Once you get past the immediate question of how many “final” destinations there can be (what’s next, The Really Final — No Fooling — Destination?), this is an efficiently trashy horror flick of the Creative Death school. For the uninitiated, the Creative Death horror sub-genre has been around nigh on to forever (at least dating […]
Criticizing a film like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a difficult proposition. The sensation is much what it must have been like when talking pictures came into being. I can imagine being astonished that such a thing as The Jazz Singer or Lights of New York existed at all in the late 1920s, while […]
Back in 1947, Elia Kazan made a film about the topic of anti-Semitism called Gentleman’s Agreement. The screenplay by the legendary Moss Hart told the story of what happens when a gentile (played by Gregory Peck) tries to unearth the extent of anti-Semitism by posing as a Jew. It was one of the first of […]
Released a year ago in Great Britain as The 51st State, this Guy Ritchie wannabe (think Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels) is something of an embarrassment — and the most embarrassing thing about it is that I enjoyed a good deal of it in spite of myself. I knew all the while […]
If we exempt the cult short film, Fish Heads, then Frailty marks the directorial debut of actor Bill Paxton. As debuts go, it’s not unimpressive, but neither is it really an unqualified success. As an essay in Southern Gothic horror, the film very nearly works for a time. There’s no denying that it’s creepy (though […]
It’s amazing how relative things are. A few months ago, I was subjected to Dude, Where’s My Car? and was quite certain that movie comedy could sink no lower. Then I saw Get Over It and suddenly the subtle charms of Dude, Where’s My Car? stood out in sharp relief. Next came Joe Dirt and, […]
For all its undeniable merits, Frida is the most disappointing film of 2002. There are moments in this account of the life of artist Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) that are among cinema’s finest this year. Unfortunately — and maddeningly — they’re sandwiched in between the most impossibly dry account of Kahlo’s life imaginable. I wish […]
If you go to see Friday After Next based on the notion that Barbershop was a pleasant surprise, then you’re probably in for an unpleasant here. If, however, your idea of rib-tickling, knee-slapping fun involves an extended sequence with a character being led around by his genitals, which are clamped in a pair of vise-grips, […]
This is pure, unadulterated, flat-out horror film making at its best — and from an unexpected quarter, the Hughes Brothers (Albert and Allen), who are known for a very different type of movie with Menace II Society and Dead Presidents. Their take on the film seems to be that they approached Whitechapel of Victorian London […]
Neither as bad as some critics have claimed, nor nearly as important as the film itself thinks it is, Full Frontal is the sort of incredibly self-indulgent work that — in terms of mainstream film — could come from a heavy-hitter filmmaker like Steven Soderbergh. A lesser director would have only received blank looks from […]
In all honesty — and mindful of Martin Scorsese’s immense reputation — I have never been among greatest his admirers. Frankly, I had been dreading this movie. Nothing about the trailer appealed to me, and the DiCaprio/Scorsese combination just didn’t bode well. It was with some surprise, then, that I found myself loving this film. […]
It’s called Get Over It and before the end if the first reel, I definitely was. What we have here is your basic teen comedy (and one apparently aimed at members of remedial adolescence classes) that gamely and lamely tries to reinvent the form by grafting a lot of frighteningly obvious hipness on top of […]
For one reason or another — call it typecasting — people who make horror films tend to specialize in the same. Directors like F.W. Murnau, Tod Browning and James Whale (who, ironically, chose to direct a horror film because he was being typecast as a specialist in war movies) started this trend, which has endured […]
Since the frequently useful Internet Movie Database is connected with Amazon.com, it’s in their best business interest to suggest other titles that readers might like, if they like the film in question. This often results in some pretty strange recommendations — but I have to say that their recommending last year’s stupefyingly bad Red Planet […]
Glitter is every bit as bad as you probably expected — and worse. I knew I was in for it when people kept asking me, “Have you seen it yet?” (as usual in such cases, none of these people were volunteering to go with me), but I had no idea the stupefying degree of tedium […]
Many, many years ago, Herbert Yates, president of B-picture- and serial-movie-company Republic Pictures, expressed a desire to make a Civil War epic to challenge Gone With the Wind. At the time, some wag inquired, “What are you going to call it? Lavender and Old Stock Shots?” It is in this spirit perhaps that media mogul […]
If you come to Gosford Park expecting an exercise in “Altmanism” from the 76-year-old maverick filmmaker, chances are you’ll come away disappointed. Apart from the multiple storyline, the huge ensemble of stars and the occasional zoom shot, the film is not traditionally Altmanesque in look or physical approach, which is a maverick gesture in itself! […]
It’s so easy to pick a movie like this to pieces. It’s formula rubbish — especially by the time you’ve sliced and diced your way to the eighth series installment — and even at that, the formula isn’t an especially good or creative one. Halloween Resurrection is no exception. It’s addle-brained, obvious, unfocused, predictable, and […]
It’s neither as good as you hoped it would be, nor is it as bad as you feared it might be. Hannibal, whatever it is or isn’t, is a film that is both cursed and blessed from the onset. The popularity of Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, not to mention the almost legendary status […]
While movies such as Ice Age and Resident Evil are holding court among younger viewers, the more adult filmgoer would be well-advised to turn his or her attention to this quasi-art film that has sneaked into town more or less unheralded on the strength of local interest in star Andie MacDowell. The good news is […]
Yes, it’s actually better than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but, for me, it still — like its predecessor — misses genuine greatness. Director Chris Columbus comes much nearer this round, but never quite gets there. Still, where his film does get is pretty damned good. Better plotted than the first Potter, packed with […]
