17 + 6 – 5 + 1 – 3 + 7 = 23!

The Number 23 grips hold of one stupid idea and runs so far with it, in so many directions, to such little purpose, that it nearly won me over from sheer berserkoid effort. In a nutshell, this nutso movie observes what happens to a man (Jim Carrey) under the impression…

Yuppie Meets Refugee

Let us applaud, on principle, Anthony Minghella’s return to small-scale storytelling. Breaking and Entering marks his first original screenplay since the oddball romcom Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991), and a retreat from the jumbo-size period pieces of his Miramax-to-the-max phase. Overrated as they are, The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley,…

Edie Made Easy

Ticket buyers to Factory Girl are in for a drag; not even the drag queens will like it. Cookie-cut from the biopic assembly line, this life and times of Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) is the least-fabulous movie imaginable about the most-fabulous persona in that most fabulous of scenes, the Warhol…

Say It With Diamonds?

“T.I.A.,” mutters Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), slouched across a bar in Sierra Leone. It is 1999. As the West obsesses over Clinton’s blowjob, the West African nation is mired in a savage civil war. Our hero, a world-weary soldier of fortune, has struck up a conversation with Maddy Bowen (Jennifer…

Tony Scott, Trailblazer

Okay, so Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott were asking for it by naming their latest mega-production Déjà Vu. These dudes aren’t exactly paragons of innovation, unless taking rhetorical hysteria to awesome new heights counts. As the opening credits roll — by which of course I mean roll, zip, flicker, fade,…

L.A. Story

For Your Consideration pulls off the neat trick of skewering the movie industry while remaking it in its own image. The latest ensemble comedy by Christopher Guest and company may take place in Los Angeles, but its imaginative provenance lies somewhere between the La-La Lands of Entourage and Mulholland Dr…

Heart Attack

Pity Max Skinner, emasculated over his lamb chops. On a gray afternoon, at London’s hot spot du jour, his gloating superior unveils a plot to poach his most lucrative client, divesting him of a six-figure bonus (pounds sterling) in the process. Fuck it. The bummed-out bond trader hands in a…