What's a great actor doing in a dump like Mooseport?
By Robert Wilonsky,
February 19, 2004
Seldom over the course of a relatively storied career has Gene Hackman garnered sustained laughter in films billed as comedies. He's wondrous at... More>>
Meg Ryan may be looking to mature, but her new boxing movie goes down for the count
By Bill Gallo,
February 19, 2004
It's clear by now that Meg Ryan, the bubbling sweetheart of half a dozen romantic comedies, means to bring new substance and seriousness to the... More>>
50 First Dates is a patchy toss-off strictly for Sandler fans
By Luke Y. Thompson,
February 12, 2004
With 50 First Dates, it seems as though Adam Sandler is trying to compile a Greatest Hits film, cobbling together the stuff that worked in his... More>>
Even when you know the ending, the mountaineering docudrama Touching the Void delivers white-knuckle suspense
By Bill Gallo,
February 12, 2004
Some acts of courage command everyone's respect -- the firefighter's return to a burning house to rescue a child, the infantryman's sacrifice of... More>>
When it comes to hockey movies, Miracle is as big a winner as its heroes
By Bill Gallo,
February 05, 2004
When the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, consisting of 20 raw college boys, beat the seemingly invincible, state-hardened Soviets and went on to... More>>
Bernardo Bertolucci revisits young love with The Dreamers
By Gregory Weinkauf,
February 05, 2004
It is so very nice when a movie completely outstrips the expectations conjured by its trailer, as is the case with The Dreamers. At first blush,... More>>
Funky and grotesque, The Triplets of Belleville will animate your world
By Gregory Weinkauf,
January 29, 2004
Behold a tale of true love (between a boy and a bicycle), of tireless courage (from a bitty grandmother with a club foot) and of a very shocking... More>>
You Got Served exhumes something suspiciously akin to break-dancing
By Gregory Weinkauf,
January 29, 2004
Good day, friends and homies. I bring word of a project titled You Got Served, which essays the task of appraising the current state of urban... More>>
Catholics are bad, Nazis are bad, and Michael Caine's movie about both is boring
By Luke Y. Thompson,
January 29, 2004
"Michael Caine is a revelation!" declares the Jeffrey Lyons quote currently appearing on ads for The Statement. Lyons is right, but not in the... More>>
In The Butterfly Effect, Ashton Kutcher comes unstuck in time
By Gregory Weinkauf,
January 22, 2004
There is a recent generation of American men who came of age too late for free love and wanton property grabbing, and too early for post-grunge... More>>
Tired of boring dates? Don't go out with Tad Hamilton.
By Robert Wilonsky,
January 22, 2004
Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! opens with a movie within the movie. It's the 1940s, and a hunky, square-jawed soldier (played by Tad Hamilton,... More>>
Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron give birth to a Monster
By Gregory Weinkauf,
January 15, 2004
Not a lot of people know this, but our word "actress" is derived from the Greek phrase strumpetos luckyos, meaning "prostitute who somehow landed... More>>
A half-century of Rings-mania culminates in The Return of the King
By Gregory Weinkauf,
January 01, 2004
Not unlike Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien remains a massively popular author whose seemingly "morbid" work often reflects surviving the horrors of... More>>
A dad tells Big Fish tales to a son who can't believe his ears
By Robert Wilonsky,
January 01, 2004
For all of its inspired side trips down Imagination Lane (let's call it that, because the "memories" of protagonist Edward Bloom are too majestic... More>>
Cold Mountain sets the new standard for Civil War drama onscreen
By Bill Gallo,
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 its... More>>
It's Kingsley versus Connelly in a heart-rending real estate battle
By Bill Gallo,
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 bungalow just... More>>
The heart wants what the brain has to fight for in 21 Grams
By Robert Wilonsky,
December 25, 2003
It has become a subject of much discussion and debate amongst film fetishists in recent weeks: For which movie will Sean Penn win the Academy... More>>
The Return of the King marks a zenith in cinematic potential
By Gregory Weinkauf,
December 18, 2003
You know how it's often the ones we love whose flaws are most apparent? Well, when it comes to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I... More>>
The Cooler, somewhat unbelievably, asks us to swallow a Las Vegas fairy tale
By Bill Gallo,
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>>
This time, it's the middle-aged ladies of a small English town who bare all for laughs
By Bill Gallo,
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 headline... More>>
