It’s readily apparent that Danny DeVito’s Death to Smoochy deals with a thoroughly debauched children’s television host (Robin Williams) who plots, amid much dark zaniness, to destroy his squeaky-clean successor (Edward Norton). It’s also quite easy to proclaim it the greatest movie ever made…about a singing vegan in a fuchsia…
One of the fun things about the media is that many people who work in it lie almost constantly, creating a social minefield that keeps everybody hoppin’. For instance, take the big studios (please). Sometimes we call them up and say, “Hiya, we noticed that you have a major motion…
Science fiction can wow us with gadgetry, but only the truly ambitious stuff lights up our imaginations with disturbing and unshakable aberrations, be they incredible shrinking men, fifty-foot women or Sting’s winged panties from Dune. Within this vast genre, it figures that the ultimate human construct — time — proves…
In case the season has you feeling shamefully joyous, here’s a stark little oasis of misery to remind you that America sometimes sucks and its denizens aren’t all heroes. Featuring painstaking attention to the copious warts of this big, proud country, Monster¹s Ball moseys down South to issue the staggering…
If they teach the work of Todd Solondz someday, assuming he’s not already in the curriculum somewhere, the lectures are bound to be rather short. To grasp the material without actually attending, just bone up on a little bargain-basement Freud, a whiff of primal therapy and a sprinkle of Jerry…
Attended by a rather sexy air of intrigue, the hit French film Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des Loups) arrives upon our shores; refreshingly, it’s left up to us to figure out just what the hell it is. Monster movie? Costume drama? Martial-arts extravaganza? To say the least, it’s…
Since the horrors of the dominant Hollywood culture — destruction, devastation, dumb-assness — do not appear to be receding of their own accord, there’s a great poignancy to the new cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The film succeeds as massive,…
The film Tape, a film by Richard Linklater, isn’t. It’s high time for some cinematic clarification: If a project is shot on celluloid, with light searing images onto emulsion, then it’s a film. If it’s recorded with magnetic frequencies or digital code (as is the case here), then it’s a…
The lights go down, and the puzzlement begins. Ensemble cast of superstars? Check. Loose remake of amusing curiosity? Check. Built-in, pre-fab sense of cool? Check. A little something for wistful fans of Dino and Sammy? Check. So…wait a minute: Is this The Cannonball Run Redux? With his ambitious but unnecessary…
If you believe in magic, you’ll love Harry Potter and the Sorcerer¹s Stone. And if you don’t, you will, and you will. True, the hype has been a bit much. And, yes, a mad, desperate world choked with reproduction and reprobation could hardly be expected to resist such a high-concept…
If you’re a college freshman, don’t read this. Just grab your newfound peers and go see Richard Linklater’s new movie, Waking Life, then head off to one of those ethereal late-night dining establishments for which you’ll desperately pine once the real world gets ahold of you. Discuss. For others, this…
It’s all here: madness, mayhem and murder, in no short supply. The Hughes brothers, Albert and Allen, have always had a knack for horror, as evidenced by their edgy gangster flicks, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents (which they’ve stated were influenced by the styles of Brian DePalma and Martin…
After the next apocalypse, hundreds of thousands of years from the moment we clever humans smugly call “now,” the great philosopher-scientists will gather to assemble the remaining traces of our present time and species. In particular, these evolved beings will find fascination in the structure of our crania, which will…
Well, my goodness, look at you! You are so alternative, so fringe, so punk! So artsy and alienated! So utterly aimless and oozing with angst! Tell us, girl, what ought we to call you? Edwina Scissorhands? That’s one easily justified reaction a viewer may take away from Thora Birch’s power-moping…
Festering somewhere between an After School Special and kiddie porn lies this frank but heinously melodramatic open wound from veteran Canadian director Léa Pool (Emporte-moi). Adapted by screenwriter Judith Thompson from the novel The Wives of Bath, by Susan Swan, Lost and Delirious is about girl joy and girl sorrow,…
The values that you grew up with are that people come before things,” offers the mother of one the protagonists of Startup.com, “and that didn’t seem to be a part of this new world.” You sure got that right, ma’am. While this new video documentary by Chris Hegedus and Jehane…
Those expecting Himalaya to focus upon the beloved traveling carnival ride known for its liberal use of Def Leppard (“Do you wanna go faster?”) are in for a few surprises. For one, this sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of National Geographic come to life, rich with cultural…
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…
Let us first in olden verse this critic’s cynical curse disperse: The greet unwashede consummethe crappe, Fro Jerrye Springgere to ganggsta rappe; Bothe yonge and olde, ’tis sore pitee, Doth foule thir hertes with drede teevee, Thus 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…
Visualize a pretty young woman and a handsome young man heading for the bedroom. She has just suggested that she wants to show him what she really wants, so, naturally, he begins unzipping his pants en route to the bed. Oblivious to his loud boxers, she sits and begins swooning…
There’s a majesty to Michael Winterbottom’s new film, a majesty and a terrible, icy chill. There’s also a fair bit of invention, as the director of the wrenching Jude — based on Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure — has shifted from the locus of that author’s fierce, beloved English west…
