When last we spotted indie icons Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau on-screen together, they were knocking back fruit-flavored martinis and chasing L.A. skirt in the inventive Gen X hit Swingers. The goofy charm of that phenomenon now gives way, I’m sad to report, to a labored fringes-of-the-Mob comedy titled Made,…
“I want you to suck my big dick. I want you to lick my balls.” Thus begins Larry Clark’s Bully, a return to Kids territory, following a forgettable detour into adulthood titled Another Day in Paradise that apparently didn’t kick up enough of a fuss for the guy. So he…
A third Jurassic Park movie was of course inevitable, given that the second shattered box office records. (It also shattered the conventional notion that any movie starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, and a bunch of dinosaurs had to be at least somewhat interesting.) But when you have one of the…
Back in her early teens, Reese Witherspoon proved herself a terrific actress in her big-screen debut, Man in the Moon (1991). Since then, she’s done first-rate work in critical hits such as Pleasantville, cult faves including Freeway and Election, and underrated gems like Best Laid Plans. So how is it…
In the movies, dead husbands and dearly departed boyfriends have an irksome habit of revisiting the women who once loved them — usually at inconvenient moments. Consider Demi Moore in Ghost. Poor thing had to put up with the dramatically challenged shade of Patrick Swayze, who droned on and on…
Even more than the recent Depression-era comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the turn-of-the-century drama Songcatcher is an absolute treasure trove of old-timey, traditional folk music. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia in the year 1907, the film follows city-bred musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) as she…
Kiss of the Dragon — the latest vehicle for martial arts star Jet Li, a mainland Chinese talent who became a superstar in Hong Kong and has since succumbed to the blandishments of Hollywood — has a little of the best (and a lot of the worst) of Hong Kong…
For almost two decades, Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a film based on Brian Aldiss’s 1969 short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” about a robot child named David who wants only to be “real” so Mummy and Daddy will love him. The late director of 2001: A Space Odyssey…
Who would have imagined that at this late date — more than half a century after the end of World War II, after The Diary of Anne Frank, Schindler’s List, Au Revoir, Les Enfants, Pierre Sauvage’s documentary Weapons of the Spirit, and Jan Kadar’s amazing The Shop on Main Street…
If internal combustion ever becomes obsolete — that is, if the auto industry ever allows internal combustion to become obsolete — whatever will movies do for heart-stopping drama? Hoof beats are dramatic, the chug of a steam engine is suspenseful, but the roar of a gasoline-powered vehicle stirs the blood…
In a year inundated with massive movies, it’s a pleasant surprise to note that a truly spectacular adventure has arrived in the form of a Disney cartoon called Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Gushing aside, let us now consider the Atlanteans, the mythic race that codirectors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise…
A ragtag group of travelers, one of whom is a violent man prone to aggressive outbursts, rides in a ramshackle transport on a journey through dark terrain. Mostly they sleep peacefully, until an error in their navigation equipment becomes apparent and their vehicle breaks down in the middle of nowhere…
When he was in his thirties, Ivan Reitman made comedies like a young man. His early movies, among them Stripes, Meatballs, and Ghostbusters, were messy, cocky, charming, daffy, and restless; they did anything for a laugh, even if that meant dousing John Candy in mud or Bill Murray in a…
Remember glee? Perhaps not, given our penchant in recent times to chuck giddy hearts aside in favor of being stupid, obnoxious, and mean. But hey, it’s all right, because the fizzy, caffeinated beverage known as Baz Luhrmann seeks to re-create this elusive emotion for all of us in the form…
Chalk up another one for George Dubya. Recently the U.S. Immigration Department refused to allow acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, director of both the Oscar-nominated The White Balloon and the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner The Circle, to change planes in New York on his way from Hong Kong…
Welcome to the movies of summer 2001! Of course, whether you’ll actually feel welcome is another issue: Hollywood is doing its usual stuff to attract the most dollars, which may not always mean your dollars… unless you belong to that centrally crucial demographic — males ages 13 to 25. You…
Kids might well be amused by the frenetic pacing of Shrek, the latest computer-animated film from DreamWorks, which moves so quickly it’s nearly a blur, though they need not get the jokes to enjoy frolicking in the muck (and the maggots) with a green, snaggletoothed ogre who wants only to…
Like nearly all book-to-film adaptations from Merchant Ivory Productions, The Golden Bowl is a feast for the eyes, with choice real estate, exquisite interior design, and dazzling costumes all bathed in a golden light that not only enriches the colors but also helps to give the settings a sense of…
Irish. Sex. Farce. These are not three words you see snuggled up together very often. Given the ironclad no-noes of the Catholic Church, the preoccupations imposed by their political troubles for the last eight centuries or so, and frequent commutes to the local pub, the Irish probably haven’t had much…
Let us first in olden verse this critic’s cynical curse disperse: The greet unwashede consummeth crappe, Fro Jerrye Springgere to ganggsta rappe; Bothe yonge and olde, ’tis sore pitee, Doth foule thir hertes with drede teevee, So slye produceres, with bisynesse cunning, Devysde a shew to pyne come running Consummeres…
Presently sitting in a very peaceful meditational facility. First time here. The location (which shall remain unnamed so as to maintain nondenominational vibe) was selected specifically for the loving creation of this review, as it provides an almost perfect contrast to The Center of the World, the new motion picture…
Given the autobiographical impulse, it’s not surprising that there is a disproportionate number of movies about filmmaking. But Shadow Magic, Ann Hu’s fictional feature debut, is different from most in two ways: It’s set in China; and it’s about the very earliest days of cinema, some 50 years before the…
