Email Author Bill Gallo

2003 Stories by Bill Gallo

• A Mountainous Achievement

  published December 25, 2003

  Anthony Minghella's magnificent film version of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain has much more going for it than Hollywood grandeur. Beyond... More >>

• House of Pain

  published December 25, 2003

  For those who pay no mind to Oprah, the dispute at the heart of House of Sand and Fog concerns the occupancy of a run-down little... More >>

• Lucky in Love

  published December 18, 2003

  William H. Macy's plain-vanilla features and hangdog screen demeanor have served him well. Who could resist him as the clueless car dealer who... More >>

• The Full . . . Mindy?

  published December 18, 2003

  This year's British assault on the Yank funnybone is a spirited, hard-trying farce called Calendar Girls, plucked straight out of a 1999... More >>

• White Dork Down

  published December 4, 2003

  In his career as a Hollywood action figure, Tom Cruise has been dressed in some pretty hip outfits -- a macho fighter pilot's sleek leather... More >>

• Muck, Raked

  published November 13, 2003

  In the annals of fraud and fakery, a discredited ex-magazine reporter named Stephen Glass will likely wind up a mere footnote. The people who... More >>

• Black Like Me?

  published October 30, 2003

  The riddles of identity that drive and disturb Philip Roth's impressive body of fiction usually focus on contemporary Jewish characters whose... More >>

• Too Much of a Gooding

  published October 23, 2003

  That a new feel-good sports movie called Radio contrives to move us is just fine -- that's what feel-good sports movies are supposed to do.... More >>

• Italian for Intermediates

  published October 2, 2003

  If your name ends in a vowel and your people came over in steerage a hundred years ago, you will almost certainly find yourself in the kitchen... More >>

• Tuscan Raider

  published September 25, 2003

  The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes' best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of Hollywood's... More >>

• Give Fighting a Chance

  published September 18, 2003

  Tidy little Montecarlo, Georgia, which is the setting for Jonathan Lynn's The Fighting Temptations, is a perfect movie fantasy town. At the... More >>

• Habitat for Inhumanity

  published August 28, 2003

  The last thing the Roman Catholic Church needs at this point is another exposé of its misdeeds. The shock of the pedophilia scandals and of... More >>

• Officers Down Pat

  published August 7, 2003

  Not to worry. Whenever summer machismo levels threaten to fall below mad-dog range, Hollywood invariably steps in to restore the status quo.... More >>

• Sweet 'n' Sour

  published August 7, 2003

  Directed by. Screenplay by. With. . More >>

• Hulk a Maniac?

  published June 19, 2003

  He's 12 feet tall. He's ripped. He's as quick as a tiger and fierce as a dragon. Lit by his fury to a dull green glow, the guy is sheer, boundless... More >>

• 2 the Extreme

  published June 5, 2003

  Whenever the stars of the adolescent street-racing fantasy 2 Fast 2 Furious were feeling balky or temperamental on the set, as movie stars... More >>

• Undersea No Evil

  published May 29, 2003

  If grown-ups were meant to watch Walt Disney cartoons, God would have kept us all in the third grade for two or three decades. Still, somebody has... More >>

• Being Supreme

  published May 22, 2003

  Alot of moviegoers see hyperactive Jim Carrey as the second coming of Jerry Lewis, but no one's ever mistaken him for God. Clearly, he'd like to... More >>

• Redneck Rampage

  published May 22, 2003

  The Chicago-based filmmaker Steve James rose to prominence in 1994 with Hoop Dreams, a gritty, uncomfortably intimate portrait of two... More >>

• Impossible Dreamer

  published May 1, 2003

  Filmmaker Terry Gilliam is no stranger to fiasco. After all, this is the human dynamo who saw 1989's inventive (if sometimes incoherent) The... More >>

• A Horrible Mind

  published April 10, 2003

  Director David Cronenberg has led his loyal fans down some pretty spooky corridors, including the telepathic netherworld of Scanners, the... More >>

• Quiet Strength

  published February 6, 2003

  While virtually no one in this country foresaw the American disaster in Vietnam, the late British writer Graham Greene glimpsed it with... More >>

• Mind Games

  published January 23, 2003

  Compiled in the cold light of day, the sum of Chuck Barris' contributions to American culture are the Top 40 ditty "Palisades Park," which he... More >>