The thing that everyone will be talking about in THE WACKNESS is the make-out scene between scrawny nymphet Mary-Kate Olsen and the leathery, aging Sir Ben Kingsley. It’s deeply unsettling, and not just because it’s more than mere making out. Not just because of the age difference. Not just because it’s Gandhi and the erstwhile… Read More »
BABYLON A.D.
Overbudget and behind schedule, BABYLON A.D. crept into theaters without a press screening. This never bodes well and this would-be epic lives up, or down, to that boding. Vin Diesel stars as Toorop, a mercenary in the Russia of the not-too distant future. Not your typical mercenary, though. Sure, he’s tough, sure he’s intimidating, sure… Read More »
BANGKOK DANGEROUS
In 1999, The Pang Brothers made film called BANGKOK DANGEROUS. People liked it. It added luster to the Brothers’ reputation. They moved on to make other action flicks in Asia with great success and other kinds of flicks in America with less success. At some point the Brothers looked at one another, and this is… Read More »
TAKING LIVES
When I do my annual interview with the Head Berry of the Golden Raspberry Awards Foundation, the name Angelina Jolie almost always pops up, as in, if shes in a movie in any given year, shes going to be nominated for a Razzie. Gone are the glory days of that >other< award that she won.… Read More »
DERAILED
Clive Owen is an actor of enormous charisma, a tough vulnerability, and a not inconsiderable amount of animal magnetism, none of which are on display in DERAILED, a ridiculously overplotted and underthought exercise in muddled filmmaking. Blame director Mikael Hafstrom for quashing Owen’s appeal along with everything else that threatens to light up his film.… Read More »
ATONEMENT
ATONEMENT is as close to perfection as mere mortals can aspire to. This translation to the screen of the Booker Prize-winning novel by Ian McEwan flawlessly captures the complex and powerful play of emotions that propel the story while annotating it with a visual component that amplifies rather than distracts. The plot hinges on what… Read More »