Though rife with occult phenomenon, JENNIFERS BODY is more in the tradition of HEATHERS than BUFFY. This sophomore effort by Diablo Cody explores the intense, baffling, and all-consuming relationships that bind and repel adolescent females to and from one another. Framing it in the context of a horror film overflowing with blood, erotica, humor, and… Read More »
SPIDER
David Cronenberg’s particular genius is getting inside our deepest, most primal fears, the ones that exist in the id and are impervious to any assuaging from the land of logic. Hence in RABID, Marilyn Chambers grows something suspiciously phallic in a most unexpected place, in VIDEODROME, our televisions turn on us, and in DEAD RINGERS,… Read More »
LOVE, ACTUALLY
LOVE, ACTUALLY takes upon itself the daunting task of presenting to us love in all its manifestations. Theres the fairy tale, the tragedy, the farce, the friendships and the betrayals all rolled up into a set of interwoven tales that charm but never pander, giving us the bitter with the sweet, the whimsy with the… Read More »
EUROTRIP
It’s not like we go to a film like EUROTRIP expecting a considered examination of the human condition. We don’t go for a dazzling display of verbal acuity and trenchant wit. We don’t even go for the lovely scenery, though Czech Republic, which stands in for all of Europe except The Louvre and Amsterdam, does… Read More »
BIRTH
One senses that in BIRTH everyone concerned was laboring under the delusion that they were creating high art. Let me put the brakes to that. What could have been an interesting consideration of love being stronger than death in more ways that one is, instead, an unpalatable trifle that plays more as a comedy that… Read More »
THE WOODSMAN
THE WOODSMAN is the bravest film of the year, perhaps of the decade. Emotionally challenging and ferociously unforgiving, it is an astonishing work of surprising delicacy played out with the rawest of emotion simmering just beneath the surface. In telling the story of Walter (Kevin Bacon), a convicted pedophile, it demands that we look beyond… Read More »
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN DVD
There has never been a film more heartbreaking, more beautiful, and more unforgettable than BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. The tale of two cowboys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) who unexpectedly fall in love in a time, the 1960s, place, the American west, as part of an economic class, working class, where such a thing is just not… Read More »
SIDE EFFECTS
The great problem with talking about Steven Soderberghs latest (and putatively his last) film, SIDE EFFECTS, is that it would be criminal to give away any of the fiendishly clever plot twists involved. This is an elegantly executed sleight-of-hand that hinges on something most people have never thought about: why is it, exactly, that we… Read More »