The most frustrating thing about THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is that the first 20 minutes are so darned good, crackling with intrigue, adventure, and Sean Connery being Sean Connery. Alas, somehow James Robinson’s script takes a promising premise, the one created in the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Kevin ONeill, and… Read More »
TEKNOLUST
One of my favorite lines in Lyne Hershman-Leeson’s TEKNOLUST concerns the side effects of knowledge. They’re dangerous because they’re unpredictable. Once you learn something, paradigms shift, assumptions evaporate, and you’re forced to look at the world in a whole new way and maybe even re-think your whole life. Scary stuff. The film ponders the nature… Read More »
RETURNER
Perhaps there is a cultural divide that prevents those of us not steeped in all things Japanese from seeing that RETURNER, which did boffo business in Japan, is actually a fine piece of filmmaking. Perhaps there are subtle nuances that we cannot appreciate despite our best efforts at trying to find them. And perhaps Madonna really can… Read More »
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, THE
Why is it that when filmmakers get a whole truck full of money, they always think that they should use it to make things blow up in lots of interesting, cool ways? The thought crossed my mind again as I watched MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, the third and putatively final chapter in the MATRIX cycle. In this… Read More »
SIRENS OF THE 23RD CENTURY
There is something about a film that takes no prisoners, especially a comedy, that can be completely irresistible. Im not talking about an ideology of us-versus-them in the great battle of good and evil, but rather one that holds a mirror up to all of us and shows us things we may not have considered… Read More »
TIMELINE
TIMELINE is the latest of Michael Crichtons novels to be translated to the silver screen. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Crichtons oeuvre, he churns them out like Wisconsin turns out cheese wheels and, as with any mass production concern, quality control sometimes slips between the cracks. Sometimes you get JURASSIC PARK, and sometimes you get… Read More »
LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING
Before we get to the business of reviewing LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, let’s take a moment to marvel at the fact that Peter Jackson persuaded a studio, New Line, to give him not only the money, but also the free hand to bring this trilogy to the screen while remaining… Read More »
BIG FISH
BIG FISH may be Tim Burtons most magical film to date. Paradoxically, its also one rooted firmly in reality, a la ED WOOD. Dont let that throw you. This is a landscape of the imagination as potent as anything Burton conjured up with EDWARD SCISSORHANDS or THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. There is a giant named… Read More »
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
I’m going to say something now that will be the deciding factor for some of you about whether or not you want to see THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. Its star, Ashton Kutcher, spends an extended sequence barely wearing a towel, his taut, toned, and ripped physique on display for the multitudes. For the rest of you,… 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 »
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