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 […]
The Tuxedo starts with a beautiful pastoral scene involving a deer urinating into a stream that feeds a bottled water factory — and goes downhill. It’s been obvious for some time that the studio knew they had a stinker on their hands — the summer release date kept getting pushed back while they fiddled with […]
Seeing Stanley Donen’s 1963 Hitchcock-like thriller, Charade, for the first time is one of those rare, treasured childhood memories that has stood the test of time. I loved the film when I was 9 and I love it just as much at 48 (though for different reasons, I suspect). So I went to Jonathan Demme’s […]
If we must have shaven-headed action heroes, then I’ll take the ultra-cool sophistication of Jason Statham over the guttural street-thuggery of Vin Diesel any day of the week — especially when Statham is showcased in a movie as agreeably over the top as Corey Yuen’s The Transporter. No, the movie doesn’t make any more sense […]
This latest attempt to translate H.G. Wells’ novel, The Time Machine, to the movies isn’t bad, but then again, it isn’t really all that good either — meaning that 2002 is still shaping up as the year of indifferent movies. It’s unlikely that this effort will ever reach the quasi-classic status of the 1960 George […]
Writer-actress Agnes Jaoui’s directorial debut is a deliciously funny and insightful comedy about people’s varied tastes and perceptions, especially perceptions of other people. The intricately criss-crossed plot of The Taste of Others centers on a wealthy manufacturer (just what he manufactures is never made clear and it hardly matters), Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri, who also co-authored […]
