EASTERN PROMISES is a gloriously dark and compelling thriller that plays cat and mouse with its audience the way that the characters involved play cat and mouse with each other. The tension, though, in this well-plotted suspense yarn arises not so much from the evil that the villains purvey, it’s the way that the underworld… Read More »
THE DANCER UPSTAIRS
THE DANCER UPSTAIRS is a stunning exploration of passion and delusion, and not just the romantic kind, though the power of Eros is seen here as just as treacherous as the political backdrop of the story. Set in an unnamed South American country in a time specified only as the recent past, an honest man,… Read More »
Joel Schumacher’s PHONE BOOTH
Joel Schumacher knows how to put on a show. Whether it be a full-blown flight of fantasy such as BATMAN AND ROBIN or the more confined space of PHONE BOOTH, in which we spend almost 90 minutes trapped in one with Colin Farrell. Schumacher may not always avoid kitsch, but he’s rarely boring. The same is… Read More »
John Malkovich Captures THE DANCER UPSTAIRS
John Malkovich is a man who likes to take his time, whether putting together THE DANCER UPSTAIRS, his directorial debut in films, or in answering questions and about the art and craft of acting on stage and on screen. It led to a fair amount of philosophizing when I interviewed him on April 17, 2003 and a… Read More »
Wes Craven’s RED EYE
Wes Craven grew up in a family where watching movies was considered a sin. It’s one of the many things I wanted to ask him about when we chatted on August 8, 2005. I was also curious about the subtle but unmistakable feminist bent of his latest film, RED EYE, not to mention why co-star Brian Cox looked… Read More »
IN BRUGES with Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh has the same sort of dark, yet whimsical sense of humor with which his film IN BRUGES, is rife. When I talked with him on January 30, 2008, the twisted way in which he examines morality was top of my list of thing I wanted to discuss, as well as the redefinition of… Read More »
Jason Patric’s NARC
If Jason Patric had made no other contribution to American cinema than producing and starring in Neil LaBute’s second film, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, that would be reason enough for me to owe him an immeasurable debt of gratitude. Patric has a savvy sense of the business side of show biz, resulting in very few misses… Read More »
John Leguizamo’s EMPIRE
Fearless is a good word to describe John Leguizamo. Think of the roles he’s chosen over the years, Toulouse-Lautrec in Baz Lurhman’s MOULIN ROUGE, a tortured loser in Spike Lee’s SUMMER OF SAM, a sassy transvestite in TO WONG FOO and, especially, the one-man shows that he writes as well as performs where he opens himself… Read More »
Dr. Sasha Bardey Knows his SIDE EFFECTS
Of all the people involved in the making of Steven Soderbergh’s SIDE EFFECTS, Dr. Sasha Bardey may have been the perfect interivew subject. The film is a psychological thriller of the first order, with the classic Hitchcockian motif of an innocent bystander being suddenly entangled in a fiendish plot that spells certain doom for that… Read More »
Michael Pena & Natalie Martinez Take the END OF WATCH
END OF WATCH is anything but a typical cop flick. Written and directed by David Ayers of TRAINING DAY fame, it makes an edgy, gritty, and engrossing film about cops, played by Michael Pena and Jake Gyllenhaal, who are neither corrupt, as in TRAINING DAY, nor of the rogue variety that are out for their own brand of… Read More »