My favorite moment in HOUSE OF WAX comes when Carly (Elisha Cuthbert), our heroine in peril, is fleeing from the crazy person who is brandishing the sharp and dangerous something or other and she smacks right into the wall of the eponymous house. I like it because under the circumstances, that’s what would probably happen.… Read More »
MONSTER-IN-LAW
There is nothing wrong with a light comedy, even one as formulaic as MONSTER-IN-LAW. At least not in principle. Alas, when the makers rely on the formula to carry the day, and they are stuck with the self-absorbed performances of their two starring actresses, who are more concerned with image than character, well, there is… Read More »
STAR WARS EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH
STAR WARS EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH is marginally better than its two predecessors. But to put that in the proper perspective, that’s like saying that typhoid fever is marginally better than the ebola virus. It is a difference without a meaningful distinction. The point of EPISODE III is to explore the specifics… Read More »
MADAGASCAR
As I was watching MADAGASCAR, the new animated flick from Dreamworks, it occurred to me that there just aren’t enough lemurs in films of any kind and that’s a darn shame. Not just because as primates they’re our cousins, distantly, but also because there is something intrinsically and compellingly absurd in their large eyes and… Read More »
DOMINION — PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST
I can see why the folks at Warner Bros. watched the screening of Paul Schrader’s version of the EXORCIST prequel and panicked. They were, after all, working under the curse of the franchise sequels, which had all more or less tanked to critical brickbats and, further which, they might have hoped to avoid by making… Read More »
FAT ACTRESS — THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
“Fat Actress”, the pseudo adventures of Kirstie Alley coping with life as something considerably more than a size 2, is a guilty pleasure that has enough smarts to it to quell any feelings of guilt. True, it’s not as sharp as Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO, another fictionalized, “true-life” improvised series to which… Read More »
CINDERELLA MAN
Showing a lack of imagination and a willingness to mine every applicable sports cliché that is stunning in several senses of the word, Ron Howard has taken one of the greatest comeback stories ever and turned it into a cloying bit of fluff. CINDERELLA MAN is handsomely mounted, steeped in period art direction, and features… Read More »
THE ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL IN 3-D
After seeing THE ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL IN 3-D, the only conclusion to be drawn is that its maker, Robert Rodriguez, got lucky with his first foray into the land of kid films. That would be SPY KIDS, a perfectly splendid blend of fantasy elements and genuine family values. The subsequent installments… Read More »
IRAQ — THE UNTOLD STORIES
Mike Shiley’s IRAQ: THE UNTOLD STORIES shows just that. This self-proclaimed non-journalist, Shiley reports on things that the professional journalists working in Iraq wouldn’t, or couldn’t, discover. He’s a genial host, talking directly to the camera between three-minute clips of the footage he shot, expanding on his experiences in Iraq, experiences that range from the… Read More »
BATMAN BEGINS
Superheroes say much about the culture that spawned them, and so it is with the various incarnations of Batman. In the 60s, he was a pop icon with more than a little camp fluttering around his satin go-go boots. In the 80s and 90s, it was a wallow in excess with sets that duked it… Read More »
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