God bless Johnny Depp. For the second time this year, the man has almost single-handedly redeemed an action movie that would otherwise be indistinguishable from the pack. Introduced right up front in Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, he’s first seen dressed up like Prince in purple glasses…

As one who assesses creative works, you try to separate the individual artist from the output they produce. Watching Bedtime for Bonzo, you don’t want to think about Reaganomics. Viewing The Pianist tends to produce thoughts of the Holocaust, not of drugged and raped girls. Going back a little further,…

For a few minutes, at least, things don’t look so bad. Watching Ben Affleck swagger around as the thuggish title character of Gigli (“Rhymes with really,” he tells us, twice) is amusing for a bit. Affleck’s eminently qualified for the role, actually — that of a low-level hood pretending to…

There’s something to be said for a movie that’s honest enough to transcribe dialogue that must have emanated from the director’s mouth, and make it part of the script. “Everybody start shooting at somebody!” yells Detective Mike Lowery (Will Smith) in the midst of a particular situation. Earlier, he gives…

If you’re reading this paper, chances are you’re more literate than the average American. If you’re reading the film reviews, it’s also likely that you’ve become familiar with words like “bravura” and “eponymous,” which seem to exist only in the vocabularies of professional movie assessors. But what if you were…

The first question on the minds of most potential viewers of Owning Mahowny is probably something along the lines of “What’s up with that spelling? Who spells Mahoney’ with a w’?” Do the marketing people think we somehow won’t get that it rhymes with “owning” if there isn’t a w’…

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it’s all PETA’s fault. Oh, we humored those wacky vegan extremists when they threw paint at rich bitches in hideously overpriced fur coats. We laughed when they’d come on conservative talk radio shows every Thanksgiving to get mocked for…

As the Columbia Pictures logo looms large in frame till its torch becomes the focal point, we find ourselves in what appears to be a tent full of sweaty medieval warriors forging axes, and have to wonder: Did they already make another Scorpion King movie and not tell us? No,…

Having seemingly exhausted all permutations of the sports comedy formula (Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump, etc.), Ron Shelton has now moved on to another obsession: the Los Angeles Police Department. Earlier this year, we got the uncharacteristically somber (for him, anyway) Dark Blue, a “what if” tale of the…

May opens with a scream, and a pair of scissors rammed into an eye socket. It continues with an opening montage of rapidly descending doll parts, which, as any Courtney Love fan can tell you, are inherently frightening yet simultaneously symbolic of fragility, or something. In between severed plastic limbs,…

It’s usually right about this time of year that film critics, especially those of advancing years, begin to feel a slow chill of dread creep up their spines. Suppressing that urge, they generally find it quickly replaced by a sudden rush of sneering condescension and smug mock-martyrdom. “Oh no!” they…

In last year’s Showtime movie turned theatrical release The Believer, audiences were introduced to a hate-filled young skinhead who seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about the arcana of the Jewish people he loathed so much. Turned out he was Jewish, and ultimately had to come to grips with his Torah upbringing and…

Neil LaBute is back to his old self again, and the cinematic world is a better place for it. Honestly, what was he thinking when he made Possession? Did the charges of misogyny, still lingering from In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors, get to him so…

When you see a glamorous movie star like Kate Beckinsale tying her hair back and wearing glasses, it’s sure-fire shorthand that she’s an uptight soul. But just in case you aren’t familiar with all the usual signals, writer-director Lisa Cholodenko gives a couple of even more obvious ones in her…

In 1997’s The Apostle, Robert Duvall took on a subject near and dear to his heart: Southern Pentecostal preachers. No one would make the film for him, so he went ahead and directed it himself, garnering much acclaim from media both secular and religious for his warts-and-all portrayal of a…

You know Internet dating’s become totally mainstream when Disney cranks out a bland comedy featuring a randomly selected pair of mismatched stars to take on the subject. Bearing the unwieldy and meaningless title Bringing Down the House, said comedy is predicated on the biggest pitfall of cyber-flirting, the idea that…

Someone’s got to say it, so let’s start here: We’ve underestimated Will Ferrell. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to do. His Saturday Night Live stint was never hugely impressive, as he’d often fall back on the same shtick of yelling his lines with detailed enunciation in a passive-aggressive tone that…

Thinking about contemporary war movies, it’s hard to bring to mind one that doesn’t offend some group or another. If it’s a “war is hell” movie like Platoon, there’ll invariably be those who decry it as unpatriotic. If it’s oversentimentalized, like We Were Soldiers, someone will complain that it glorifies…

Right-wing pundits will be coming out of the woodwork to holler about this one. Bad enough, they’ll say, that The Life of David Gale attacks the death penalty; it also features a caricature governor of Texas with big ears and a familiar, scripture-quoting smirk. Another character notes that 73 percent…

Director Gary Hardwick’s first film, The Brothers, was a refreshing take on the single black man romantic comedy, offering a surprisingly mature perspective full of depth and well-rounded characters without resorting to the time-honored stereotypes of black man as player and black woman as ball-busting bitch. Hardwick wrote the script…

Once upon a time, in the town of Darkness Falls . . . “Wait,” you’re probably saying to yourself, “Darkness Falls is the name of the town?” Yes, it is. And it’s haunted by an evil tooth fairy. Are you sure you want to know more? Okay, good. Because once…

Paul Morse (Jason Lee) has this terrible problem. He’s all set to marry the take-charge, raven-haired beauty Karen (Selma Blair, thanklessly playing second fiddle as usual), but late in the game finds himself also falling for her free-spirited blond cousin Becky (Julia Stiles). Gee, what’s a guy to do? It’s…