Schertzinger’s 1939 film version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Mikado than should be the case. Perhaps because of its authorized status owing to the participation of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company (the number-one source for productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operas) and conductor Geoffrey […]
A solid, well-crafted mystery, The Illusionist is an unusual film in its deliberate — and very effective — old-fashioned approach. Writer-director Neil Burger has not only created the kind of romantic mystery tale that is never seen these days, but he’s gone as far as he possibly can in making the film in a style […]
Long before last year’s Good Night, and Good Luck, Martin Ritt’s The Front (1976) tackled the subject of the McCarthy era, the activities of HUAC and the blacklisting of people in the entertainment business. True, Charles Chaplin had a say on the topic as early as 1957 with A King in New York — a […]
Crossover isn’t just a bad movie; it is painfully bad. It’s a movie where you check your watch every five minutes to see exactly how much of your life you have just wasted. It manages to raise itself above other bad movies by failing to even be interesting, and instead decides to wallow in minutiae […]
Be advised: The four star rating on Crank is of the specialized variety. By any traditional definition this is not a good movie. It’s silly, preposterous, sloppy and sometimes annoyingly hip, and it has the soul of a bad exploitation movie. It’s irredeemably violent. It’s high in cinematic cholesterol and low in moral fiber. In […]
Nothing — and I mean nothing — that you have heard or read can fully prepare you for Peter Watkins’ 1965 faux documentary on the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Great Britain. Forget Hollywoodized features like On the Beach (1959) or even the well-intentioned U.S. TV film The Day After (1983). This is as […]
Though I’ll be immediately branded a Philistine (not for the first or probably last time), I have to admit that Mozart is far from my favorite composer, and I suspect that it would take someone keener on his music than I am to get the good out of this 1955 Austrian biopic that was rechristened […]
Great grief! A highly-touted, highly-hyped independent film that actually deserves all the praise and the push? Do such things exist? Little Miss Sunshine proves that they do! Whether or not that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse, I don’t know. It certainly could be, but regardless, this isn’t one of those mystifyingly praised indies […]
Predictable and safe in the tradition of Disney Studios, Invincible shows us once again that they have perfected the formula, and cornered the market on the uplifting, inspirational sports movie. The formula works in the sense that it’s impossible for the movie to be horrible, but at the same time, is unable to reach anything […]
