There hasn’t been a movie this purely gorgeous to look at since Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! graced theater screens nearly three years ago. Indeed, the specter of Luhrmann’s film hangs heavy over P.J. Hogan’s version of Peter Pan, and in more than just looks. Even Hogan’s depiction of Tinker Bell (Ludivine Sagnier, Swimming Pool) is […]
First of all, this film is way too long for its own good. Secondly, it’s the kind of science-fiction that works better the less you think about it. That said, Paycheck isn’t nearly as bad or uninteresting as has been said. And I can’t help but think that a good bit of the negativity surrounding […]
It’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it’s certainly nothing new under the sun — in fact, it’s as old as the hills in its heart of hearts. And yet Jim Sheridan’s In America is so captivating in its characterizations, and in the director’s obvious love of filmmaking, that it’s hard not to […]
As if to prove its own cheapness, this cosmically God-awful package of Christmas jeer isn’t out of its opening credits before the boom microphone makes its first guest appearance. That, however, is one of the least slipshod moments in this unbelievably generic comedy ostensibly based on the novel and 1950 film of the same name. […]
It’s more than a little ironic that Mike Newell’s Mona Lisa Smile contains a sequence where its heroine decries the emergence of Van Gogh paint-by-numbers kits, since the movie itself is perhaps the most virulent example of a paint-by-numbers creation imaginable. Despite its amazing female star-power, the film really is nothing more than a switcheroo […]
Here’s a movie with a poignant lesson for us all: Open your damned mail. OK, that sounds glib, but everything that happens in this bloated Lifetime Movie of the Week could have been avoided if its heroine, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), hadn’t spent eight solid months wallowing in such self-pity that she not only couldn’t open […]
The first question about Cold Mountain on just about everyone’s mind — at least everyone in this part of the world — is whether Romania looks like Western North Carolina. The answer lies in the film’s clear explanation of why Transylvania County was named after Transylvania, Hungary (now part of Romania). Indeed, if you didn’t […]
Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has re-teamed with his Amores Perros screenwriter Guillermo Ariaga for this English-language film headed up by three name actors — Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro. And while I hate to come up with anything so obvious, I’m bound to say that a little something seems to have […]
Here we are three Christmases later, and the final Lord of the Rings film in the trilogy has arrived, as promised. First question: Was it worth the wait? Yes, very much so. Second question: Is it the best of the three? In most ways, yes. Third question: Does the film as it stands justify the […]
This charming and unabashedly sentimental holiday film — playing for one show only — was the Audience Award winner at the Asheville Film Festival, where it also placed second for Best Film. It’s easy to see why. The Angel Doll is a well-crafted period movie — set in 1950s North Carolina — about a young […]
A fair amount of negative press surrounds this latest offering from Peter and Bobby Farrelly, with most of it centering around the fact that Stuck on You isn’t as wildly funny as There’s Something About Mary — the yardstick, unfortunately, by which Farrelly Brothers movies are measured. To some extent, this typecasting is the Farrellys’ […]
Personally, I liked it a lot better when this was being referred to as Untitled Nancy Meyers Project. That, at least, had some personality, and didn’t plumb the archives to dredge up a title that was once adhered to Marilyn Monroe’s ill-fated final film project. Unfortunately, I also enjoyed this film more as an idea […]
“What a great movie!” a young man exclaimed as he and his companion crossed paths with my husband and I on the sidewalk outside the Fine Arts after seeing Pieces of April. “Low-key and low-budget,” he added, summing up the movie precisely. “Thank goodness it had a happy ending!” I chimed in, still reeling from […]
High on the list of Questions That Need Answering is this puzzler: Who actually thought it necessary to remake an already paper-thin 1987 teen comedy called Can’t Buy Me Love? The original was lightweight enough, and mostly notable as Patrick Dempsey’s big-break film. Though nothing special, it was harmless and agreeable enough, and had the […]
Didn’t Richard Chamberlain already make this as an interminable TV mini-series a number of years ago? Whatever else it does, Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai certainly manages the interminable part with great flair. This movie is a full 144 minutes, and I felt every one of them creep by. Actually, this Asianized variant on Dances […]
I knew better than to think this was in any way related to the 1930 Nancy Carroll musical of the same name, even if the prospect of a hip-hop version of “Sing You Sinners” was an amusing fantasy (almost up there with Barbra Streisand’s cover of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” as mind-boggling entertainment). Yet […]
While Timeline is one of the more dismal offerings this holiday season, it does manage to raise enough questions that help make it possible to sit through the film’s seemingly interminable 116 minutes. You may find yourself asking, for starters, “Who in their right mind would make a film like this in a post-Monty Python […]
Armed with his A Beautiful Mind Oscar, Ron Howard stretches his wings with this attempt at a dark, wholly adult Western. And it is a brave attempt — I just wish I could say that I thought it was also a successful one. The best I can say is that The Missing doesn’t fail the […]
No, it’s no Pirates of the Caribbean (who thought it would be?). But neither is it The Country Bears. The worst that can be said about The Haunted Mansion is that it’s remarkably tepid. The best that can be said is that it’s reasonably harmless and nicely designed. Also, Eddie Murphy isn’t appalling here like […]
Let me make this clear: I didn’t dislike Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa. That said, I easily could have, since I was one of maybe six people on Earth who was underwhelmed by Zwigoff’s previous film, Ghost World, a movie so smugly hip, it made my head hurt. And Bad Santa is somewhat in this same […]
Is actor-turned-writer/director Thomas McCarthy’s debut work, The Station Agent, really as good as has been said? Probably not, though it is a good-hearted film that makes some keen — and pertinent — comments on the human condition. It’s also remarkably well-made, turning its obvious paucity of budget into a plus. I’ve heard a lot of […]
