In JERSEY GIRL, Ben Affleck gives the best performance of his career. This is not to say that it is a brilliant performance, I don’t want to raise expectations unfairly, but considering the abuse I and other reviewers have heaped on him in the past, its only fair to give the boy his props now.… Read More »
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Check to see if Hell has frozen over, if there are flocks of pigs flying overhead, if theres a rip in the space/time continuum, because I’ve seen something that I was sure would never happen: Jim Carrey giving a mature, nuanced performance that is both genuinely affecting and deeply moving. That grail that he has… Read More »
SCOOBY DOO 2 — MONSTERS UNLEASHED
The Gods of Cinema have not been kind to us, their loyal acolytes, and so it is that there is SCOOBY DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED, a film in which much time, money, and effort was expended so that a computer-generated dog could fart. Its not just a bad movie, it is one that, considering SCOOBY… Read More »
SUNSHINE HOTEL
Michael Dominic’s documentary SUNSHINE HOTEL takes us to one of the last of the flophouses that once teemed in New York’s Bowery. From a high of two hundred half a century ago, there are now only eight, housing tenants in cubicles with chicken wire instead of ceilings, tenants who cling to those cubicles as an… Read More »
THE LADYKILLERS
The Coen Brothers remake of the perfect and perfectly exquisite Ealing Studio comedy, THE LADYKILLERS, isnt just a misfire, its an annoying misfire, irksome, tedious, and on the whole, unnecessary. The original, as you recall, was perfect. It was, if you recall, a resolutely deadpan and black comedy that nonetheless taught a valuable lesson about… Read More »
ELLA ENCHANTED
Taking aim squarely at a society that demands that its women be obedient, or at least self-effacing, ELLA ENCHANTED, based on the classic book by Gail Carson Levine, uses the archetypal story of Cinderella to skewer convention with that most deadly and effective of weapons: humor. Theres not a trace of bile or vitriol, either,… Read More »
HELLBOY
There are a lot of tentacles in HELLBOY, squiggly, slimy-looking, Lovecraft-inspired killing machines with a taste for human flesh. Actually, any flesh. And theyre done with a nod to special effects legend Ray Harryhausen. Theres just a suspicion of his brand of stop-action movement that makes for a bit of 50s-style nostalgia amid the impending… Read More »
THE ALAMO
Its sad to think that people gave up their lifes blood defending and attacking The Alamo. The loss of human life is always a tragedy. Adding to that very real tragedy is that the film version commemorating that event is such a stinker.Now, any retelling of what happened way back in 1836 in San Antonio… Read More »
THE PUNISHER
HAMLET is a tragedy about a man who cant make up his mind about taking action. The resulting exposition of his inner struggle produced some of the finest poetry in the English language. On a much diminished, but no less agonizing scale, THE PUNISHER is a tragedy about a film that can’t make up its… Read More »
WALKING TALL
There was a time, I promise you, when the prospect of a remake did not immediately cause members of the reviewing press to reach for their sedation of choice. No, there was a time when people actually looked forward to seeing what Judy Garland would do with the Esther Blodgett role in A STAR IS… Read More »
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