It’s hard to believe they were originally going to release Basic before bombs started falling over Baghdad; if it isn’t the worst movie of 2003 so far, it’s only because I haven’t seen Boat Trip. Now, in the shadow of smoke rising from the rubble in Iraq, it’s even more…
Lawrence Kasdan directs and co-writes (with William Goldman) Dreamcatcher, the latest addition to the Stephen King adaptation genre, currently at 74, including film and TV, and counting. Taking the Internet Movie Database as a source, this puts King handily ahead of Michael Crichton (23) and Bram Stoker (38), closing in…
He’s charming, yes. Humble and loyal. But who is Piglet, really? As the modern world violently shifts beneath our feet, it’s time to reexamine this diminutive representative of “the other white meat” and all the archetypal denizens of classic children’s author A.A. Milne’s Hundred-Acre Wood. The release of Piglet’s BIG…
Adolf Hitler killed his own dog. Most of his other evil is well-documented now, and words alone are inadequate anyway, so let’s begin by considering this comparatively microscopic offense. For the many who shower their canines with at least as much affection as they offer other human beings (and often…
The Hunted pits Tommy Lee Jones versus Benicio Del Toro in a battle of hand-to-hand, wit-to-wit fighting skills. Frankly, my money would be on Tommy Lee any old day: He may be old, but he’s a tough geezer who looks like he could mop the floor with Benicio. (Also, frankly:…
John Shaft went to Africa, so why shouldn’t Die Hard’s John McClane? In the new action romp Tears of the Sun, Bruce Willis undertakes a jungle rescue operation on the Dark Continent, and for his part it’s a McClane adventure in camouflage, minus all the sass and most of the…
You know Internet dating’s become totally mainstream when Disney cranks out a bland comedy featuring a randomly selected pair of mismatched stars to take on the subject. Bearing the unwieldy and meaningless title Bringing Down the House, said comedy is predicated on the biggest pitfall of cyber-flirting, the idea that…
Rated R.
Uh . . . yo. The word on the street is that the ‘Drzej is back at the helm. “Who?” you rightfully ask. Why, cinematographer turned director Andrzej Bartkowiak, of course. He’s the . . . er . . . “dog” who, under the auspices of producer Joel Silver (Richie…
Thinking about contemporary war movies, it’s hard to bring to mind one that doesn’t offend some group or another. If it’s a “war is hell” movie like Platoon, there’ll invariably be those who decry it as unpatriotic. If it’s oversentimentalized, like We Were Soldiers, someone will complain that it glorifies…
Someone’s got to say it, so let’s start here: We’ve underestimated Will Ferrell. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to do. His Saturday Night Live stint was never hugely impressive, as he’d often fall back on the same shtick of yelling his lines with detailed enunciation in a passive-aggressive tone that…
It’s been nearly three years since Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Perhaps it’s in the spirit of spreading things around that Spain has not nominated Almodóvar’s latest, Talk to Her, as its entry this year. Certainly it’s hard to imagine any…
Dark Blue, according to its credits, is based upon a story by Los Angeles-born author James Ellroy, who pens grisly and guilt-ridden pulp-noir haiku that spread across hundreds of pages. Its screenplay was penned by copper caper fetishist David Ayer, a native Angelino with an affinity for Hollywood-dark stories that…
Right-wing pundits will be coming out of the woodwork to holler about this one. Bad enough, they’ll say, that The Life of David Gale attacks the death penalty; it also features a caricature governor of Texas with big ears and a familiar, scripture-quoting smirk. Another character notes that 73 percent…
Anybody who’s cracked open a recent Disney G-rated DVD has probably witnessed the ultimate in sequelmania: On Lilo & Stitch, for instance, the feature was preceded (skippably, thank God) by trailers for The Jungle Book 2, Atlantis 2: Milo’s Return, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure, Inspector Gadget 2, and…
If nothing else, because there’s nothing else to this movie, Shanghai Knights allows Jackie Chan, he of halting dialogue and poetic movement, to pay direct homage to his idols. He hangs from the arms of Big Ben, dangling off the stories-tall clock like Harold Lloyd in 1923’s Safety First; he…
The fanboy suckled at the teat of comic-book writer-artist Frank Miller, circa 1980-81, will be satisfied, for the most part, with this cinematic Daredevil; if nothing else, the thing’s got enough Marvel Comics in-jokes to amuse ’em down at the comics shop for ages, or at least till Hulk smashes…
A staire & Rogers. Hepburn & Tracy. Heck, Ball & Arnaz, Houston & Washington or Vardalos & Corbett. Over the decades, Hollywood has proven that its romantic comedies needn’t suck. But alas, they often do, as is the case with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Clearly, bigwig…
While virtually no one in this country foresaw the American disaster in Vietnam, the late British writer Graham Greene glimpsed it with astonishing clarity a decade before the first U.S. “adviser” set foot on Vietnamese soil. Greene’s 1955 novel The Quiet American, which has now been made into a disturbing…
Director Gary Hardwick’s first film, The Brothers, was a refreshing take on the single black man romantic comedy, offering a surprisingly mature perspective full of depth and well-rounded characters without resorting to the time-honored stereotypes of black man as player and black woman as ball-busting bitch. Hardwick wrote the script…
First off, make no mistake: Biker Boyz is not, and has no intentions of being, The Fast and the Furious on two wheels, which will be considered a serious shame by the 12- to 12-year-old demographic who were hoping to chug a little more Diesel fuel until the official sequel’s…
Let’s start with two raves and a beef. Final Destination 2 is a tight, rockin’ popcorn flick packed with nasty kicks. It’s also a rare beast, a second horror-franchise installment that matches and in some ways supersedes the original (unlike such sputterings as Jaws 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street…
