If you’re wondering how Hollywood could possibly adapt Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, a collection of similarly themed short stories bound together by the slenderest of common threads, the answer is that it didn’t. The credits for I, Robot read “suggested by Isaac Asimov’s book,” but the canny sci-fi fan will…
It’s charming. It’s hilarious. It is perhaps the most beautifully crafted, lovingly rendered portrait of extreme geekitude ever to grace the screen. It’s Napoleon Dynamite — the first feature film from 24-year-old Brigham Young University student Jared Hess — and, if there is any justice, it’s going to be huge…
Anchorman, co-written by its star, Will Ferrell, plays like a series of outtakes strung together more or less in random sequence. There’s a vague plot, about the fall and rise of a San Diego newsman whose polyester suits are brighter than he is, but this doesn’t propel the movie forward…
Behold what is, in theory, the thinking person’s ideal summer blockbuster. King Arthur features some of the planet’s most beautiful people, dressed way sexily, gallantly galloping about and bashing one another with all manner of implements amid lush vistas and robustly appointed sets. Add an intriguing historical pedigree and apparently…
The first exceptional drama of 2004 is here, and it only took, what, seven months? Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Mother comes from British writer Hanif Kureishi, who penned the gritty, South Asian-in-London marvels My Beautiful Launderette and My Son the Fanatic. On the other hand, its director is Roger Michell, lately…
It’s one of the oldest stories in cinema and possibly in the history of storytelling: A man is kidnapped by a baddie wielding a deadly weapon. His family waits at home while law enforcement types try to figure out what’s going on. A plan is developed to deal with the…
All you need to know about Spider-Man 2 is revealed in the opening credits, in which comic-book artist Alex Ross recaps the 2002 original in lovingly, lavishly painted panels. Spidey and Mary Jane Watson are once again entangled in that now-iconic upside-down kiss; nutty Norman Osborn, out of Green Goblin…
A strong toxin requires a strong antidote. In the case of the Bush administration, the cure is being served in significant part by Michael Moore, he of the Peter Jackson Diet (and similar pop culture ambition), who previously delivered the rousing documentaries Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine. This…
Everyone loves tigers, save perhaps for those actually being mauled to death by them. Men like ’em because they’re wild beasts; women like ’em cuz they’re big kitty-cats. So whatever your point of interest, Two Brothers, starring a pair of tigers named Kumal and Sangha, is the perfect date movie…
Getting stranded at snowbound O’Hare for the night is one thing. You call home, maybe knock down a couple of martinis, then grab a blanket. A century ago, being quarantined at Ellis Island for eight months because you were, say, a part-time anarchist from Campobasso with a big mustache and…
You might think that with the technological advances in moviemaking since 1956, this new version of Around the World in 80 Days would at least look better than its predecessor did. You could not be faulted for believing you’d be wowed by the Rube Goldberg gadgets of inventor Phileas Fogg,…
It’s a sign that a nation may be losing its collective mind when it grants a nutty hack like Quentin Tarantino an exalted title like Officer of Arts and Letters, but there’s France for ya. Whether Gallic pop culture is rousingly progressive or embarrassingly adolescent is anyone’s call, but few…
So let’s get this straight: You’re a much-loved comedian who just did a low-budget, multiaward-winning film with an acclaimed up-and-coming director. In recent years, thanks in part to your work with the younger, edgier filmmaking set, you’re starting to be taken seriously as an actor. You even managed to score…
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron, based on a novel by J.K. Rowling. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, David Thewlis, and Michael Gambon. Rated PG.
Moviegoers who know the tides of recent Brazilian history will likely get more from Hector Babenco’s new prison movie, Carandiru, than the rest of us, because the filmmaker tells us so little about the society beyond the walls that helped shape the violent yet carefully ordered world within them. On…
What becomes of Morgan Spurlock’s body after a month of eating and drinking nothing but McDonald’s assembly-line foodstuffs is not surprising. He bloats up, gaining nearly 30 pounds in 30 days. His sex drive peters out, among the myriad disappointments visited upon Spurlock’s vegan-chef girlfriend, who’s only too happy to…
Those people who live in small towns, they’re not like you and me. So naive, so innocent. And adorably quirky. Why, they’ve got so many lovable quirks, you just want to run up and hug ’em. Or if you’re a filmmaker, perhaps you can make a movie about these simple…
Sitting through Raising Helen is an exercise in frustration, because somewhere inside this big heap of Hollywood nothing is a something (someone, actually) worth saving and savoring. Her name is Joan Cusack, always a supporting player but never a star, no matter her grace and warmth and charm even in…
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Screenplay by David Benioff, inspired by Homer’s The Iliad. Starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Diane Kruger, Orlando Bloom, Brian Cox, and Peter O’Toole. Rated R.
Directed by Andrew Adamson & Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon. Written by Andrew Adamson, Joe Stillman, and J. David Stern & David Weiss. Starring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and Antonio Banderas. Rated PG.
Directed by Dennie Gordon. Written by Emily Fox and Adam Cooper & Bill Collage. Starring Ashley Olsen, Mary-Kate Olsen, Andy Richter, and Eugene Levy. Rated R.
Written and directed by David Mackenzie, based on the novel by Alexander Trocchi. Starring Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, and Emily Mortimer. Rated NC-17.
