I can see why this seemed like such a good idea. Jim Sheridan, a director who has made brilliant films about the strife and violence in Northern Ireland and has done so without becoming maudlin, put at the helm of a film that deals with the gangsta culture of violence in contemporary New York. The… Read More »
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA attempts to take the admittedly addicting soap opera that was the book and elevate into something on a higher plane of artistic existence. It fails. What was best about the book, an innocent girl caught up in the pure grasping evil of the geisha universe complete with all the nitpicky yet… Read More »
SYRIANA
At two different points during SYRIANA, two different men in traditional Arab robes sits on a floor surrounded by two different sets of rapt listeners sitting in a circle. Each explains with perfect conviction how to make the world a better place. One is an eloquent imam in a poverty-stricken madrassa, advocating a return to… Read More »
MATCH POINT
Chris (Johnathan Rhys-Meyers), the focus of Woody Allen’s MATCH POINT is an existential man in the proper Sartrian mold making his way in a world, he will learn, that is ruled by the short of absurdist chaos favored by Jean-Paul’s arch-rival, Camus. So much for free will, bad faith, and making one’s own luck. Forget… Read More »
CAPOTE
Bennett Miller’s CAPOTE, based on the book by Gerald Clarke, depicts the juncture in the life of Truman Capote (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as he goes from being a respected author of note to the most famous writer in America. Certainly the book that triggered the transformation, “In Cold Blood”, whose writing process is the time… Read More »
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE
There is a reason that the story of TRISTAN AND ISOLDE has lingered. The original telling from the Middle Ages was a heartbreaking tale of the true love, albeit inspired by a love potion gone astray, of the eponymous couple at painful odds with the heartfelt loyalty they both felt for her husband, King Mark.… Read More »
THE NEW WORLD
Terrence Malick, an auteur in every sense, has both written and directed just five films in his since 1969. As such each new work, staggeringly original in its scope and in its approach, is a cause for eager anticipation. Each finds new truths and new meanings in events that had seemed familiar, combat during World… Read More »
ANNAPOLIS
The first question that comes to mind after watching ANNAPOLIS is this. If the powers behind this pasteboard mockup of a film wanted to remake AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, why didn’t they just go ahead and do that? The second question, why if they wanted to remake ROCKY, didn’t they just go ahead and… Read More »
THE WAR WITHIN — DVD
THE WAR WITHIN deserved a lot more attention than it got when it was released last year. This brave film took on complex issues surrounding suicide bombers and the radicalization of moderate Muslims without pandering to any special interest group. Instead, it trusted to an intelligent, compassionate script with a searing message and no easy… Read More »
FREEDOMLAND
In FREEDOMLAND, Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Lorenzo, spends a great deal of time professing his belief in God. There is nothing in his life or in the lives of anyone around him that would back up that belief, never mind that at one point he proclaims that after 22 years of being a cop, he… Read More »
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- …
- 48
- Next Page »