The QUINCEANERA is a coming-of-age celebration for Mexican girls in which they take the step from childhood to adulthood, a step from which there is no turning back. As observed today, there is painstaking attention to the rituals, but the underlying meaning as often as not, gets lost in the materialism of expensive clothes and… Read More »
THE ILLUSIONIST
Click here to listen to the interview with Neil Burger (15:34). A man in shirtsleeves sitting in intense concentration on a bare stage. The audience watching in rapt silence. Police lining the aisles ready to act. Thus begins THE ILLUSIONIST, a tale of sleight-of-hand, misdirection, and magic in many senses of the word. The only… Read More »
INVINCIBLE
INVINCIBLE takes the daring step of making this “based on a true story” sports film more about the emotional journey of its hero, Vince Papale, rather than the standard tale of an underdog overcoming enormous odds. It’s that, too, considering that Papale, played by Mark Wahlberg, had the guts, or perhaps the desperation, to answer… Read More »
THE QUIET
The precarious balance of a dysfunctional family is thrown off kilter by a new member in THE QUIET. The unraveling makes for a disturbing drama that is as riveting to watch as it is challenging to contemplate. The new family member is Dot (Camilla Belle), an orphaned deaf-mute teenager who arrives at the home of… Read More »
HOLLYWOODLAND
HOLLYWOODLAND deals with the death of George Reeves, television’s Superman and the idol of millions of kids who were devastated by not just his passing, but that it was reported to have been suicide. It was during a party at his house, when he went upstairs and was later found with a bullet through his… Read More »
GRIDIRON GANG
Before seeing GRIDIRON GANG, I would have said that given the right sort of role, one with action, a greater or lesser dash of comedy, and no stretching of a thespian nature, that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a fine screen presence but not much more. I have been proved wrong. There’s humor and a… Read More »
THE BLACK DAHLIA
There are so many missteps in Brian De Palma’s THE BLACK DAHLIA that one hardly knows where to start. Perhaps the best place is with the adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel of the same name. The book is a rich and vibrant work that provides too much fodder for a two-hour film to capture. Instead… Read More »
ALL THE KING’S MEN
ALL THE KING’S MEN is so swept up in being an important and timely film that it somehow never quite gets around to being either, much less both. It’s the second film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, who took his inspiration and bit more from the life of Louisiana’s flamboyant… Read More »
THE DEPARTED
With THE DEPARTED, Martin Scorsese has taken a good film, the Hong Kong minor classic INFERNAL AFFAIRS, and remade it into a movie that is as bloated as it is bland. Gone is the dramatic tension of a slick action flick, gone is the suspenseful psychological subtext that pondered the nature of identity, subsumed into… Read More »
UNITED 93 — DVD
In the course of the commentary track by writer/director Paul Greenglass, he answers those who thought that it was too soon to make a film about UNITED 93. It’s not too soon, he says, it’s high time. As with the feature film release of UNITED 93, the DVD is also a tribute to the people who… Read More »
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