No less than Spider-Man 3, Oren Rudavsky’s The Treatment is an urban fairy tale. It’s an Upper-West-Side story, adapted from publishing powerhouse Daniel Menaker’s well-reviewed 1998 novel, first published in the New Yorker, in which a smart-mouthed, if diffident, hero (Chris Eigeman) wins a wise, beautiful princess (the versatile, sometime…
The American Landscape and Carny. Rule Gallery has typically presented single solos since landing in its new space several months ago, but this time, there are two different shows in that long and narrow sales room. The two work well together, though, as both are made up of photographs about…
Taxi Driver: Collector’s Edition (Sony) “Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads: Here is a man who would not take it anymore.” Martin Scorsese’s 1976 vision of hell as city-of-night New York rips through the reverential treatment on this special edition like a hunter’s blade through deerskin. A second disc of eight…
Chris Tucker still believes in Michael Jackson. You can tell because in the very first scene of Rush Hour 3, the actor-comedian squeals melodically, grabs his crotch and throws his arms up to the heavens. All that’s missing is a giant off-stage fan to make Tucker’s shirt billow out behind…
Stardust is less an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 1999 novel than of its dust-jacket synopsis. That will come as disconcerting news to fans of the author, who thus far has avoided the fate of fellow fantasy writers and comics creators who’ve had their works mangled by the studios’ clumsy assembly…
Right before Segway scooters were unleashed onto the world, there was talk of this new machine that was going to change the way America travels. A social revolution, the press releases promised. Then they hit the streets and people asked, “Why would I pay $4,000 for a machine that walks…
The American Landscape and Carny. Rule Gallery has typically presented single solos since landing in its new space several months ago, but this time, there are two different shows in that long and narrow sales room. The two work well together, though, as both are made up of photographs about…
Bubba Ho-tep Limited Edition (MGM) Intentional camp is difficult to do well. It’s a contradiction that usually comes off cutesy and forced. The old Batman series pulled it off, and it’s been B-movie god Bruce Campbell’s livelihood. But in a long career of overacting and mugging, Campbell’s peak may be…
The Bourne Ultimatum opens in Russia as the amnesiac super-spy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) does what he does best: elude capture, crack skulls, brood. Lickety-split, he’s en route to Paris, nursing his wounds and breaking out with a bad case of those itchy-scratchy hallucinations known as Hollywood Flashback Syndrome. Choice…
Oh, wipe that starchy Masterpiece Theatre moue off your face. Pop Jane Austen is fun, especially when it’s almost completely made up. According to Becoming Jane, a new addition to the plentiful Austen spinoff canon, our lady of graceful letters was hot stuff at cricket and kissing and had a…
Interview, Steve Buscemi’s second feature as both director and star, takes about twenty minutes to restrict the world to a single room, but once it arrives, the action seems to be held there by the pull of a cold sun. Buscemi plays a shabby ex-war correspondent with the fromage-scented name…
John Waters’s movies are best viewed through the eyes of an autistic child. Please, hear me out before you label this statement as a cruel slur. I was introduced to the world of John Waters by my autistic sister. After suffering though her mechanical spouting of monologues from Uncle Buck,…
The American Landscape and Carny. Rule Gallery has typically presented single solos since landing in its new space several months ago, but this time, there are two different shows in that long and narrow sales room. The two work well together, though, as both are made up of photographs about…
Hot Fuzz (Universal) The second feature from writer-director Edgar Wright and writer-star Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) has been available on home video for decades: Hot Fuzz is, after all, a witty and wisecracking montage of clips from some hundred-plus A-list and bargain-bin action films, chief among them Lethal…
The less said about the plot of the long-fabled, finally-arrived Simpsons Movie, the better; I know this instinctively, as a member of that particular segment of geekdom most psyched and apprehensive about its unveiling. I’m talking about the people who ask, “Does it suck?,” then prayerfully add, “Please don’t suck.”…
Sadly, No Reservations is not the big-screen adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s snack-gulping, risk-taking Travel Channel show; you’ll find no monkey brains here, nor any attempts to party down in Beirut while Hezbollah and Israel blow each other to smithereens. This is just more of the same from the franchise factory…
The raciest thing I ever saw my mother do was read a brown-paper-covered Penguin edition of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover on the London Underground. She didn’t fool all the other passengers carrying similarly disguised copies, and though I was only twelve years old in that fall of 1960…
In the observation room of the spacecraft Icarus II, passengers sit on a bench in front of a large, rectangular screen displaying a view of what lies ahead. They gaze at the spectacle as you might marvel at special effects on some ostentatious plasma monitor. A seething orb of gas…
When a Hong Kong action flick comes into your grasp, what else can you expect but fast, awesome martial arts? Triad Election shattered that stereotype, making me feel like the asshole who speaks slowly and loudly to anyone who looks foreign, only to be answered with “I speak English, dumbass.”…
The American Landscape and Carny. Rule Gallery has typically presented single solos since landing in its new space several months ago, but this time, there are two different shows in that long and narrow sales room. The two work well together, though, as both are made up of photographs about…
Nothing if not appropriate for summer blockbuster season, Werner Herzog’s latest feature, based on his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, offers a suitably fantastic tale of war, freedom and fortitude, set in the jungles of Indochina and featuring an immigrant lad who turns out to be just as…
I wanted to hate I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, truly I did. Two straight guys pretending to be gay (insert fiscal excuse here); been there, done that (insert all known variants on The Odd Couple here). Rampant homophobia hiding behind liberal pleas for tolerance — blech. And it’s…
