MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA attempts to take the admittedly addicting soap opera that was the book and elevate into something on a higher plane of artistic existence. It fails. What was best about the book, an innocent girl caught up in the pure grasping evil of the geisha universe complete with all the nitpicky yet… Read More »
SYRIANA
At two different points during SYRIANA, two different men in traditional Arab robes sits on a floor surrounded by two different sets of rapt listeners sitting in a circle. Each explains with perfect conviction how to make the world a better place. One is an eloquent imam in a poverty-stricken madrassa, advocating a return to… Read More »
KING KONG
The first thing that comes to mind after seeing Peter Jackson’s KING KONG is wow. Make that WOW. He’s done the seemingly impossible: followed up his magnificent LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy with a film that cements his reputation as a director that can deliver big films that aren’t afraid to wear their hearts on… Read More »
RUMOR HAS IT
RUMOR HAS IT, a dreary pseudo-sequel to 1968’s THE GRADUATE, tacks uncertainly between the far-fetched and the cliché as it hedges its bets rather than sharpens its claws with a story that dishonors the memory of that iconic classic. The action picks up in 1997 when Sarah (Jennifer Anniston) flies home from New York for… 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 »
MUNICH
In MUNICH, Steven Spielberg has created an intensely profound, if somewhat flawed, work. Moral debates about right and wrong abound with as many variations as there are characters to expound them, and there are many of both. The message, though, is unequivocal. Killing is an awful business that kills more than the victim, it also… Read More »
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE
A certain amount of hype is to be expected in show biz, even if the excesses of the golden days of ballyhoo as exemplified by William Castle have passed. It’s all part of the shell game that purveyors of entertainment play in order to engage the enthusiasms, or even just pique the interest, of the… Read More »
MATCH POINT
Chris (Johnathan Rhys-Meyers), the focus of Woody Allen’s MATCH POINT is an existential man in the proper Sartrian mold making his way in a world, he will learn, that is ruled by the short of absurdist chaos favored by Jean-Paul’s arch-rival, Camus. So much for free will, bad faith, and making one’s own luck. Forget… Read More »
CAPOTE
Bennett Miller’s CAPOTE, based on the book by Gerald Clarke, depicts the juncture in the life of Truman Capote (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as he goes from being a respected author of note to the most famous writer in America. Certainly the book that triggered the transformation, “In Cold Blood”, whose writing process is the time… Read More »
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
The difference in outlooks between Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) and his late wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), can be summed up in a conversation they have while driving on the squalid streets of Kenya’s capital where Justin, a British diplomat, is stationed. Tessa wants him to stop and give a lift back to her village to… Read More »
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