Roger Ebert has called this film by Jacques Rivette, one of the founders of the French “New Wave,” a “farce in waltz time.” That’s not off the mark, but I have to confess I found it more like farce paced to a dirge. It’s not a bad movie, but what it comes down to is […]
Anyone who wants to see a garbage dump so skillfully art directed and lit that it looks like an Architectural Digest spread needs to see Adrian Lyne’s latest cinematic essay on the perils of adultery, Unfaithful. It may not be quite as loony — and resultantly not as amusing — as his Fatal Attraction (a.k.a. […]
Undisputed is not for everyone — let’s settle that up front. What is undisputed about the movie is that it is violent, nasty, gut-wrenching, and pretty darn unpleasant. It’s also fascinating, disturbing, and virtually unforgettable. If you like stories about leave-no-survivors boxing, gritty low-light, eye-scrunching cinematography, ear-grinding visceral musical soundtracks, bone-crushing action, 90 minutes of […]
They say this cat, Undercover Brother is a bad mother … sorry, I was having an Isaac Hayes moment, but that’s exactly the sort of thing you can expect after seeing Undercover Brother. “This is a great day for black people of all races!” announces The Chief (Chi McBride, Gone in Sixty Seconds) of the […]
Lightning will almost certainly not strike twice for the combination of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan and star Bruce Willis, at least in terms of box-office receipts. Unbreakable — their follow-up to the immensely successful, Oscar-nominated The Sixth Sense — is simply too complex, too convoluted and, ultimately, too downbeat to repeat that success (or, in […]
No, it’s not high art. No, it’s nowhere near the same league as other films opening this week. But it’s a perfect complement to them. I’m glad I saw The Two Towers, Far from Heaven and Gangs of New York first. Viewed in that manner, Two Weeks Notice assumes its rightful place as a pleasant […]
In a summer that’s seen too many limpid romantic heroes, Two Can Play That Game, with its long line-up of lusty lovers, is refreshing proof that sex is still a passionate pursuit for most players. It’s also a feminist nightmare: All these confident, high-struttin’, top-rung grabbin’ women, with everything going in life for them, still […]
Tuck Everlasting is an absolutely gorgeous movie, exquisitely detailed in costumes and set decoration, breathtakingly photographed, romantically scored, and filled with unforgettable performances by all the actors. Based on the popular children’s book by Natalie Babbitt, Tuck investigates a subject that is often taboo among Americans-the inevitability of death. Director Jay Russell (My Dog Skip) […]
Shiver me timbers, lads and lassies, Disney’s gone and time-whacked the classic pirate adventure into the galactic future. Treasure Planet retells the compelling story of a boy’s coming of age on the wild seas, updating the tale with humor and visual thrills that 19th-century writer Robert Louis Stevenson couldn’t ever have dreamed of. Directors John […]
If you’ve lost sleep with helpless rage over the news stories of kidnapped children, you might hope from its previews that Trapped would be a satisfying tale of righteous revenge. Don’t be fooled. The moviemakers decided that their kidnappers had to be sympathetic. It’s politically incorrect, it seems, to portray bad guys as bad guys […]
Training Day is an ugly, unpleasant, violent, gratingly foul-mouthed and slang-ridden movie that’s hard not to admit is extremely well made — even while being all that — and ridiculously over-plotted in the bargain. On certain levels, the film works quite well. I won’t for a moment deny the ferocity of Denzel Washington’s no-holds-barred performance […]
A huge raft of talent on both sides of the camera can’t salvage the incredible mess that is Town and Country. If nothing else, the film serves as its own answer as to why it’s been gathering dust for three years. Perhaps they thought it would improve with age. It didn’t. That doesn’t mean there’s […]
Tomcats is one of the most stupid, puerile, anti-female, gross movies I have ever seen. It will probably make a fortune. From personal observation on a Saturday night, teenage boys love Tomcats. Enough said. Seven years ago, seven male friends vowed to avoid marriage, to prowl through the world of women like eternal “tomcats.” The […]
There’s a moment in an early ’60s exploitation thriller called Panic in the Year Zero when Los Angeles is nuked out of existence, at which point one of the characters — hiding some distance away in the mountains — evidences surprise at being alive with the telling phrase, “I thought when it happened … .” […]
This could so easily have drifted into the realm of Full Frontal or, worse yet, a live-action Waking Life. Its jigsaw-puzzle structure is not dissimilar to the former (though it certainly has more point) and its philosophizing gets perilously near the 3 a.m. stoner profundity of the latter. Thankfully, Jill Sprecher’s film is in a […]
They is this year’s apparent last gasp of a horror film. They is pretty lame. They looks like They was made for the bottom half of a double-bill at a drive-in that no one told the filmmakers had closed 25 years ago. All right, enough fun with grammar; I’ll stop trying to make my editor […]
There’s grime, grit and dust to spare in The Yards, writer-director James Gray’s new film about corruption and murder inside New York City’s subway system. After two hours in the theater, you’ll be marveling at the nearly palpable texture of this exceptionally photographed film noir — even though you might feel the need for a […]
With little fanfare, an absolutely terrific animated movie is sparkling up the local movie screens. Compared to the fantastical themes of Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch, The Wild Thornberrys’ wildlife-conservation story may seem naively down-to-earth. It doesn’t try to compete with the wackiness of Monsters, Inc., nor does it achieve the mythic grandeur of […]
Patrice Leconte’s new film, The Widow of Saint-Pierre, is everything an old-fashioned (in the best sense of the word) romantic spectacle ought to be — at once involving, moving, beautiful to look at and (even better) laced with ironic observations and a sense of purpose. The story — based on the historical account of a […]
No, it’s not great. It isn’t going to change the world. It isn’t even going to change the way you think about movies. It isn’t going on anybody’s “10 Best” anything list. Almost no aspect of its plot is going to surprise even the most unsavvy moviegoer. However, The Wedding Planner is a fairly consistently […]
No sooner do we lose one Snoop Dogg picture than we get another. Conspiracy or blessing? You decide. I have no idea for whom this movie was made and even less of an idea as to why Lion’s Gate Films (usually associated with “art” films) released it. It is, I suppose, a comedy, but it’s […]
