Films detailing the dark side of Hollywood have been around for a long time and for a long time they’ve suffered from the excesses of hack films that approach the subject with a taste for the lurid and the seamy. Shane Black’s KISS KISS BANG BANG certainly doesn’t skimp on the lurid stuff nor on that… Read More »
DERAILED
Clive Owen is an actor of enormous charisma, a tough vulnerability, and a not inconsiderable amount of animal magnetism, none of which are on display in DERAILED, a ridiculously overplotted and underthought exercise in muddled filmmaking. Blame director Mikael Hafstrom for quashing Owen’s appeal along with everything else that threatens to light up his film.… Read More »
MUNICH
In MUNICH, Steven Spielberg has created an intensely profound, if somewhat flawed, work. Moral debates about right and wrong abound with as many variations as there are characters to expound them, and there are many of both. The message, though, is unequivocal. Killing is an awful business that kills more than the victim, it also… Read More »
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
The difference in outlooks between Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) and his late wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), can be summed up in a conversation they have while driving on the squalid streets of Kenya’s capital where Justin, a British diplomat, is stationed. Tessa wants him to stop and give a lift back to her village to… Read More »
THE CONSTANT GARDENER — DVD
THE CONSTANT GARDENER is a thriller with a conscience and a romantic streak, both equally memorable. The DVD of it is memorable for what it doesn’t have: a commentary track. One could speculate endlessly about why that is, or one can move on to the bonus features that are available, including the usual deleted and… Read More »
BASIC INSTINCT 2
It is said that the reason there were so many years between the first BASIC INSTINCT and its sequel is that Sharon Stone was waiting for just the right script to do justice to her character, Catherine Trammell, the novelist and putative murderess of the original. She didn’t wait long enough. And judging by the… Read More »
BRICK
There is in seeing Rian Johnson’s neo-noir, BRICK, the sense that this is not just a startlingly original, wholly engrossing, and brilliantly plotted piece of work. There is the sense that it is nothing less than a flawless masterpiece made all the more remarkable for being Johnson’s maiden cinematic effort. The idioms of the noir… Read More »
THE SENTINEL
Not to be confused with the horror flick from the 70s, THE SENTINAL is a competent enough mystery/thriller set in the fractious world of White House protocols and security. It’s most interesting aspect, though, may be that while Michael Douglas might have been hired for the star power he could bring for a good opening… Read More »
AMERICAN HAUNTING, AN
Despite nocturnal scrapings, shufflings, general bumpings in the night, not to mention several rounds of people getting smacked around by unseen hands, AN AMERICAN HAUNTING is just a whole lot of nothing going on. Not wanting to leave well enough or, rather, creepy enough, alone, the filmmakers have taken a fairly well-documented and completely unexplained… Read More »
THE DA VINCI CODE
The book by Dan Brown on which THE DA VINCI CODE is based will never be mistaken for a work of genius. It is not a work for the ages, but rather fills the guilty pleasure niche in the literary food chain. It’s a fast read with an intriguing premise where a great deal happens… Read More »
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