Indefensible as either art or history, Charles Vidor’s 1945 Chopin biopic A Song to Remember is the absolute textbook definition of kitsch — and perhaps the ultimate example of why the biopic is the most disdained of all film genres. As a movie, Song is a bizarre outgrowth of the slightly more cerebral biopics made […]
Valiant is the story of a small pigeon who becomes a big hero in England’s World War II-era Royal Air Force Homing Pigeon Service, proving to all that the key to courage is “not the size of your wingspan, but your spirit.” The computer animation in this British import is lovely, the action is clever, […]
When Valentino first appeared in 1977, it pleased almost no one. Ken Russell fans greeted it somewhat tepidly, because it was much less experimental than his last three films — Mahler, Tommy, Lisztomania. The rest of the world found it too experimental and over-the-top, especially since the ad campaign stressed that it was from “the […]
Since comedy, more than any other genre, is a wholly subjective thing, I want to note straight off that a lot of people are finding Steve Carell’s starring film debut as the bee’s knees of comedy. There was a lot of laughter (not my own) at the screening I attended, and my cohort in reviewing/crime, […]
Well, all good things come to an end. Such is the case with the winning streak of perfectly dreadful movies getting progressively shorter — from Stealth to The Dukes of Hazzard to Deuce Bigalow. Admittedly, Supercross: The Movie (as opposed to what? Supercross: The Lobotomy?) is shorter than Deuce Bigalow, but only by three minutes. […]
The praise being heaped on both The 40-Year-Old Virgin and this preposterous right-wing terrorist fantasy is more a comment on what a lousy year for movies 2005 has been than on any actual quality of these two movies themselves. At its absolute best, horror-meister Wes Craven’s shot at a straight thriller is a competent B-movie […]
Conceptually, They Live is probably John Carpenter’s best film. Unfortunately, as is often the case with Carpenter, the concept is better than the execution. Of the “modern” horrormeisters, Carpenter has always been the lightweight. The closest he got to a theme seemed to be in Halloween, with its implicit message that girls who “fooled around” […]
I think I would feel less cheated by Iain Softley’s The Skeleton Key if it was just bad, but it isn’t. It’s actually pretty good, but it’s so obvious it could have been great that it becomes a truly maddening experience — and one that further indicates that Ehren Kruger’s script for The Ring was […]
Sixty years ago, Japan surrendered to the United States, ending World War II. A week ago, following worldwide remembrances of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s prime minister marked the anniversary with an apology for Japan’s acts of aggression from 1931 to 1945, which killed an estimated 15 million people, two-thirds of them civilians. […]
It’s strangely apt that this film by Maximilian Schell on the legendary Marlene Dietrich should be the cinematic equivalent of the autobiography of her great mentor, Josef von Sternberg. The latter work, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, is at once enigmatic, deliberately obfuscating in nature and extremely revealing. I’m immediately reminded of a lyric by […]
The most casually preposterous movie to open this weekend is also the most wholly satisfying entertainment. Get over the fact the movie is set in a Detroit where rampant, open lawlessness — including, but not limited to, shootings, high-speed car chases, gangs with machine guns blasting away an entire house in broad daylight, and people […]
I had a fair idea of the level of humor we were in for when the press kit for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo arrived — packaged like a condom. Little did I know that this was obviously pandering to the sophistication of us movie reviewers, since the wit involved in the press-kit presentation is on […]
With the five or six functioning brain cells remaining to me after watching The Dukes of Hazzard (I know people who’ve come off two-week benders with less brain damage than I feel I suffered from 105 minutes of this movie), I’ve been trying to think of anything vaguely positive to say about it. All I […]
It’s impossible to dislike any movie that starts with Orson Welles (at his Paul Masson wine-commercial most faux pretentious) lying his head off about a supposedly newly discovered historical event that could have prevented the French Revolution, only to sourly conclude that “men of integrity — and I may say of considerable resources — have […]
Consider the penguin. Mankind has been fascinated by this curious flightless bird for as long as its existence has been known. There’s an inherent charm to the little fellow. He pops up all over the place in popular culture. Nearly everyone from my generation seems to have been exposed to Richard and Florence Atwater’s 1938 […]
I’ve never quite subscribed to the view that The Magnificent Ambersons would have been a better film than Citizen Kane if only it hadn’t been mutilated by the studio while Welles was out of the country. But, hey, that notion makes a great story that adds to the myth of Orson Welles — and, of […]
In a world where mindless action movies are a dime a dozen, in a season when the testosterone flows like water, in an industry where mediocrity is all too often praised, one filmmaker dares to change forever what we mean when we say “lowest common denominator.” Seven months into the year he presents us with […]
Take the director of Surviving Christmas, some fresh-faced kids, a premise borrowed from The Incredibles with a dash of Mean Girls, and then toss in a few cult figures (B-list stars with rabid followings) like Kurt Russell, Lynda Carter and Bruce Campbell, and you get Sky High, a pleasant enough collection of derivative predictability that’s […]
“Friday, April 17, 4 p.m. — Venice, California. Huckleberry P. Jones, local pimp, narcotics peddler, and slumlord was seen entering a vacant house that he owned. While stashing some heroin in the basement, he stumbled upon a mysterious door. Naturally, he entered …” So begins Richard Elfman’s 1980 cult classic, Forbidden Zone, as wild a […]
Being G-rated, Tugger assures concerned parents their ears won’t be assaulted by swear words. Alas, the 65-minute film is so boring that the attempt to avoid being offensive might put them to sleep. In its favor, Tugger’s visual style is delightfully vibrant, crisp and clever, with a lovely, World War II-era vintage look. But the […]
“I had to admit I loved them,” Mark Bittner says simply, trying to explain to the camera that, although he doesn’t anthropomorphize the birds he’s nursed for many years, he also recognizes the strong emotional bond he has developed with them. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill isn’t so much a “nature film” as it […]
