Beware the exclamation point. When found at the end of a title, it almost inevitably signals a level of self-hype rarely justified by the content of whatever it hopes to name. In the case of the movie Saved! — an amusing, if facile, comedy about a good Christian girl gone…
So let’s get this straight: You’re a much-loved comedian who just did a low-budget, multi-award-winning film with an acclaimed up-and-coming director. In recent years, thanks in part to your work with the younger, edgier filmmaking set, you’re starting to be taken seriously as an actor. You even managed to score…
As much of the civilized world now knows, the latest Harry Potter director is Alfonso Cuarón, best known for the explicit teen sexual awakening movie Y Tu Mamá También. As such, it may come as little surprise that his Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban begins with the teenage…
Those seeking a spiritual counterpart to the yin of Lynne Ramsay’s masterfully moody Morvern Callar will find their yang in David Mackenzie’s exquisitely sorrowful Young Adam. Art-house aficionados may recall that in Ramsay’s recent film, a young male writer commits suicide, leaving his simple girlfriend to absorb his very being…
Sitting through Raising Helen is an exercise in frustration, because somewhere inside this big heap of Hollywood nothing is a something (someone, actually) worth saving and savoring. Her name is Joan Cusack, always a supporting player but never a star, no matter her grace and warmth and charm even in…
What becomes of Morgan Spurlock’s body after a month of eating and drinking nothing but McDonald’s assembly-line foodstuffs is not surprising. He bloats up, gaining nearly 30 pounds in 30 days. His sex drive peters out, among the myriad disappointments visited upon Spurlock’s vegan-chef girlfriend, who’s only too happy to…
The first time through, you might dismiss Coffee and Cigarettes as a filmmaker’s recess, playtime before the serious business of making a real feature. Jim Jarmusch never intended this new movie, a collection of 11 shorts made over the last two decades, to be a movie at all. It began…
When a pleasant Italian comedy called Mediterraneo won the 1992 Academy Award for best foreign language film, a lot of observant American moviegoers scratched their heads. Gabriele Salvatores’ fairy tale of Italian soldiers happily stranded on a gorgeous Greek island during World War II was an outright charmer, but it…
Ever-evolving, always changing, the universe nonetheless sustains many constants: Hair metal never really goes away. British women inevitably become besotted grumps. And short men always turn into intolerable control freaks. Another “true generality” holds that males of all statures develop their innate behavioral characteristics within patriarchal cultures that, while aiming…
The first few minutes of Shrek 2 are cluttered with more references to the movies than David Thompson’s thick, rich history text New Historical Dictionary of Film. Watching it is like sitting next to an ADD patient with access to a remote control and a hundred premium cable channels; you…
It’s interesting to see how conventional political assumptions get turned on their heads when it comes to the case of Tibet, a nation militarily dominated by China, which claims it as Chinese territory despite the fact that China treats the Tibetan people as a lesser class. Liberal Democrats and Greens,…
What Boogie Nights did for porn stars, What Alice Found does for truck-stop hookers. That is to say, the film takes a sleazy profession, sexes it up for the cameras, and depicts those involved in the field as a weird sort of family with truer ties than some of the…
In the mood to launch a thousand ships? Fine, but it’s gonna cost you. Feel like sacking the Temple of Apollo? Okay, but bring drachmas. Depending on who’s counting, Warner Bros.’ pre-summer blockbuster Troy budgeted out at anywhere between $175 million and $250 million, including the big wooden horse, assorted…
If even one of the major networks had a successful sitcom in the vein of Friends but with an all-black cast, movies like Breakin’ All the Rules would have no reason for existence. Part of an ever-expanding subgenre that includes The Brothers, Two Can Play That Game and Deliver Us…
In Israeli writer-director Nir Bergman’s Broken Wings, we never see an automatic weapon, a military roadblock or a horrific explosion on a city street. Rather than dealing with the volatile politics of the Middle East, this quiet, soul-wrenching film examines the unresolved traumas of one middle-class family trying to cope…
Mixing the down-under period charm of The Dish with preteen sweetness and some lightly rendered but significant social issues, Her Majesty provides an enjoyable family viewing experience. The period here is 1953, the setting is provincial (and currently very trendy) New Zealand, and the global significance is not quite that…
“We must keep the atmosphere electrified!” announces creepy Igor in reference to an abominable experiment in Van Helsing, but he could be appraising the entirety of this enormous event movie. Breathless cutting, nonstop special effects and a pummeling soundtrack camouflage very silly plotting and mediocre-to-sappy dialogue — and yet the…
The setting: an institutional high school in the affluent suburbs. The protagonists: two boys — intelligent, charming and smoldering — with typical suburban lives, including intact families and plenty of spending money. The plot: carnage. Assembling pipe bombs from ingredients purchased at Home Depot and commandeering shotguns slipped from the…
That sound you hear is the stampeding feet of millions of pubescent and prepubescent girls, racing to movie theaters this weekend to catch sisters Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen in their first feature film since 1995’s It Takes Two. The Olsen twins began their acting careers at the age of nine…
Rated PG-13.
“Thirteen is The Big Lie!” declares Daniel Waters, about midway through a dual interview with him and his brother, Mark. He’s referring to the acclaimed teen drama from 2003, and it’s a fairly cocky assertion. But if you’ve ever been asked by a teen girl, “What’s your damage?” you can…
