Sexy Beast, the debut feature from British director Jonathan Glazer, is a riveting, scary and often funny foray into a traditional American genre: the gangster film. Like the western, the gangster film has always been predominantly American turf, but every decade or so, the Brits come up with an entry…
If internal combustion ever becomes obsolete — that is, if the auto industry ever allows internal combustion to become obsolete — whatever will movies do for heart-stopping drama? Hoofbeats are dramatic, and the chug of a steam engine is suspenseful, but the roar of a gasoline-powered vehicle stirs the blood…
In the annals of social change, Alma Schindler is strictly small potatoes, and Bruce Beresford’s new biopic, Bride of the Wind, unwittingly threatens to erase her altogether. For those who don’t have the history of the Austro-Hungarian empire at their fingertips, Alma (Sarah Wynter) was an outspoken party girl from…
Those expecting Himalaya to focus upon the beloved traveling carnival ride known for its liberal use of Def Leppard (“Do you wanna go faster?”) are in for a few surprises. For one, this sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of National Geographic come to life, rich with cultural…
After winning five separate Audience Awards and other honors at various gay and lesbian film festivals over the past year, Thomas Bezucha’s Big Eden has finally opened in general release. You don’t have to be an expert on the history of gay cinema to see why — and you don’t…
The values that you grew up with are that people come before things,” offers the mother of one the protagonists of Startup.com, “and that didn’t seem to be a part of this new world.” You sure got that right, ma’am. While this new video documentary by Chris Hegedus and Jehane…
Remember glee? Perhaps not, given our penchant in recent times to chuck giddy hearts aside in favor of being stupid, obnoxious and mean. But hey, it’s all right, because the fizzy, caffeinated beverage known as Baz Luhrmann seeks to re-create this elusive emotion for all of us, in the form…
Measured by its screaming dive-bombers, multiple-explosion mayhem and flaming carnage, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Pearl Harbor is just the kind of eye-popping, ear-splitting blockbuster the summer movie throngs crave. Here is Hollywood bombast — $140 million worth — at its most shameless pitch and in its most glorious profusion. Bruckheimer and…
Chopper, the first feature from Australian video director Andrew Dominik — is a strong, effective but often stomach-churning portrait of notorious Aussie criminal Mark “Chopper” Read. It can be characterized as “sensational” — in both the positive and negative senses of the word. According to the filmmakers, Chopper Read is…
Chances are you don’t know a whole lot about Angel Eyes other than that it’s the brand-new Jennifer Lopez movie. Maybe you also know that it co-stars Jim Caviezel (periodically known as James; he apparently hasn’t decided yet). It’s been described in some articles as a supernatural romance, and Caviezel…
Kids might well be amused by the frenetic pacing of Shrek, the latest computer-animated film from DreamWorks. It moves so quickly it’s nearly a blur, though kids need not get the jokes to enjoy frolicking in the muck (and the maggots) with a green, snaggle-toothed ogre who wants only to…
The crimes Hollywood has committed against the major Russian novelists would themselves fill a pretty hefty tome. While reducing giants like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Pasternak to lavish costuming and snappy dialogue over the years, the studio moguls also made some eccentric casting choices — for instance, cover boy George Hamilton…
Let us first in olden verse this critic’s cynical curse disperse: The greet unwashede consummethe crappe, Fro Jerrye Springgere to ganggsta rappe; Bothe yonge and olde, ’tis sore pitee, Doth foule thir hertes with drede teevee, Thus slye produceres, with bisynesse cunning, Devysde a shew to pyne come running, Consummeres…
Just when we culturally deprived, mystery-starved Americans were convinced that the most delicious of movie genres, the French thriller, was dead and buried, a literate and exciting new filmmaker named Dominik Moll has emerged to revive it — and set our nerves exquisitely on edge. It’s a minor miracle that…
Presently sitting in a very peaceful meditational facility. First time here. The location (which shall remain unnamed so as to maintain nondenominational vibe) was selected specifically for the loving creation of this review, as it provides an almost perfect contrast to The Center of the World, the new motion picture…
Visualize a pretty young woman and a handsome young man heading for the bedroom. She has just suggested that she wants to show him what she really wants, so, naturally, he begins unzipping his pants en route to the bed. Oblivious to his loud boxers, she sits and begins swooning…
Im Kwon Taek has long been the best-known Korean director in America; in fact, it would be fair to say that he’s pretty much the only even vaguely known Korean director, and even then, his renown is strictly among festivalgoers. The general distribution of his latest film, Chunhyang, should be…
Talk about an unholy union of souls! The latest project from director John Boorman (Deliverance, The General) seeks to be many things — spy thriller and black comedy among them — but at its core it’s a bizarre buddy movie. Behold Pierce Brosnan as a spy who lit out from…
There’s a majesty to Michael Winterbottom’s new film, a majesty and a terrible, icy chill. There’s also a fair bit of invention, as the director of the wrenching Jude — based on Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure — has shifted from the locus of that author’s fierce, beloved English west…
Keep a diary and one day it’ll keep you,” said Mae West, and, while the sentiment rings true, it does little to explain the mystery of why Helen Fielding’s sliver of literary history managed to keep anyone. Fluffy, shrill and approximately as deep as Cosmo magazine, the book somehow hit…
One doesn’t watch Amores Perros (Love’s a Bitch) so much as absorb it — like a body blow. “I wanted to make a movie that smelled of filth,” Alejandro González Inárritu has said about his feature directorial debut. He has succeeded beyond perhaps even his wildest dreams. One of this…
Hello, what’s this? Why, could it be another cautionary tale from Hollywood about recreational drugs being — alert the media! — not particularly good for people? Indeed, with Blow, director Ted Demme (Beautiful Girls, Monument Ave.) has set us up with a morality tale in which the moral is obvious…
