I was once awakened from a sound sleep, told there was a mouse in the kitchen and asked what should be done. “Name it Julius,” I helpfully suggested and went back to sleep. I relate this anecdote solely to illustrate that in general, I am not alarmed by rodentia. Over the years, I have even […]
I’m going to be swimming upstream with this one. Most of my critical comrades-in-arms are four-square against Alan Parker’s latest offering, The Life of David Gale, and while I understand where they’re coming from, I have to admit I don’t share their antipathy for the film. It may be that I am more in tune […]
I can’t help but pity the timing of Nicole Holofcener’s Lovely and Amazing, arriving on the heels of such other populous character studies as Thirteen Conversations About One Thing and Full Frontal. It’s easily as good as the former, better than the latter, and more quirkily honest than both. Unlike Thirteen Conversations, Lovely and Amazing […]
You know you’re in trouble when the best thing about a movie is William Shatner. You know you’re in even more trouble when the best things William Shatner does in the movie in question you’ve already seen in the film’s trailer. And that’s every inch the case with Showtime, a movie that sets out to […]
Released a year ago in Great Britain as The 51st State, this Guy Ritchie wannabe (think Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels) is something of an embarrassment — and the most embarrassing thing about it is that I enjoyed a good deal of it in spite of myself. I knew all the while […]
For all its undeniable merits, Frida is the most disappointing film of 2002. There are moments in this account of the life of artist Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) that are among cinema’s finest this year. Unfortunately — and maddeningly — they’re sandwiched in between the most impossibly dry account of Kahlo’s life imaginable. I wish […]
Local interest runs high concerning writer-director Maggie Greenwald’s Songcatcher, owing to the fact that it was filmed around here (indeed, the Fine Arts Theatre is scheduling an extra “late” show throughout the week, rather than just Friday and Saturday, as is their usual practice). For that matter, parts of the film were made on the […]
The One has a little of everything – two Jet Lis for the price of one, at least three Carlo Guginos, a couple Delroy Lindos, a laborious home-grown mythology, lots of CGI effects, bodies hurtling through space, explosions, car crashes, famine, flood, pestilence…Oh, alright, they left out the last three, but it was probably an […]
When Spirited Away beat out Disney’s Lilo and Stitch for the Oscar as Best Animated Film of 2002, it no doubt came as a terrific shock to people who hadn’t been following all the awards that the limited-release Japanese import had already received. It certainly came as no surprise to the Disney folks, who promptly […]
Oh, how this reviewer wanted to love this movie. From the moment I heard its title, so campy — yet so girly — I hounded Ashely to let me screen it. In a satisfyingly ironic twist, I watched Cheerleader on the anniversary of the day my first love relegated me to the closet (along with […]
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 […]
The 26-year-old comedy classic is back on the big screen in a stunningly restored print that not only captures the inspired lunacy of the British comedy troupe in their prime and at their most controlled, but reminds us what an exceptionally accomplished piece of filmmaking Monty Python and the Holy Grail actually is. While the […]
As I walked up to the Fine Arts Theater, I couldn’t entirely suppress a slight chuckle at the marquee’s bold proclamation of Mostly Martha’s star, Martina Gedeck. Indeed, when I went inside, I just had to ask, “So is Mostly Martha pulling in the Martina Gedeck crowd?” The irony is that while there isn’t, of […]
View him as you like — preposterous self-indulgent fake, cinematic visionary, or deeply disturbed individual — there’s no denying that David Lynch is unique. Nobody makes movies quite like his. Perhaps nobody wants to. At his best (The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet), his work is challenging, thought-provoking, and shot through with keen, albeit often peculiar, […]
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 […]
A friend of mine came up to me part way through My Big Fat Greek Wedding and asked how I liked it. “It reminds me a lot of a TV sitcom,” I remarked. That’s not terribly surprising when you scan the credits of director Joel Zwick — Family Matters, Full House, Joanie Loves Chachi, Happy […]
Swordfish has already achieved a degree of notoriety as the movie where they paid Halle Berry half a million dollars to take off her shirt — and in the end that may be the most notable thing about it. For the record, I can now safely attest to the fact that Ms. Berry has breasts. […]
Sure, it won awards and caused a stir at Sundance, but is this a great movie? No, just a passable one (albeit threaded with superb performances) that manages to take a potentially tasteless, even explosive, topic — a 15 year old boy in love with his 40-something step-mother (Sigourney Weaver), who finds himself embroiled, accidentally, […]
Yes, it’s big and clever and inventive. First-time theatrical feature director Rob Marshall (who helmed the TV version of Annie) and screenwriter Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) have done a splendid job of transferring a stage show to the screen — brilliantly preserving its theatricality without ever making the proceedings seem stagey. I admit: I […]
If I was a 12-to-15-year-old boy, I’d probably love Clockstoppers, but if I was a 12-to-15-year-old boy, I’d probably think I was too cool to go see Clockstoppers (the Nickelodeon imprint alone would assure that). That’s the curse of a movie like this: It’s merely passable entertainment to an adult (think after-school special with better […]
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 […]
