Seldom over the course of a relatively storied career has Gene Hackman garnered sustained laughter in films billed as comedies. He’s wondrous at playing virtuous or wicked, paternal or pissed-off, but never quite comfortable in the role of comedian; he may be an actor of uncommon range, able to communicate…
It’s clear by now that Meg Ryan, the bubbling sweetheart of half a dozen romantic comedies, means to bring new substance and seriousness to the latest phase of her career. Witness the lonely New York English teacher she played in last year’s brainy slasher flick In the Cut: In no…
With 50 First Dates, it seems as though Adam Sandler is trying to compile a Greatest Hits film, cobbling together the stuff that worked in his previous films in the hopes that it’ll play even better all in one go. There’s the falsetto comedy song bit from every episode of…
Some acts of courage command everyone’s respect — the firefighter’s return to a burning house to rescue a child, the infantryman’s sacrifice of self for a wounded comrade, the weary black woman’s refusal to yield her seat on a segregated bus. Sometimes, though, courage can feel clouded — especially when…
When the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, consisting of 20 raw college boys, beat the seemingly invincible, state-hardened Soviets and went on to win the gold medal at Lake Placid, the event was regarded, even in palm-lined Miami and iceless Honolulu, as the most amazing feat in U.S. Olympic history…
Whoops, franchise! Way back in 2002, who would have believed that a comedy starring rapper Ice Cube (né O’Shea Jackson) would be a hit, let alone spawn a sequel? Just having a giggle, obviously, but so are the producers of Barbershop 2: Back in Business, which handily snaps up its…
It is so very nice when a movie completely outstrips the expectations conjured by its trailer, as is the case with The Dreamers. At first blush, this tale of three passionate youths caught up in the late ’60s Parisian countercultural revolution looked downright trite. Never mind that esteemed veteran director…
Behold a tale of true love (between a boy and a bicycle), of tireless courage (from a bitty grandmother with a club foot) and of a very shocking new definition of sexy (three wizened matriarchs who ravenously slurp down frogs). This is The Triplets of Belleville, an animated extravaganza of…
Good day, friends and homies. I bring word of a project titled You Got Served, which essays the task of appraising the current state of urban American street dancing and the dancers who dance it. The good news is that it’s dynamic, sincere and spirited. The bad news — for…
“Michael Caine is a revelation!” declares the Jeffrey Lyons quote currently appearing on ads for The Statement. Lyons is right, but not in the way you might expect. Indeed, Caine’s performance here is revelatory — who knew he could be this boring? Insufferable, yes — Oscar aside, his mangled “American”…
There is a recent generation of American men who came of age too late for free love and wanton property grabbing, and too early for post-grunge emotional wankery and info-age immediacy. Stuck on their iceberg, isolated by oceans from anything real like the original punk or goth movements, or Australia’s…
Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! opens with a movie within the movie. It’s the 1940s, and a hunky, square-jawed soldier (played by Tad Hamilton, who’s played by Josh Duhamel) stops his car along the side of a damp road; a woman, dressed in virginal nursing whites, gets out of…
Not a lot of people know this, but our word “actress” is derived from the Greek phrase strumpetos luckyos, meaning “prostitute who somehow landed an agent.” The reason that this etymological root remains largely unappreciated is that it is entirely fake, fabricated for the present purpose of irritating a lot…
There are two options when discussing Chasing Liberty, in which pop star turned actress Mandy Moore plays a president’s daughter named Anna Foster who wants some alone time, sans Secret Service, to go clubbing in Europe, hang with friends and lose her 18-year-old virginity to a Brit in his 20s…
Not unlike Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien remains a massively popular author whose seemingly “morbid” work often reflects surviving the horrors of war, firsthand. Tolkien was also a devout Catholic — a demographic gleefully bashed by the entertainment industry in countless movies, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. The question is, who profits…
For all of its inspired side trips down Imagination Lane (let’s call it that, because the “memories” of protagonist Edward Bloom are too majestic to be trusted and too affecting to be discounted), Big Fish is ultimately about one thing: the relationship between a son about to become a father…
Anthony Minghella’s magnificent film version of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain has much more going for it than Hollywood grandeur. Beyond its striking set pieces and gruesome battle scenes populated with thousands of extras, in addition to its movie-star glamour — Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are like beautiful…
For those who pay no mind to Oprah, the dispute at the heart of House of Sand and Fog concerns the occupancy of a run-down little bungalow just inland from the northern California coast. It’s not much of a place, really. And to get a glimpse of the Pacific you’d…
It has become a subject of much discussion and debate amongst film fetishists in recent weeks: For which movie will Sean Penn win the Academy Award, Mystic River or 21 Grams? Perhaps this seems like so much jockeying for blurbs on a movie poster or a newspaper advertisement — Sean…
“All children, except one, grow up . . .” So begins J.M. Barrie’s classic children’s tale about the boy who defiantly refuses to grow up and the girl who is torn between remaining a child with him or accepting the inevitable passage into adulthood. Adapted from Barrie’s own 1904 stage…
You know how it’s often the ones we love whose flaws are most apparent? Well, when it comes to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I am smitten. This film is a miracle, an extravaganza equal to its predecessors and in some ways more stunning. It…
