I blame the CSI-ing of the culture. Why else would UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION have a scene in which vampire corpses, sheathed in body bags, are taken to a ship docked at a suitably foggy pier, and autopsied? Scalpels, draining tables, the whole deal, not to mention animations of things going on in the bodies of the undead. Pondering that,… Read More »
ANNAPOLIS
The first question that comes to mind after watching ANNAPOLIS is this. If the powers behind this pasteboard mockup of a film wanted to remake AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, why didn’t they just go ahead and do that? The second question, why if they wanted to remake ROCKY, didn’t they just go ahead and… Read More »
BROKEN FLOWERS — DVD
Jim Jarmusch’s BROKEN FLOWERS has been accused of being his most accessible film. Perhaps it’s because the narrative is more linear than his last film, the equally brilliant COFFEE AND CIGARETTES. Perhaps it’s because its star, Bill Murray, plays a character that is facing his mid-life crisis in a way that is more identifiable than… Read More »
THE WAR WITHIN — DVD
THE WAR WITHIN deserved a lot more attention than it got when it was released last year. This brave film took on complex issues surrounding suicide bombers and the radicalization of moderate Muslims without pandering to any special interest group. Instead, it trusted to an intelligent, compassionate script with a searing message and no easy… Read More »
PI
PI, the film and the number, addresses the deep human longing for order and pattern in the universe. Yes, it posits, there is a pattern, a grand scheme hidden to all but the chosen few, and the result of discovering it is fraught with peril. The story concerns Max, a driven, asocial mathematician who spends his days… Read More »
NOWHERE
Once, as Gertrude Stein was reminiscing about her hometown of Oakland, CA, she said, and I quote, “There’s no there, there.” It’s unfortunate that she was never asked about LA, or if she was, that her response was not recorded for posterity. I shudder to think what she would have made of a place that… Read More »
THE PINK PANTHER
Peter Sellers is so deeply identified with monumentally bumbling Inspector Clouseau that one wonders why Steve Martin would want to take a crack at the character with a remake of THE PINK PANTHER. Others, including the character’s co-creator, Blake Edwards, have taken their shot and failed miserably. Martin, who co-wrote the script, at least makes… Read More »
FREEDOMLAND
In FREEDOMLAND, Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Lorenzo, spends a great deal of time professing his belief in God. There is nothing in his life or in the lives of anyone around him that would back up that belief, never mind that at one point he proclaims that after 22 years of being a cop, he… Read More »
16 BLOCKS
Think of 16 BLOCKS as Bruce Willis’ transition film. It’s as though now that he is gamely moving towards his golden years, he is also gamely moving beyond the action films that filled his cinematic oeuvre and bedeviled those who had to endure them when he kept making them even after they had reached the… Read More »
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
There is one wildly funny sequence in FAILURE TO LAUNCH, an otherwise pallid and predictable slog. That it features the supporting players and a bird rather than stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey is emblematic of where this film went so very, very wrong. Parker plays Paula, a professional interventionist hired by concerned parents… Read More »
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- …
- 147
- Next Page »