There’s magic in Northfork — both in the movie, by twin brothers Mark and Michael Polish, and in the Montana town soon to be drowned by the opening of the dam keeping the baptismal waters at bay. Northfork is a beguiling and bittersweet fantasy set in a netherworld where the…
Not to worry. Whenever summer machismo levels threaten to fall below mad-dog range, Hollywood invariably steps in to restore the status quo. Witness S.W.A.T. , a thoroughly unremarkable police action movie starring the magnetic Samuel L. Jackson as L.A.P.D. Sergeant Dan “Hondo” Harrelson, known affectionately to his men as “the…
For a few minutes, at least, things don’t look so bad. Watching Ben Affleck swagger around as the thuggish title character of Gigli (“Rhymes with really,” he tells us, twice) is amusing for a bit. Affleck’s eminently qualified for the role, actually — that of a low-level hood pretending to…
The heist-film genre, especially in recent years, practices the most blatant brand of cinematic swindle. It’s built upon little more than pilfered plots and purloined characters, and the closer we inspect the goods, the more we discover that the diamonds are phony, the bills counterfeit, the treasure utterly worthless. Who…
We seem to have touched a nerve a few weeks back by making reference to a theater full of leather-clad bikers. Our guest for the evening, comedian Jimmy Danelli, casually joked about the “Hell’s Angels” in the audience, which elicited some angry letters from biker types who felt slighted. So…
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald asserted that “There are no second acts in American lives.” But a horse named Seabiscuit and the three disparate men who shared his success would surely disagree. Based on the best-selling nonfiction book by Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit recounts the true story of an unprepossessing, knobby-kneed…
“Simon must propose to me now,” exclaims pretty, simpleminded Rose (Rose Byrne), “before he meets somebody else or gets to know me better!” Welcome to the none-too-subtly-named Mortmain family, wherein foundering patriarch James (Bill Nighy) — for all symbolic definitions a dead writer — has been allowing his prolonged delusions…
I purposely avoided reading anything about Capturing the Friedmans until seeing the film, which has been no easy task. Andrew Jarecki’s documentary, about a Great Neck, New York, family torn asunder in the late 1980s by allegations of kiddy-porn possession and the horrific sexual abuse of numerous children, has been…
There’s something to be said for a movie that’s honest enough to transcribe dialogue that must have emanated from the director’s mouth, and make it part of the script. “Everybody start shooting at somebody!” yells Detective Mike Lowery (Will Smith) in the midst of a particular situation. Earlier, he gives…
The title Morvern Callar may sound like an Edward Gorey book or a job designation for telephone solicitors, but it’s actually a name — pronounced (roughly) “Mawvin Calla” (like the lily). Although some sources claim that “morvern callar” is Scots for “quieter silence,” the words don’t show up in online…
French director François Ozon doesn’t like to repeat himself. His last film, 8 Women, was a theatrical, rather campy piece of fluff starring la crème de la crème of contemporary Gallic actresses. Before that came Under the Sand, an unsettling drama about a woman (Charlotte Rampling, giving perhaps her finest…
Considering the unexpected amorous complexities of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, perhaps it was auspicious to take a couple of lesbians to see the Disney romp. After all, the last thing you expect from a movie based on a theme park ride is a gender-busting…
More like Hollywood fluff than Gallic farce or sophistication, the French romantic comedy Jet Lag stars Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno as mismatched lovers who meet when circumstances — bad weather, computer glitches, a strike by air traffic controllers — ground them both at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris…
To prepare for reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I did the obvious research: I watched Yellowbeard again. Yes, yes indeed — can’t do without Fairbanks as The Black Pirate and Flynn as Captain Blood. But when appraising a new comedic pirate adventure, it’s important…
If you’re reading this paper, chances are you’re more literate than the average American. If you’re reading the film reviews, it’s also likely that you’ve become familiar with words like “bravura” and “eponymous,” which seem to exist only in the vocabularies of professional movie assessors. But what if you were…
For some reason, the local promotions firm putting on a preview screening of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines last week figured it would be a good idea to have several dozen middle-aged burnouts on motorcycles cruise up and down outside the theater in a menacing spectacle. Besides tying up…
Much like “hilarious Islamic comedy” or “sublime Affleck picture,” the term “terrific second sequel” isn’t bandied about too much. Name one. Took you a minute, didn’t it? Don’t be ashamed — there are probably support groups for fans of Smokey and the Bandit III. Generally, creative juices are drained by…
DreamWorks’ Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas pulls into port but a week before Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the theme-park-ride-inspired, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacle that bears a screenplay co-written by the very men responsible for last year’s Disney-made animated flop Treasure Planet, a…
The first question on the minds of most potential viewers of Owning Mahowny is probably something along the lines of “What’s up with that spelling? Who spells Mahoney’ with a w’?” Do the marketing people think we somehow won’t get that it rhymes with “owning” if there isn’t a w’…
As the Columbia Pictures logo looms large in frame till its torch becomes the focal point, we find ourselves in what appears to be a tent full of sweaty medieval warriors forging axes, and have to wonder: Did they already make another Scorpion King movie and not tell us? No,…
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it’s all PETA’s fault. Oh, we humored those wacky vegan extremists when they threw paint at rich bitches in hideously overpriced fur coats. We laughed when they’d come on conservative talk radio shows every Thanksgiving to get mocked for…
