NO STRINGS ATTACHED is a sweet and sophisticated comedy that gently navigates the emotionally explosive no-mans-land of modern relationships. No rules, no cookie-cutter blueprints, its a scary place where the friends of those with the biggest questions are the ones who are the quickest to offer advice, and are also the ones with the least… Read More »
STARBUCK
STARBUCK is a sweet little fable about procreating and growing up. In that order. Already in the process of being re-made American-style, this charmer from Canada deserves to find its audience before being overpowered by the Hollywood hype and the heinous habit that place has of taking something wonderful and ruining it with formulaic homogenization.… Read More »
TRANCE
TRANCE is a thing of grotesquely fascinating beauty, an evolved noir designed to provoke and to disturb in equal measure as it toys with the audience’s notions of absolute certainty. It begins with the winsome James McAvoy addressing the audience directly, his sadly earnest face a perfect picture of open honesty as he sets up… Read More »
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
Click here for an interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor about KINKY BOOTS.(9:49).Stephen Frears’ work always has an element of savagery to it. No matter what the milieu, there is always the overwhelming sense of acute danger and violence permeating even the quietest of moments, making those moments not so much islands of peace as a jittery… Read More »
GIGLI
If GIGLI were any worse than it is, it would require special HAZMET handling. It transcends merely bad, merely tedious, merely irksome and plummets into that very special category of film, the one that so tries and tortures its audience that, emerging again from the soul-sucking black hole of celluloid disaster, it no longer fears… Read More »
ALFIE
The thing about Jude Law is that he is so unbelievably beautiful. Such is his pulchritude, not to mention his irresistible onscreen charm, that its easy to overlook the undeniable acting chops that are greater even than the sum of his more ephemeral gifts. In ALFIE, Charles Shyer’s re-make of the 60s classic that starred… Read More »
STRANGERS WITH CANDY
Amy Sedaris is completely fearless when it comes to her alter ego, Jerri Blank, of STRANGERS WITH CANDY. First in the too brief television series that garnered a fanatic cult following, and now with the big screen version of same, which, freed from the bonds of basic cable standards and practices, takes flight with the… Read More »
KNOCKED UP
An ad campaign is supposed to attract a target audience to a film. Let me amend that. It’s supposed to attract the >right< target audience to a film. In the case of Judd Apatow’s KNOCKED UP, a huge mistake as been made. To judge by the commercials and such, this is a raunchy comedy with… Read More »
WALK HARD — THE DEWEY COX STORY
What SPINAL TAP did to and for the heavy metal documentary, WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY does to and for the musical bio-pic. With a fearless sense of silliness and a savage swipe at the conventions of the genre, it forges a brilliant parody that is relentlessly funny and musically acute. There is not… 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 »