As drama, this is nothing to get excited about. Its surprises are about as surprising as discovering fruit at a fruit stand. As filmmaking, it’s rarely more than professional. But it works better than it has any right to thanks to the performances of Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, who bring a gravity and conviction […]
The cartoon that isn’t really good enough to be on afternoon TV is now a movie that isn’t really good enough to be in theaters. Unfortunately, it is, and it was my lot — along with one hapless friend (no one else would get near it) — to sit through it. Do not let this […]
It’s fast, it’s engaging, it’s clever, it’s occasionally suspenseful, it’s often very funny. Writer-director David Mamet’s Heist is nearly everything The Score wanted to be, but never was. In fact, plot-wise, it’s very much like The Score. Substitute Gene Hackman for Robert DeNiro as a master criminal forced into pulling off one last job and […]
Armed with a paltry $6 million budget, John Cameron Mitchell brings his off-Broadway show about “internationally ignored” East German drag-queen rocker Hedwig to the movies. As writer, lyricist, director and star Mitchell faced a daunting task — one that he managed to pull off with all the elan of his title character. Hedwig and the […]
With Anthony Hopkins in the lead, the respected director Scott Hicks at the helm, and a script by the very literate William Goldman, there’s not much chance that Hearts in Atlantis (based on Stephen King’s novel) isn’t going to be good. And it is good. It’s very good. What it isn’t is great. It’s impossible […]
What’s this? An actual comedy made by actual adults for actual adults that is actually fresh and funny? Amazing but true. Even more amazing is the fact that the film’s scripting pedigree is uninspiring to say the least. Top-billed writer Robert Dunn hasn’t had a screenwriting credit since 1988 (Sweet Lies), while his cohorts in […]
Surprisingly funny — and pleasantly human — with a positively glowing cast, Head Over Heels is quite the best suspense-comedy to come along since Colin Higgins’ Foul Play. Like Foul Play, Head Over Heels manages to come off like lightweight Hitchcock, even though neither the film, nor director Mark Waters, is anywhere near being in […]
Well, it’s no Pootie Tang — but then, what is? Actually, Chris Rock’s directorial debut does bear certain common traits with his earlier producing effort — namely, an amazingly cheap aura, a strange notion of the film’s lead as a role model for children and the injection of gags that play like they crawled out […]
The first part of Hart’s War is a good, straight-ahead World War II movie. Filming was done in and around Prague, so we are given a backdrop of the wintry skies and forests of an area near Germany. Starting with these elements, the cinematographer (Alar Kivilo) creates a rich texture, using the steely grays and […]
I saw this most-anticipated movie event with a small, but diverse, group of film fans the night before it opened. Among my companions were at least two bonafide Potter-heads and a 17-year-old non-fan. The admirers of the books were, to say the least, disappointed (“I’ve been looking forward to this for months and when I […]
Yes, it’s actually better than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but, for me, it still — like its predecessor — misses genuine greatness. Director Chris Columbus comes much nearer this round, but never quite gets there. Still, where his film does get is pretty damned good. Better plotted than the first Potter, packed with […]
While movies such as Ice Age and Resident Evil are holding court among younger viewers, the more adult filmgoer would be well-advised to turn his or her attention to this quasi-art film that has sneaked into town more or less unheralded on the strength of local interest in star Andie MacDowell. The good news is […]
Hardball isn’t pretty. It takes place in the ugly, mean streets of inner-city Chicago. Children live in a fatherless world where the only adult males terrorize them. Being out after dark is tantamount to suicide, since your neighbors will beat you to a pulp just to steal your book bag. At home, everyone sits on […]
It’s neither as good as you hoped it would be, nor is it as bad as you feared it might be. Hannibal, whatever it is or isn’t, is a film that is both cursed and blessed from the onset. The popularity of Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, not to mention the almost legendary status […]
Invited to write a movie review for Ashely Siegel’s Short Takes column, this Buddhist agrees to tackle the task at hand. She buys herself a bucket of popcorn and walks into the opening sequence of Hanging Up. She is assaulted by the film’s first 60 seconds, which portrays rampant games of verbal ping-pong volleyed between […]
It’s so easy to pick a movie like this to pieces. It’s formula rubbish — especially by the time you’ve sliced and diced your way to the eighth series installment — and even at that, the formula isn’t an especially good or creative one. Halloween Resurrection is no exception. It’s addle-brained, obvious, unfocused, predictable, and […]
Half Past Dead is full-out stupid. It’s so brainless, however — and full of enough action to cauterize your eyeballs — that it manages to be a good Friday-night veg-out flick. Steven Seagal (Under Siege) is Sascha, a Russian-born FBI mole who goes undercover in a futuristic — and nasty — Alcatraz prison. His mission […]
If you come to Gosford Park expecting an exercise in “Altmanism” from the 76-year-old maverick filmmaker, chances are you’ll come away disappointed. Apart from the multiple storyline, the huge ensemble of stars and the occasional zoom shot, the film is not traditionally Altmanesque in look or physical approach, which is a maverick gesture in itself! […]
Many, many years ago, Herbert Yates, president of B-picture- and serial-movie-company Republic Pictures, expressed a desire to make a Civil War epic to challenge Gone With the Wind. At the time, some wag inquired, “What are you going to call it? Lavender and Old Stock Shots?” It is in this spirit perhaps that media mogul […]
Glitter is every bit as bad as you probably expected — and worse. I knew I was in for it when people kept asking me, “Have you seen it yet?” (as usual in such cases, none of these people were volunteering to go with me), but I had no idea the stupefying degree of tedium […]
Since the frequently useful Internet Movie Database is connected with Amazon.com, it’s in their best business interest to suggest other titles that readers might like, if they like the film in question. This often results in some pretty strange recommendations — but I have to say that their recommending last year’s stupefyingly bad Red Planet […]
