Somewhere, this could all be happening right now,” spoke the narrator in the trailer for the first Star Wars movie (thereafter known as Episode IV: A New Hope), and to those who were small children then, it rang true. For an entire generation, the Star Wars trilogy could never be…
It’s a question to which the response should be more than a shrug, but it’s the only thing I can offer anyone who asks, “So, how was it?” The final installment in the mostly irrelevant second Star Wars trilogy is far superior to its immediate two predecessors, The Phantom Menace…
Here’s the scenario: You’re Jet Li, the international action star who has finally become a semi-household name in America, thanks to imported DVDs and various cinematic team-ups with rappers and singers. But in Hong Kong, where you’ve done several movies that don’t depend solely on ass-kicking, you are revered as…
Jane Fonda comes from a good Hollywood family and used to be a pretty fair actress herself. Klute, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, and Coming Home were three of the better films of their time. So, after getting a look at herself in her first movie in 15 years, La…
The mockumentary is a tricky thing and not to be attempted by amateurs, many of whom treat the form like a joke without need of a punch line; damn the filmmaker who thinks it clever and ironic enough to “interview” “real people” “talking” about other “real people” who, of course,…
If you’re expecting a psychological thriller out of Mindhunters, and you buy a ticket for the movie, you will almost indubitably feel cheated. But break down the film’s title to its most literal sense — hunting for a mind, presumably because those involved were out of theirs — and you’ll…
Kicking & Screaming might be the most predictable movie of the year, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Think about it: How many times have you gone to a movie and gotten far less than you were expecting? Here, that’s not a concern — you may not get more…
Much of Crash, an L.A.-stories portmanteau about the suffocating embrace of racism, is hard to watch, harder still to listen to. Its characters — the creations of co-writer and director Paul Haggis but also of people who live next door and perhaps even inside of you — say and do…
Whatever you do, don’t accuse Ridley Scott of turning his back on a fight. Doesn’t matter if it’s slimy-fanged space aliens attacking Sigourney Weaver, Roman slaves in tough against hungry lions down at the Colosseum, or American GIs going at it with Somali insurgents. Sir Ridley is always happy to…
The new House of Wax — a remake, pretty much in name only, of the 1953 Vincent Price movie (itself a remake of a 1933 film) — manages to be gruesome and grisly, but it falls well short of being truly creepy, much less terrifying. Horror aficionados expecting the chills…
It is no great joy to review Palindromes, the latest film from writer-director Todd Solondz, who is loved by those who do not loathe him for such movies as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, and Storytelling. Advance word had Palindromes as Solondz’s most shocking film, which seemed impossible, given its…
Author Douglas Adams died at age 49 on May 11, 2001, of a heart attack suffered during a workout at a Santa Barbara, California, gym. His biographer, M.J. Simpson, blamed Adams’ demise in part on his unending battle to get The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on a big screen,…
Most contemporary thrillers aren’t concerned with moral dilemmas; the emphasis is on action and intrigue. The Israeli film Walk on Water — which, conveniently for American audiences, is primarily in English (the rest is in Hebrew and German with English subtitles) — not only raises questions about right and wrong,…
Agent Fox Mulder, the coolly instinctual sleuth of The X-Files, got pretty good at unraveling paranormal mysteries. If only the actor who played him were as adept at solving the riddle of his movie career. David Duchovny’s new vanity project, House of D, is the tortured tale of a 13-year-old…
When was the last time you walked out of a theater feeling shell-shocked, saying to anyone who would listen (in language more profane): “Dude, that was some seriously messed-up stuff!” Not your garden-variety messed-up stuff, mind you, like in Saw. Not the messed-up revelations of political docs. We’re talking the…
Among the many mysteries surrounding The Interpreter is the one that finds Sydney Pollack heralded as a major American director, a maker of Serious and Important Movies. His filmography, marked by mawkish mediocrities (Out of Africa, as vibrant as a coffee-table book; The Way We Were, its romance as plausible…
Amanda Peet. Ashton Kutcher. Romantic comedy. Who’d have thought it could work? And yet A Lot Like Love is an entertainment success, a triple threat of fresh writing, inspired directing and, yes, good acting. Fortified with a healthy dose of intelligence, it manages to leap clear across an entire field…
“No more soccer!” declares small-time thug Sing (writer/director/star Stephen Chow) as he vigorously stomps on a child’s ball. In the context of Kung Fu Hustle, it’s a pathetic attempt by Sing to make himself look tough. The larger signal, however, is to followers of Chow’s work — it’s a direct…
I confess: I didn’t want to see Never Been Thawed when it premièred here about a year ago. I went to the film’s screening as a favor to a friend, whose best friend’s daughter appears fleetingly in one scene, but I’m not a big fan of independent films — especially…
Sean Anders would like you to know this movie thing isn’t as easy as it looks. When he and a friend, Chuck LeVinus, decided to give filmmaking a go three years ago this June, the idea was to put together something loosely resembling a script, harass friends into becoming on-screen…
The Groden family lives out in the middle of the New Mexico desert, far from main roads. They grow, harvest and/or kill all their own food, own their own home, and make what little money they need from crafts. They’ve got no phone or indoor plumbing, and they haven’t paid…
If nothing else, give Dana Brown credit for enthusiasm. A documentary filmmaker in name only, he is really the camera- and microphone-equipped president of several booster clubs — among them what might be called the International Society of Beach Bums and, thanks to his latest exercise in hero worship, the…
