My cat has coughed up hairballs that make more sense than MIAMI VICE. At least a hairball serves a vital physiological function that makes the feline’s existence more pleasant in the long run after an irritating 30 seconds or so. Michael Mann’s big screen version of the uber-hip 80s television series is just irritating, and… Read More »
FLYBOYS
Back in 1966, The Royal Guardsmen scored a hit with a minor novelty classic called “Snoopy and the Red Baron” about the imaginary World War I exploits dreamed up by Charlie Brown’s beagle. I bring this up because in FLYBOYS, one of the American pilots fighting World War I in the Lafayette Escadrille has the… Read More »
THE BRIDGE
Eric Steel’s documentary THE BRIDGE is strong stuff, taking as it does the taboos of both death and of suicide and focusing on them without flinching. Almost the first image on screen is that of an anonymous someone stepping over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge and while the world goes on around him,… Read More »
HARSH TIMES
In HARSH TIMES Christian Bale and Freddy Rodriguez troll the seamiest streets of Los Angeles looking for trouble and usually finding it. If this sounds very much like writer David Ayer’s earlier screenplay, TRAINING DAY, that’s because it is. In fact, it plays like the bits and pieces that didn’t make the final edit of… Read More »
SHADOWBOXER — DVD
SHADOWBOXER is that most wonderful of films, the kind that works on every level, but can’t be easily pigeonholed. If the usual pitch session is one line to sum up a script, the pitch for this would have to run to several pages and even then wouldn’t capture what is best about it. Director Lee Daniels… Read More »
CASINO ROYALE
At one point in CASINO ROYALE, the 21st official entry in the Bond franchise, the villain of the piece (Mads Mikkelsen) sets to work torturing 007 with little more than a rattan chair and a length of rope. The simple things, he opines, are the most effective. And so it is with this new take… Read More »
APOCALYPTO
Mel Gibson is many things, but subtle is not one of them. APOCALYPTO, his latest work as a filmmaker, is an example of why this is and isn’t a good thing. Taking on the pre-conquest New World, he is at once vibrant and excessive as he plows along using as his motto that too much… Read More »
2006 TOP TEN LIST — THE BEST AND THE WORST
As the year winds down, it’s time to sum up the cinematic efforts for the last 12 months by picking the best and the worst releases. Let’s start with my traditional rant against a list of only 10 films. The best films of the year are those that move beyond mere entertainment, though there is… Read More »
PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER
The first image in Tom Tykwer’s PERFUME is of a nose in close-up emerging from the twilight. The first sound is of its drawing a deep breath. It is stark, it is simple, and it is perfect. Smell is the point of this decadent gothic tale, and it is the driving force of the nose’s… Read More »
SMOKIN’ ACES
Somewhere in Joe Carnahan’s SMOKIN’ ACES there is a really good film trying desperately to get out. Several actually. And therein lays the problem. Dashing blithely as he does through several different genres Carnahan shows moxie and a genuine flair for each one: black comedy, gut-wrenching drama, farcical silliness, and a deeply affecting morality tale. It’s… Read More »
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