ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, the latest installment of Robert Rodriguez’s EL MARIACHI series. begins with a bang and barely pauses to catch its breath until its suitably bloody denouement. Antonio Banderas returns as the fastest guitar in Mexico, and I don’t just mean the way he pounds out chords on his stringed instrument… Read More »
RUNDOWN, THE
One of the best moments in THE RUNDOWN is Christopher Walken, doing his own peculiar riff on being the heart of darkness, explaining through a translator to a group of Brazilian Indians just exactly what the Tooth Fairy is. Its also emblematic of what is best in this slam dunk of an action flick that… Read More »
MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
Finally, an adventure film for grownups. MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, based on the wildly popular Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’ Brian, is brought to vivid life with a literate script, intelligent performances, and a respect for its audience. While the story takes place during the Napoleanic Wars, the focus is… Read More »
STAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES
I suppose that it is theoretically possible for the latest installment of the STAR WARS saga, ATTACK OF THE CLONES, to have been worse than THE PHANTOM MENACE, but fortunately, we are spared the spectacle of what that might have been like. CLONES is certainly no masterpiece, but it is head, shoulders, and light saber better… Read More »
HAUNTED MANSION, THE
I guess the best thing to do is to say right off the bat that Im a sucker for a tragic love story and THE HAUNTED MANSION has at a juicy one. Its a good move. Like that other film based on an attraction at Disney parks, THE HAUNTED MANSION actually goes to the trouble… Read More »
THE MISSING
Much will and should be made one day about the metaphor of the individual plot points and of the metaphysics that lie at the heart of THE MISSING. The way it portrays the clash of cultures between the white settlers and the Native Americans whose lands were taken, corrupting the souls of those on both… Read More »
THE LAST SAMURAI
In THE LAST SAMURAI, we have a puffed up popcorn flick that is not without a certain kitschy charm. It is a throwback to those glorious action-adventure films that Hollywood churned out with astonishing regularity during its golden age with little regard for the limitations of reality. It was all flash, glamour and really pearly… Read More »
PAYCHECK
Click here to listen to the interview with John Woo.After a brief excursion into the uncertain waters of reel history with WINDTALKERS, John Woo has returned to the action/martial arts genre he does so well with PAYCHECK. Based on the short story by Philip K. Dick, it starts with the classic Hitchcock formula of a… Read More »
HIDALGO
At way over two hours in length, HIDALGO is overlong, no doubt about it. Still, this rip-snorting answer to the old-time Saturday morning serials has two things going for it that save it from its stock characters and cliché situations. One is Viggo Mortensen, a rugged sort of eye candy who brings a soulful yet… Read More »
THE PUNISHER
HAMLET is a tragedy about a man who cant make up his mind about taking action. The resulting exposition of his inner struggle produced some of the finest poetry in the English language. On a much diminished, but no less agonizing scale, THE PUNISHER is a tragedy about a film that can’t make up its… Read More »
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