Lars von Trier is, perhaps consciously and defiantly, one of the least-commercial, brilliant directors in the world. His best-known movie, the 1992 Zentropa, and his earlier The Element of Crime both open with hypnotic voice-overs, seemingly daring us to succumb to sleep before the credits are even over. Nonetheless, if…
Norman Mailer begins The Fight, his great book on the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle,” by writing of Ali: “There is always the shock in seeing him again. Not live as in television but standing before you, looking his best. Then the World’s Greatest Athlete is in danger…
So the Academy has once again shut you out of the Best Director category on the technicality that you haven’t actually made a movie? Hollywood philistinism, of course, but there’s always a chance at next year: This weekend, Arizona Film Society is once again presenting the Hollywood Film Institute’s two-day…
Cult auteur David Cronenberg crashes and burns–his talent, that is–in Crash, a vain attempt at a techno-age Persona. It follows a demented explorer named Vaughan (Elias Koteas) into an insane new world where twisted metal, curvy skin, automotive oil and bodily fluids merge in an explosive carnal cocktail. To Vaughan,…
I spent the 68th anniversary of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre watching The Godfather with the new soundtrack prepared for its 25th anniversary. The scene was a mixing room in the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, California, and the master of ceremonies was much-honored editor and sound expert Walter…
In the last chapter of this Star Wars trilogy, an intergalactic window display of creepy and cuddly critters upstages the human characters. All the conflicts are resolved between the virtuous rebels–Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher)–and the wicked Imperials, notably Darth Vader (David…
If we take Bob Rafelson at his word, Blood & Wine completes a trilogy about family relationships that started with the director’s two crowning achievements, 1970’s Five Easy Pieces and 1972’s The King of Marvin Gardens. Those two films are so often pointed to as evidence of the brilliance of…
During the first few minutes of Howard Stern’s romp through his inexplicable life, he spells out his mission: Private Parts will both convert the nonbelievers and entertain the cult. Stern wants to give you plenty of hot lesbian action (and freed from FCC restrictions, he takes real pleasure in saying…
The most obnoxious man alive suddenly, for a rare moment, is calm and contemplative. “I don’t know,” says Howard Stern, his familiar voice unfamiliarly soft. “I don’t know why.” Those are words Howard Stern doesn’t say very often. He, after all, knows everything, and he’ll remind you of that on…
In the two decades since Eraserhead, David Lynch has established himself as American cinema’s premier surrealist, our own Wizard of Weird. Although his first two Hollywood projects–The Elephant Man (1980) and Dune (1984)–had little room for the sort of spooky shit at which he excels, his style found its greatest…
The ingredients are familiar: Donnie Brasco stars Al Pacino as a Mafia soldier and Johnny Depp as an FBI undercover agent who infiltrates the mob. But there’s a twist. Based on a true story, the film is a grunt’s-eye view of the Mafia, and it’s not remotely “operatic” or Scorsese-ish…
Marvin’s Room, starring Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep as sisters who reunite uneasily for the first time in 20 years, is one of those movies about people who confront the choices they’ve made and become better people for it. Adapted by the late Scott McPherson from his popular 1992 play…
If all you knew about lesbians was what you saw in movies made by lesbians, you’d have a pretty dreary picture of the lifestyle. Most of us know a lesbian or three who actually has a sense of humor, whose idea of socializing extends beyond sitting in a semicircle with…
John Singleton’s new film, Rosewood, chronicles a shocking and little-known incident in the history of American racism–the destruction of the title village and massacre of many of its black residents by a white mob. A moderately prosperous hamlet in the pine forests of western Florida, Rosewood came under attack in…
Irvin Kershner’s The Empire Strikes Back, the continuation of George Lucas’ Star Wars, is a classic fantasy in its own right. I vastly prefer it to the first film. Its textures are richer, its emotions deeper, and it’s an honest-to-Jedi movie–not a dozen jammed-together entries of a serial. On its…
An impressive directorial debut from writer-actor Billy Bob Thornton (who co-wrote and starred in One False Move), Sling Blade is the stark, enveloping tale of Karl, a dimwitted killer released after 25 years in an Arkansas asylum for murdering his mother and her lover. Thornton plays Karl with a guttural…
In Absolute Power, Clint Eastwood plays Luther Whitney, a master thief who burgles on little cat feet. He’s as stealthy as the Pink Panther pilferer, though not nearly as amusing. Luther, you see, is presented to us as an artist. We first see him at the National Gallery dutifully copying…
Elmore Leonard’s Touch is identified on the paperback as a mystery and carried in stores next to Leonard’s celebrated crime novels (like Get Shorty). But this wan little book is actually the problem child of Leonard’s oeuvre. It’s about a former Franciscan monk named Juvenal (played in the film by…
On the run from a professional assassin in Shadow Conspiracy, Washington, D.C., insider Charlie Sheen stops to make a furtive cell-phone call right in front of the Lincoln Memorial–out in the open, in front of God and Honest Abe and everyone. It’s a brilliant tactical move, since the Lincoln Memorial…
At a 20-year remove, George Lucas’ Star Wars comes off less as the work of a wizard than as the weird obsessional by-product of an eccentric American primitive. If you’re not a Star Wars fanatic, and you re-see this movie now varnished to a sheen in its self-consciously spiffy new…
You can bet that at one point or another, some executive wanted the title of this long-awaited nonsequel to A Fish Called Wanda to be A Lemur Called Rollo (for the story does include such a character). While the latter wouldn’t have been the most commercial of titles, neither is…
As with The Crow a few years back, a grim, real-life shadow hangs over Gridlock’d that’s hard to ignore while watching it. Both films are swan songs for stars who died too young and left beautiful corpses: Brandon Lee in the former, and Tupac Shakur in the latter (although Shakur…
