There’s something almost charming — certainly brave and a little bit loopy — about trying to craft a film for the video-game set — even more so when you up the stakes with a trailer that tells them that one in four of them is addicted to playing. (Having seen this trailer seated in a […]

Prior to Walkabout, Nicolas Roeg had co-directed (with Donald Cammell) only one film, the astonishing Performance, so a good deal was riding on the cinematographer-turned-filmmaker’s second outing. Could Roeg pull off a solo film? Indeed he could — and in so doing he established himself as a filmmaker with a unique, if not always completely […]

This may not be the first great film of 2006, but it’s bound to be one of the most controversial — and that’s not only in its favor, but, I suspect, of greater concern to the filmmakers than is achieving greatness. Based on the anti-Margaret Thatcher graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore, […]

To appreciate the fuss and fury that greeted Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour on its first appearance, it’s necessary to get into a kind of 1959 mindset. In particular, the 1959 mindset of the Cahiers du Cinema group, who were looking for new type of film. They found it with Resnais’ movie, which virtually defined […]

Reviewed Mar 22, 2006 Having had several years to accustom myself to the idea of the “Dogme” school of filmmaking, I have concluded that it strikes me as one of the dumbest ideas ever to come down the pike. I suppose that I ought to use a fancier word than “dumb,” but that just seems […]

Oh ho and oh hum, this teen comedy is, to put it bluntly, kind of a drag. Someone somewhere thought it would be a hoot to borrow a little Shakespeare — a very little, and in this case, Twelfth Night — and a lot more Just One of the Guys and have Amanda Bynes (What […]

“I don’t envision a very long life for myself — like I think my life will run out before my work does, you know? I’ve designed it that way.” So speaks legendary folk/country singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt at the beginning of Margaret Brown’s documentary. And he was right, of course, since he died of a […]

Here’s the pitch: Thirty-five-year-old Trip (Matthew McConaughey) is still living at home with his parents (Kathy Bates and former pro-football player Terry Bradshaw), who are supposedly good and tired of his presence (presumably this is why they wait on him hand and foot). So when they hear about a professional motivator, Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), […]

A 1950s musical from the Arthur Freed unit at MGM directed by Vincente Minnelli (with an uncredited assist from Stanley Donen) ought by all conventional wisdom be enshrined. But something went a little bit wrong with this most opulent version of the hoary old Edward Knoblock play. Maybe it was the source material. Or maybe […]

Made in 1953 in the midst of Alec Guinness’ famous series of films for Ealing Studios, The Captain’s Paradise is often erroneously referred to as one of that number (it’s actually a British Lion and London Films co-production). The film is, however, made in clear imitation of the Ealing product, both in style and content, […]

About halfway through Alexandre Aja’s remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes, I was convinced that the film’s tag line, “The lucky ones die first,” must be referring to the viewers of this entrails-festooned entry in the Inbred Hillbilly Cannibal sub-sub-genre. True enough, this remake is less repellent and more coherent than Aja’s previous […]

Any movie that still thinks it’s funny to include on its soundtrack the Baha Men singing (and I use the term loosely) “Who Let the Dogs Out?” — whether in reference to literal or figurative canines — is so creatively and comedically bankrupt that it’s beneath any kind of serious discussion. But this is only […]

It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before the uplifting sports flick left the realm of the pop-culture marketplace and crossed over into the more rarefied venue of the art-house film. And that’s essentially what this oddly engaging — sometimes just downright odd — little movie is: a feel-good sports movie for the […]

The fact that I showed up at the Beaucatcher Cinema to review Aquamarine seemed to cause the staff some amusement and even disbelief. I should explain, however, that a friend of mine wanted to see it. He apparently has a more romantic notion of mermaids than those that adorn some cans of tuna (I confess […]

A tired-looking Bruce Willis plods his way through this tired-looking rag-bag of cliches churned out by the apparently also-tired director Richard Donner from a screenplay by Richard Wenk (Vamp), who probably isn’t tired because he hasn’t had a screenplay produced in seven years (it’s easy to see why). Donner’s reputation rests uneasily on having made […]

Was there something in the air in Great Britain in 1971? Consider: That year brought us Ken Russell’s The Devils, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs. Three films that have little in common — apart from being made in Britain. Yet they are a remarkable trinity of controversy. Moreover, time has […]

Reviewed Mar 8, 2006 I was blown away by this incredible film when I first saw it in 2003 – and was no less blown away seeing it again for this return performance. Director Francois Ozon’s work deserves to be better known in this country (the fact that this work is largely in English increased […]

“Allow me to be frank at the commencement — you will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now, and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Ladies, an announcement: I am up for it. All the time.” […]

I’m giving this thing two-and-a-half stars — about one-and-a-half more than anyone else has given it — based entirely on the fact that I had a good time watching it … probably for all the wrong reasons. I do not think that writer-director Kurt Wimmer meant for the audience response to Ultraviolet to consist of […]

This extraordinary — and frequently moving — film from musical documentarian Christopher Nupen tackles the complex and daunting subject of music and musicians in the context of their impact on society at large, specifically dealing with the issue of Judaism and anti-Semitism in music. To do this, the film has to set the stage for […]