FOOL’S GOLD takes a radical approach to its genre. It is an adventure without thrills, a comedy without laughs, romance without heat, and a family drama without heart. A sublimely ironic deconstruction of cinematic conventions? If only. What we have here is filmmaking that is forced, flimsy and flaky. At best. Matthew McConaughey and Kate… Read More »
VANTAGE POINT
VANTAGE POINT takes a storyline that is a middling throwback to the Cold War paranoid fantasies of a half-century ago and tries to jazz it up with a multi-view narrative. The device makes the most of doing the requisite slow reveal of exactly what happened before, during, and after a terrorist attack in Spain, but… Read More »
SEMI-PRO
SEMI-PRO is a title that is more than apt for the film to which it is attached. It is a work made up of random bits and pieces in which Will Ferrell has been wedged into an insipid sports story. There is no discernible attempt to make the two disparate elements, Ferrell’s absurdity and the… Read More »
10,000 B.C.
10,000 B.C. is a suitably old-fashioned action story, which is emminently suitable to the sort of old-fashioned fantasy/adventure tale it tells, one that is set in the remote past, when Stonehenge was more or less new, and before even the pyramids were built. Depending upon, of course, which version of the past to which you… Read More »
DRILLBIT TAYLOR
DRILLBIT TAYLOR is a labored and disjointed effort with identity issues. Part psycho thriller (not ineffective), part examination of the plight of the homeless vet (lunging out of left field), part screwball comedy (stereotypically obvious), and all punctuated with punch lines that can most charitably described as hit and miss. Emphasis on the latter. The… Read More »
LEATHERHEADS
There are some films that set you to pondering. What is the meaning of life? What is my role in the human comedy? The question that LEATHERHEADS inspires is much less esoteric. During the bumpy homage to IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, and MEET JOHN DOE, among others, I found myself wondering what… Read More »
ZOMBIE STRIPPERS!
ZOMBIE STRIPPERS! Well, the classic exploitation-style title pretty much sums it up. All the film itself that follows that opening title has to do is maintain the momentum of the premise for the running time, delighting, baffling, and generally spoofing a genre that is itself a parody of sorts. This opus by Jay Lee starts… Read More »
YOUNG@HEART
YOUNG@HEART’s filmmaker, Stephen Walker, settles the question of whether 70-, 80-, and 90-year-old singers can cover punk, rock, and alternative music with the very first scene of his exhilarating documentary. In it, 92-year-old Eileen Hall is getting to the heart of “Shall I Stay Or Shall I Go” by The Clash with a verve and… Read More »
88 MINUTES
I wonder if any one has done a study to pinpoint the exact moment when Al Pacino gave up any attempt to continue being a serious actor and began regularly phoning it in. His latest, 88 MINUTES, is another in a series of roles in which he is genially disengaged, giving only the most perfunctory… Read More »
DEAL
There is more complexity in a sub-par episode of the Teletubbies than in anything to be found in DEAL, a Burt Reynolds vehicle that far from heralding his comeback may be his swan song as a bankable actor. This criminally trite bit of filmmaking never quite got past the original concept that seems to have… Read More »
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