THIS MEANS WAR is a frothy romp of a popcorn flick brightened by witty writing and a cast that get laughs by expertly playing it straight with a plausibly implausible plot. That would be how a product-tester inadvertently comes between two top-flight CIA agents who are also best friends. Yes, its ridiculous. Its also designed… Read More »
FADING GIGOLO
A few editing glitches towards the end of FADING GIGOLO does little to detract from the films Savvy charm, gentle humor and essential sweetness. Writer/director/star John Turturros exploration of sex, intimacy, and loneliness has knockout performances, sly insight, and a tantalizing premise going for it. Turturro stars as Fioravante, a part-time florist with a soulful… Read More »
TEKNOLUST
One of my favorite lines in Lyne Hershman-Leeson’s TEKNOLUST concerns the side effects of knowledge. They’re dangerous because they’re unpredictable. Once you learn something, paradigms shift, assumptions evaporate, and you’re forced to look at the world in a whole new way and maybe even re-think your whole life. Scary stuff. The film ponders the nature… Read More »
LOST IN TRANSLATION
With LOST IN TRANSLATION, writer/director Sofia Coppola lives up to the promise of the potential she exhibited in GODFATHER III. This tedious vanity piece is enlivened only by the charm of its leading man, Bill Murray, and by the astonishingly haphazard way in which the film as a whole appears to have been slapped together. Murray plays… Read More »
MONSIEUR IBRAHIM (MONSIEUR IBRAHIM ET LES FLEURS DU CORAN)
MONSIEUR IBRAHIM is a journey from darkness to light, literally and figuratively. The guide is the M. Ibrahim (Omar Sharif) of the title, a guardian angel, metaphorically, who intervenes at the perfect moment to save Moses (Daniel Boulanger), a neighborhood kid, from despair and worse. Moses is being raised by his dour father, a man… Read More »
CASANOVA
CASANOVA is a giddy, good-natured romp with lust on its mind and romance in its heart. Balancing the ironic with the ribald, it’s elegantly served up by Lasse Hallstrom, as it celebrates irreverent repartee and sumptuous self-indulgence reined in only by the limits of imagination. Our title character (Heath Ledger) is a male beauty living… Read More »