Remember the Titans — based on a true story about how a football team brought together the segregated town of Alexandria, Virginia, in the early 1970s — is the first film from producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s Technical Black production company, which is meant to offer more contemplative and slower-paced films than…
House sitters are always trouble. In the movies, this is a rule with few exceptions, and the house sitter in Cleopatra’s Second Husband isn’t among them. This elliptically nasty little psychological thriller from writer/director Jon Reiss features possibly the most odious house sitter in movie history, then serves him a…
It takes a special kind of mindset to celebrate castration, and audiences confusing feminine empowerment with the crude hacking off of seemingly oppressive huevos are certain to get a bang out of Girlfight, the gritty debut feature from writer-director Karyn Kusama.Metaphorical or otherwise, there’s already a movie about deballing to…
It’s a sorry fact that what everybody in Hollywood really wants to do — writer, actor, best boy and caterer alike — is direct. This has led, over the years, to some embarrassing debuts and some unexpected triumphs. For many, the notion that Sally Field — after Gidget and Sister…
“This song explains why I’m leaving home and becoming a stewardess,” says Anita Miller (Zooey Deschanel) to her well-meaning, overbearing mother, as the soundtrack begins to swell with the low hums of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Just a few seconds earlier, Elaine Miller (Frances McDormand) had insisted she wouldn’t…
Some may find reason to embrace the romantic comedy Woman on Top as the nonsensical but sweet-tempered fantasy of two South American filmmakers who don’t understand life in this country very well but grasp all the magical powers of Brazil. After all, Brazil ranks second only to fashionable Tibet on…
Whatever one might believe about the past centuries of English oppression of the Irish, one thing is sure: The Irish haven’t been shortchanged on the screen. From the Easter Rising to the more recent Troubles, the conflict has been a film staple, with sympathies heavily, though not universally, aligned on…
There’s a trio of duets in Duets. The film is set in the world of karaoke singing, but the title really refers to three sets of paired-off actors, performing pas de deux to the tune of John Byrum’s Golden-Age-of-Television-ish dialogue. Only one of the three duos shakes fully to life,…
Although not nearly as well-known as Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger — to say nothing of Bob Dylan — Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was a key figure in the American folk movement of the 1950s and ’60s. Unlike his more celebrated contemporaries, Elliott wrote relatively few songs himself but was a…
It’s unfortunate the title Being John Malkovich has already been taken, as it’s a far better one than Bait — and far more appropriate, to boot. As Bristol, a computer expert, wily thief and cold-blooded killer, Doug Hutchison is the human sampling machine. His is a routine cobbled together from…
Humans and their stories, my oh my. Somehow, the familiar themes just keep coming around, again and again, ad infinitum. Of course, most of them have already been captured and processed by Shakespeare. From the bitter young man to the crazy old king, from the flirty young thing to the…
This is the beginning of The Way of the Gun you will not see, because it was written but never filmed: Two men, Parker and Longbaugh, urinate in an open grave in front of mourners, beat up a priest, steal organs meant for transplant and shoot a dog. The introduction,…
Murphy and Pryor. Skywalker and Kenobi. Amos and Zeppelin. Regardless of the creative universe, the maverick apprentice tends to stride off into territory beyond the edges of the master’s map. So it is with Alan Rudolph, whose career blossomed after serving as assistant director to Robert Altman on Nashville in…
The title is Killing Coyote, and that’s quite literally the subject. But as Hollywood’s own Wile E. has taught us, that’s easier said than done.The documentary, directed by Doug Hawes-Davis, is a chronicle of the brutal and little-publicized “predator control” policy toward the ubiquitous canines in the contemporary American West…
Amanda Peet has some really large teeth. Seriously. Even given the fact that it’s in vogue for hot, young, would-be sex symbols to have a set of brightly polished choppers prominent for all to see (think Neve Campbell, Casper Van Dien or Denise Richards), Amanda’s impressive ivories take the cake…
“Be cool, get chicks.” While that’s paraphrased and boiled down, it’s nonetheless the essential creed of Dex (Donal Logue), the corpulent connoisseur of carnality who lumbers through this debut feature from Jenniphr Goodman as if he’s Paul Bunyan and every woman in sight is a tree. Overweight and underemployed, Dex…
According to Patrice Leconte, women live to be vulnerable, men thrive when they are in command, and the two genders can only find happy fusion once they’ve tasted one another’s fates . . . unless they capriciously kill each other. At least, this seems to be the director’s thesis in…
It’s a premise that’s bound to succeed: A young man living on the edge is trying to pull it all together while frequenting 12-step programs and holding down a job that seems calculated to drive him insane. Searching for a way out, he makes contact with a mysterious figure who…
When John Waters is at his best, as he is in his latest, Cecil B. Demented, he can drive you in in a way few filmmakers have ever managed to do. But recognizing that fact can sometimes be difficult in today’s market-driven context. In fact, for the first half-hour or…
In a perfect world, any documentary about televangelists narrated by RuPaul and a couple of sock puppets would be hailed as the unquestionable conceptual masterpiece of the year. Alas, those stodgy Academy voters just don’t understand cross-dressers, religious broadcasting or foot-warmers made to look like dogs. And so the best…
Despite its late summer release date — usually a sign of studio jitters — The Art of War is a mostly well-constructed action flick with a number of flashy, well-choreographed fight and chase scenes. Wesley Snipes stars as Neil Shaw, a supersecret operative of a supersecret “dirty tricks” agency, whose…
Make no mistake: The Cell is easily the most unforgettable film of a pedestrian, forgettable summer. You walk out of the theater grateful for the light and the heat; it is, in places, a rather chilling and claustrophobic film. In places, The Cell is also a rather dazzling film. There…
