For a big chunk of ASYLUM, Natasha Richardson wears a shade of lipstick that is just a hair’s breadth off of being the right color for her. It’s emblematic of the film as a whole, which misses the mark when it comes to its stated purpose of delving into the madness and mystery of passion.… Read More »
BROTHERS GRIMM, THE
The original stories of THE BROTHERS GRIMM were the folk tales that the fraternal pair, linguists by trade (Grimm’s Law of Phonetic Transformation has always made me weak in the knees), collected from the peasants in the countryside of the German-speaking world. They were dark, they were dangerous, and they were unforgettable. Full of archetypes… Read More »
THE CAVE
There are so many ways for a film to join the ranks of bad cinema. THE CAVE is daring in doing so in that it isn’t just tedious, it isn’t just silly, no, it goes the distance until it actually becomes a personal affront to the sensibilities of everyone concerned. The first misstep was in… Read More »
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE is overwhelmed with such an overweening sense of earnestness that one feels almost sinful for not being swept along with what its makers obviously consider a tale of great importance. The greater sin, though, is in taking a tale of exorcism, faith, and the law and not making it more… Read More »
A SOUND OF THUNDER
A SOUND OF THUNDER isn’t just a bad movie, it is one that is so hopelessly ridiculous, so relentlessly inept, that it sullies the art of filmmaking as a whole. It may have even knocked the concept of art itself down a few notches. That is also mangles a classic Ray Bradbury short story only… Read More »
JUST LIKE HEAVEN
JUST LIKE HEAVEN is an irresistible and unpretentious morsel of old-fashioned romance with a dash of weltschmerz and metaphysics tossed in for good measure. It’s not so much boy meets girl, as boy meets ghost, though they don’t let that stand in the way of falling in love in spite of themselves. He is David… Read More »
SERENITY
The problem with feature films based on television series that left the airwaves long ago is that with a different cast and different writers and, heaven help us all, a “hip” new take on it all, what made the original popular, even classic, can easily get lost in the shuffle to make a quick buck.… Read More »
VENOM
Screaming, stalking, and exsanguinating is just about all there is to VENOM, a putrid bit of bad filmmaking whose only virtue, and that is an extremely relative term here, is that it doesn’t try to pretend to be anything but. Alas, in the process it manages to make mere schlock look good. We, like the… Read More »
CORPSE BRIDE
Tim Burton’s latest animated film, CORPSE BRIDE,is a whimsical bit of the macabre, gussied up with the rapture of first love in both its full flowering and something more sinister. It’s Petit Guignol as light and fluffy as a corner full of cobwebs and, once you get used to the talking maggots, the rotting flesh… Read More »
OLIVER TWIST
Roman Polanski’s take on the Dickens classic, OLIVER TWIST, is a respectful one, and by respectful, I mean safe. Nowhere is there the distinct voice of the auteur that could raise a gaggle of goosebumps with the perfectly positioned camera angle that one finds in ROSEMARY’S BABY, CHINATOWN, or THE PIANIST. There is none of… Read More »
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