The good news for all of us who have been seeing the trailer for DREAMCATCHER since the early Pleistocene Era is that it >doesnt< give everything away. There are plenty of twists, turns and surprises in this elegant and sometimes witty horror flick that is full of invention and characters that rise nicely above the… Read More »
OPEN RANGE
At the beginning of OPEN RANGE, Kevin Costners latest directing, acting and producing effort, a wagon becomes stuck in the mud after a torrential rainstorm. Kevin and his co-star Robert Duvall do get the wagon rolling again. Alas, the film itself remains mired in situ. Kevin returns here to the western genre and hes certainly… Read More »
RETURNER
Perhaps there is a cultural divide that prevents those of us not steeped in all things Japanese from seeing that RETURNER, which did boffo business in Japan, is actually a fine piece of filmmaking. Perhaps there are subtle nuances that we cannot appreciate despite our best efforts at trying to find them. And perhaps Madonna really can… Read More »
GOTHIKA
You have to wonder if the makers of GOTHIKA started out to make a comedy and then realized that something had gone awry. This would explain a great many things and I don’t just mean the unintentional laughter that this would-be supernatural thriller evokes. Our heroine is Miranda Grey (Halle Berry), a brilliant psychiatrist with… Read More »
THE MISSING
Much will and should be made one day about the metaphor of the individual plot points and of the metaphysics that lie at the heart of THE MISSING. The way it portrays the clash of cultures between the white settlers and the Native Americans whose lands were taken, corrupting the souls of those on both… Read More »
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
I’m going to say something now that will be the deciding factor for some of you about whether or not you want to see THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. Its star, Ashton Kutcher, spends an extended sequence barely wearing a towel, his taut, toned, and ripped physique on display for the multitudes. For the rest of you,… Read More »
STANDER
There is a scene in STANDER that stands out among many such memorable ones. In it, a teller is introduced to Andre Stander (Tom Jane) the police officer who is in charge of finding the man who robbed the bank window she was minding. The thing is, Stander is also the man who made away… Read More »
THE JACKET
THE JACKET begins as an intriguing, even unsettling consideration of time, space, and the nature of reality. But in a twist as breathtaking as it is unexpected, it commits the mortal sin of becoming conventional. Its all the more disappointing because of its director, John Maybury, a filmmaker and artist who was iconoclast Derek Jarmans… Read More »
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
You’d think that in 86 minutes of screen time that the makers of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR’s 2005 incarnation could come up with at least one genuinely scary moment. Even if it’s just by accident aided and abetted by the law of averages. Alas, this dreary Z-grade schlock-fest is capable of producing only titters and yawns… Read More »
11:14
A hit and run, a drop and run, and a severed penis are just part of a very bad night in the usually quiet little town of Middleton. It’s a place where the sidewalks roll up at 9pm, but tonight there’s plenty of mischief afoot, all of it converging, for better or worse, at the… Read More »