This movie has made my list of the top 10 most preposterous movies ever made, which isn’t to say that it’s not entertaining, in its way, merely that it’s … well, preposterous. Of course, that’s not entirely unexpected, given that the movie is the work of producer/writer Luc Besson and director Louis Leterrier, who last […]
This unusual film is the only movie scheduled for this season of Cinema in the Park, a free “series” of showings in downtown Asheville, and it’s certainly an interesting choice. Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 The Adventures of Prince Achmed holds the distinction of being the first feature-length animated film — having preceded Disney’s Snow White and […]
No, this is not very good movie. But it’s only fair to point out that those who say they’re outraged about this tricked-out splatter movie being a travesty of the 1939 Agatha Christie novel, And Then There Were None, seem to have overlooked the fact that Dame Agatha wasn’t being terribly original herself. The novel’s […]
The title of this spectacularly unfunny Will Ferrell flick is an apt description of what I felt like doing when I learned I’d be watching it. OK, I admit it — I don’t “get” Will Ferrell. Sure, Elf was a pleasant surprise, and Ferrell deserves a nod for tackling a more serious role in Woody […]
Imaginary Heroes was the opener at last year’s Asheville Film Festival, where it went down quite well with the audience. The film, which has been in (limited) theatrical release since February, has finally made it back to the area. This is not a great movie, by any means, but it is an always-interesting one — […]
Writer Nicholas Meyer’s 1979 directorial debut is probably still his best film. Time after Time boasts a likeably cheeky conceit that’s in the same vein as his novel, The Seven Percent Solution, a clever screenplay and three very strong central performances. Malcolm McDowell stars as H.G. Wells, but not quite the historical Wells, since the […]
It’s 1949 in France. The country is recovering from the Nazi nightmare, yet its survivors often imitate the worst attributes of the invader. Thousands of children are orphaned or raised in fatherless homes. The careers of many adults are irretrievably interrupted, the hopes of an entire generation dashed forever. Fond de L’Etang (literally translated as […]
Before someone decides to lambaste me for giving this fairly by-the-numbers comedy a four-star rating, I’d like to point out that there’s a basic shortcoming to the whole star rating system: It doesn’t take into account the necessity of a sliding scale based on the type of film and the intentions behind it. Someone once […]
So does Orlando Bloom really wear a chest toupee in Kingdom of Heaven? Beats me — since it appears that most of his much-discussed shirtless scenes fell to the cutting room floor before the film made it to theaters. According to press reports, director Ridley Scott found Bloom’s bedroom scenes with Eva Green (The Dreamers) […]
Sure, any movie that subjects Paris Hilton to a spectacularly gruesome death can’t be all bad. (Call me old-fashioned, but I think “celebrity” status ought to be built on more than having a lot of money and a knack for drawing attention to yourself — mostly in the horizontal position.) All the same, House of […]
This unassuming little Scottish film from first-time director Shona Auerbach (who also photographed the movie) played at the unlikely hour of 11 a.m. on a Sunday as an out-of-competition entry at last year’s Asheville Film Festival, and is just now making its limited theatrical rounds. Unfortunately, the fact that it has no big name stars […]
Writer Paul Haggis’ directorial debut is obviously intended to be an important film, but I’d be much more inclined to accept that it is one if Crash didn’t have “Oscar Bait” written all over it. As with Haggis’ screenplay for Million Dollar Baby, this movie insists on announcing its significance at every turn, to such […]
“You’re the new ‘Triple X,’” Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) informs Darius Stone (Ice Cube) after arranging the hotheaded Stone’s jailbreak. “Sounds like a porno star,” sneers Stone. If that level of witty repartee — rarely heard since the demise of Oscar Wilde — convulses you with laughter, then xXx: State of the Union […]
I expected to dislike this admittedly ungainly first-time bout of auterism from David Duchovny more than I did. Maybe the fact that reading that Robin Williams plays a mentally challenged character in the movie had simply prepared me for something far, far worse than The House of D. No, it’s not a good movie, and […]
I have a kind of love-hate relationship with this film version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and no, my feelings about it aren’t grounded in any special fondness for the source material, since I only heard a couple episodes of the radio series and saw a few minutes of the BBC-TV film, and […]
Off the Map is a movie for sensitive adults or attuned junior-high girls, since they’re probably the only ones who can accept the unhurried pace with which this lyrical coming-of-age story unfolds. Even in the relative coolness of the thick-walled adobe house where much of the story takes place, summer in the high desert near […]
It’s Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1943. The Gestapo of the invading Third Reich is everywhere, eyeing every Czech who walks without downcast eyes. Eliska (Czechoslovakian Anna Geislerova, Little Scars) is a beautiful, fashion-conscious nurse whose dream of becoming a doctor has been thwarted, since the Germans closed the nation’s medical schools. Eliska, her surgeon lover and […]
Thirty years ago, Sydney Pollack made a critical and commercial hit with Three Days of the Condor, a tight adaptation of James Grady’s novel Six Days of the Condor (so tight, you see, that they had to shave off three days). This political thriller worked because Pollack remembered that it was a thriller first and […]
Legendary architect Louis I. Kahn dropped dead in the men’s room at Penn Station at the age of 73. Having just returned from a trip to India, he was facing bankruptcy at the time, and was probably the most honored and simultaneously underemployed architect of his era. His obituary said that he was survived by […]
To call Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle silly and/or ridiculous is to miss the whole point. The film’s not only supposed to be silly and ridiculous, it revels in the fact that it is — and it provides the most sheer fun you’re likely to find at the movies these days. The 41-year-old Chow has […]
I have but one piece of sage advice concerning this movie. To paraphrase a friend of mine, spurn King’s Ransom as you would spurn a rabid weasel. This witless concoction is a shoo-in for a place on many “10 worst” lists, come the end of 2005. It’s an amazingly unfunny and mean-spirited film variant on […]
