VANTAGE POINT takes a storyline that is a middling throwback to the Cold War paranoid fantasies of a half-century ago and tries to jazz it up with a multi-view narrative. The device makes the most of doing the requisite slow reveal of exactly what happened before, during, and after a terrorist attack in Spain, but… Read More »
SEMI-PRO
SEMI-PRO is a title that is more than apt for the film to which it is attached. It is a work made up of random bits and pieces in which Will Ferrell has been wedged into an insipid sports story. There is no discernible attempt to make the two disparate elements, Ferrell’s absurdity and the… Read More »
DRILLBIT TAYLOR
DRILLBIT TAYLOR is a labored and disjointed effort with identity issues. Part psycho thriller (not ineffective), part examination of the plight of the homeless vet (lunging out of left field), part screwball comedy (stereotypically obvious), and all punctuated with punch lines that can most charitably described as hit and miss. Emphasis on the latter. The… Read More »
BEE MOVIE — DVD
BEE MOVIE is a perfectly sweet little film that suffered from audience expectations. Fans of Jerry Seinfeld were, perhaps, expecting the same sensibility in this, his first post-television film project, as they had enjoyed on the series. It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation, Seinfeld and series writers Spike Feresten and Andy Robin were among the films… Read More »
LEATHERHEADS
There are some films that set you to pondering. What is the meaning of life? What is my role in the human comedy? The question that LEATHERHEADS inspires is much less esoteric. During the bumpy homage to IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, and MEET JOHN DOE, among others, I found myself wondering what… Read More »
CHAOS THEORY
CHAOS THEORY is a torpid piece of filmmaking that is at once a fluffy drama and a dreary comedy. Like its hero, Frank (Ryan Reynolds), it’s decided never to make a definite decision and the shambles that results is as predictable as the story of which it is part. The story is told in flashback,… Read More »
ZOMBIE STRIPPERS!
ZOMBIE STRIPPERS! Well, the classic exploitation-style title pretty much sums it up. All the film itself that follows that opening title has to do is maintain the momentum of the premise for the running time, delighting, baffling, and generally spoofing a genre that is itself a parody of sorts. This opus by Jay Lee starts… Read More »
DEAL
There is more complexity in a sub-par episode of the Teletubbies than in anything to be found in DEAL, a Burt Reynolds vehicle that far from heralding his comeback may be his swan song as a bankable actor. This criminally trite bit of filmmaking never quite got past the original concept that seems to have… Read More »
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
It’s a brave and bold move to make the most self-absorbed, narcissist in a film the one who is also the only one living an authentic life, but that’s part of the charm of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. It’s also smart because of the piquant contrast while all the other characters are scurrying around trying to… Read More »
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
What Errol Morris is doing with STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is more than a mere and mundane retelling of the abuses committed by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib. There is certainly that, but Morris, whose non-fiction features are as quirky as they are perceptive, goes beyond uncovering the whats and whens. He addresses the far… Read More »
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