Perhaps the stage version of RENT won its Pulizter Prize for the way it dignified the people that society marginalizes out of existence, lumping together the junkies, the drag queens, and the rest who don’t fit into the pigeonholed roles that make the world at large comfortable, giving them a voice an identity beyond the… Read More »
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA attempts to take the admittedly addicting soap opera that was the book and elevate into something on a higher plane of artistic existence. It fails. What was best about the book, an innocent girl caught up in the pure grasping evil of the geisha universe complete with all the nitpicky yet… Read More »
SYRIANA
At two different points during SYRIANA, two different men in traditional Arab robes sits on a floor surrounded by two different sets of rapt listeners sitting in a circle. Each explains with perfect conviction how to make the world a better place. One is an eloquent imam in a poverty-stricken madrassa, advocating a return to… Read More »
RUMOR HAS IT
RUMOR HAS IT, a dreary pseudo-sequel to 1968’s THE GRADUATE, tacks uncertainly between the far-fetched and the cliché as it hedges its bets rather than sharpens its claws with a story that dishonors the memory of that iconic classic. The action picks up in 1997 when Sarah (Jennifer Anniston) flies home from New York for… Read More »
CASANOVA
CASANOVA is a giddy, good-natured romp with lust on its mind and romance in its heart. Balancing the ironic with the ribald, it’s elegantly served up by Lasse Hallstrom, as it celebrates irreverent repartee and sumptuous self-indulgence reined in only by the limits of imagination. Our title character (Heath Ledger) is a male beauty living… Read More »
MUNICH
In MUNICH, Steven Spielberg has created an intensely profound, if somewhat flawed, work. Moral debates about right and wrong abound with as many variations as there are characters to expound them, and there are many of both. The message, though, is unequivocal. Killing is an awful business that kills more than the victim, it also… Read More »
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE
A certain amount of hype is to be expected in show biz, even if the excesses of the golden days of ballyhoo as exemplified by William Castle have passed. It’s all part of the shell game that purveyors of entertainment play in order to engage the enthusiasms, or even just pique the interest, of the… Read More »
CAPOTE
Bennett Miller’s CAPOTE, based on the book by Gerald Clarke, depicts the juncture in the life of Truman Capote (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as he goes from being a respected author of note to the most famous writer in America. Certainly the book that triggered the transformation, “In Cold Blood”, whose writing process is the time… Read More »
LAST HOLIDAY
THE LAST HOLIDAY is an updated remake of the 1950 film of the same name that boasted a screenplay by J.B. Priestly and Alec Guiness in the starring role. Naturally, one approaches the remake with trepidation. And yet, in a move as cleverly rendered as the original film, the filmmakers have made a few changes,… Read More »
THE NEW WORLD
Terrence Malick, an auteur in every sense, has both written and directed just five films in his since 1969. As such each new work, staggeringly original in its scope and in its approach, is a cause for eager anticipation. Each finds new truths and new meanings in events that had seemed familiar, combat during World… Read More »
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