Not a lot of people know this, but our word “actress” is derived from the Greek phrase strumpetos luckyos, meaning “prostitute who somehow landed an agent.” The reason that this etymological root remains largely unappreciated is that it is entirely fake, fabricated for the present purpose of irritating a lot…
There are two options when discussing Chasing Liberty, in which pop star turned actress Mandy Moore plays a president’s daughter named Anna Foster who wants some alone time, sans Secret Service, to go clubbing in Europe, hang with friends and lose her 18-year-old virginity to a Brit in his 20s…
Not unlike Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien remains a massively popular author whose seemingly “morbid” work often reflects surviving the horrors of war, firsthand. Tolkien was also a devout Catholic — a demographic gleefully bashed by the entertainment industry in countless movies, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. The question is, who profits…
For all of its inspired side trips down Imagination Lane (let’s call it that, because the “memories” of protagonist Edward Bloom are too majestic to be trusted and too affecting to be discounted), Big Fish is ultimately about one thing: the relationship between a son about to become a father…
Anthony Minghella’s magnificent film version of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain has much more going for it than Hollywood grandeur. Beyond its striking set pieces and gruesome battle scenes populated with thousands of extras, in addition to its movie-star glamour — Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are like beautiful…
For those who pay no mind to Oprah, the dispute at the heart of House of Sand and Fog concerns the occupancy of a run-down little bungalow just inland from the northern California coast. It’s not much of a place, really. And to get a glimpse of the Pacific you’d…
It has become a subject of much discussion and debate amongst film fetishists in recent weeks: For which movie will Sean Penn win the Academy Award, Mystic River or 21 Grams? Perhaps this seems like so much jockeying for blurbs on a movie poster or a newspaper advertisement — Sean…
“All children, except one, grow up . . .” So begins J.M. Barrie’s classic children’s tale about the boy who defiantly refuses to grow up and the girl who is torn between remaining a child with him or accepting the inevitable passage into adulthood. Adapted from Barrie’s own 1904 stage…
You know how it’s often the ones we love whose flaws are most apparent? Well, when it comes to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I am smitten. This film is a miracle, an extravaganza equal to its predecessors and in some ways more stunning. It…
William H. Macy’s plain-vanilla features and hangdog screen demeanor have served him well. Who could resist him as the clueless car dealer who hatched the disastrous kidnapping plot in Fargo, or as the distraught husband of a frisky porn star in Boogie Nights? A splendid character actor with a gift…
This year’s British assault on the Yank funnybone is a spirited, hard-trying farce called Calendar Girls, plucked straight out of a 1999 headline and dolled up with all the heartwarming charm we’ve come to expect from recent films made by our former rulers. Essentially a chick flick for middle-aged women…
Not unlike Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien remains a massively popular author whose seemingly “morbid” work often reflects surviving the horrors of war, firsthand. Tolkien was also a devout Catholic — a demographic gleefully bashed by the entertainment industry in countless movies, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. The question is, who profits…
Remember the Farrelly brothers? Makers of Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary? Known for crossing the line of good taste and making fun of the differently abled, but with a sufficiently sweet streak that they could be forgiven for such? Kinda popular until Trey Parker and Matt Stone…
“Here, go ahead and light this joint, man, let me tell you my idea . . .” Flick, flick . . . puff, inhale, hold it, eyes bug out, holding it, exhale, coughing fit . . . “Okay, we got a screenwriter with a pretty good feature film under his…
Sorrow sprouts wings and flies in Jim Sheridan’s radiant new film In America, which pits the pain and grief of unimaginable loss against the resilience of the human heart. In this semi-autobiographical tale from the writer-director of My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, a working-class Irish…
In his career as a Hollywood action figure, Tom Cruise has been dressed in some pretty hip outfits — a macho fighter pilot’s sleek leather jacket, a NASCAR driver’s logo-speckled fire suit, assorted silken Armani sports jackets, even black cape and fangs. So it’s a bit unsettling to see the…
Honey is one of those movies you will see (or not, whatever), swear you’ve seen before in several other guises and incarnations, then immediately forget you ever saw to begin with. Its story, about a would-be dancer trying to plot her escape from mean streets (or mean movie sets and…
Well into the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, films like Longtime Companion, An Early Frost and Philadelphia, as strange as it may be to imagine, have become period pieces. People aren’t expiring quite so quickly anymore, thanks to new anti-viral drug “cocktails.” Lives that in years past would have…
Like the Disneyland ride upon which it’s based, The Haunted Mansion opens with a spooky voice intoning, “Welcome, foolish mortals!” Scary objects, like candelabra and tarot cards, float in front of the screen, and we’re then treated to a nicely wordless sequence from the 19th century, a Romeo and Juliet-type…
Michael Crichton seems pretty clever. The doctor-screenwriter-novelist digs odd history (Eaters of the Dead, a.k.a. The 13th Warrior), clashing cultures (Rising Sun) and cutting-edge biotechnology (Jurassic Park, and virtually his whole canon). His 1999 novel and its inevitable new movie adaptation, Timeline, both attempt to deliver all this and more,…
In director Ron Howard’s The Missing, Tommy Lee Jones’ Samuel Jones takes his place among the oldest archetypes in the Western genre — the white man who has lived among the Indians ’til he has at last become one. This plot device, used in Hombre and Nevada Smith and myriad…
