Is this really Jet Li’s farewell to the martial arts genre? Call me a cynic, but I’m doubtful. I’m doubtful because Li’s claims that he’s quitting the genre – due to the perversion of the whole concept of martial arts by the fans — is just too much the same as the theme of Jet […]
Roberto Rossellini’s Open City (1945) ushered in a period — and a style — of filmmaking called Italian neo-realism — a movement in Italian cinema born more of economics than an aesthetic decision. Federico Fellini, who had his first job in film as co-screenwriter of this film, wrote, “It was an art form invented by […]
It’s easy to see why Quinceanara picked up the Audience Award at Sundance — it has “crowd-pleaser” writ large over every frame. It’s a little harder to understand it copping the festival’s dramatic Grand Jury Prize, since the film, while certainly a pleasant and worthy attempt, is both significantly flawed and a little troubling in […]
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” — […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia may well be the most supremely messed-up film I’ve ever afforded four stars. (Actually, “messed-up” doesn’t really convey the level of derangement I’m trying to convey, but the dictates of taste and the sensibility of my readership will not allow the term I’d adopt in casual conversation.) Oh, sure, […]
Someone writing in praise of this angst-driven whine-fest of a movie noted that it is not escapist fare. That may be true, but well before the halfway point in The Last Kiss, I was looking for an escape route. Now, I liked Zach Braff’s Garden State (2004) and I liked Braff in it. It was […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“Adobo” is the national Filipino dish made of pork, chicken, garlic and olive oil. And that should be enough to tell you that this is another one of those films where a series of stories are linked to the act of eating and getting together — this time with a group of disparate friends who […]
