As far as I know, I am not queer. And if I thought I were, nothing would change much, really. I would have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. Or maybe I wouldn't. My parents might look at me with furrowed brows for a while, but they always did that...
Writer-director Anthony Minghella has chosen to follow up his Oscar-laden The English Patient with another literary adaptation -- this time, of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. Highsmith is best known to film buffs as the author of Strangers on a Train, the basis for one of Alfred Hitchcock's best...
You hope for Dorothy Lamour, reclining against a palm tree in her sarong, when you hear the title The Hurricane. Instead, you get well more than two hours of Denzel Washington huddled in a cell. In the poster art, Washington glowers out, one bandaged fist cocked for a right to...
When Paul Thomas Anderson's second feature, Boogie Nights, was released in 1997, critics and film industry types fell over themselves to designate Anderson the next big thing, an auteur in the footsteps of Scorsese and Coppola. His film turned Mark Wahlberg from a has-been underwear model and rapper into a...
How do you make a sequel to a nearly perfect film? Toy Story, the 1995 hit from Disney and Pixar, was not only the first fully computer-animated feature; it was also as brilliantly written and directed a film as any of the classic Disney releases. Pixar did nearly everything right...
While Kevin Smith's Dogma does perhaps offer moviegoers the first slacker angels, higher beings are nothing new in the movies. Silent master D.W. Griffith actually staged the Fall of the Angels, quite spectacularly, in his 1926 epic The Sorrows of Satan. But movie angels since then have usually been folksier,...
The gentlest and most innocent of the Muppet "monsters" of Sesame Street is aimed at the show's littlest viewers. As a result, he's also the least amusing for adults; even if you grant that Elmo is awfully sweet, you may wince at the prospect of sitting through his big-screen starring...
Much like the religion that has swirled around the Star Wars trilogy for twentysome years, the fanaticism evidenced among American fans of Japanese anime remains a mystery to some of us. Writer-director Hayao Miyazaki's megahit Princess Mononoke does very little to cast light on this obsession: More's the pity, since...
In the eyes of the general public, Michael Mann is still best-known for Miami Vice. He has received a great deal of critical acclaim for films about serial killers, Mohicans and bank robbers. So who would have guessed that his most engrossing and suspenseful film to date would be a...
Ken Krusensterna knew he was in trouble the moment he knocked on the front door of Gabriela Leyva's house and it swung open from his touch. She had told him many times that she kept the door and the gate locked because she lived alone. It was 8:30 at night,...
On my belly they lay the blue strings You know what that means Here comes my family On their faces I see pain Thinkin' in my head I'm the one to blame And now it's over They close the casket And my son just became a goddamn bastard How many...
Music is supposed to be the universal language, but a swish pan across your CD collection and mine will only illustrate how much music keeps us apart. There's only a fraction of stuff we can both listen to without forcing infomercial smiles. Half of my enjoyment of music stems from...
The premise is preposterous, the final score inevitable, and the record reading on the feel-good-ometer is totally predictable. But Mystery, Alaska comes furnished with some winning quirks and charms -- including a very funny bit concerning premature ejaculation at 20 degrees below zero. So even if you don't really believe...
In 1846, Mexico was in a state of disarray, as various bandits and warlords roamed the land jockeying for power. Knowing an opportunity when he saw one, U.S. President James Polk sent the Army down to the border to prepare for an invasion, hoping to gain control of the Santa...
A kid limps up and offers his palm. He wears a black Misfits tour shirt and Marine fatigues, glittery combat boots and a teal-colored mess of hair. Framed by the hazy hues of Mill Avenue on a Friday night, he seems an antagonistic juxtaposition to the street's sugary chain-store harmony...
Year-end best-of lists are usually accompanied by depressing State of Music essays, the kind that take a sweeping view of significant happenings and industry trends and culminate with dire prognostications for the future. Inevitably, most of those things start to sound like a Chicken Little speech. If you tried to...
ROB SCHUH USED TO BE ABLE TO bench-press 500 pounds. These days, he struggles to lift a more pedestrian 150. Schuh -- arguably the Valley's finest jazz drummer -- is only 36, but he looks more damaged than his years. His short, receding hair exposes his huge Vulcan ears and...
What is it they say -- that even a flea can reach Mount Olympus riding in Pegasus' mane? Well, in the case of the new Albert Brooks comedy The Muse, Brooks is the flea and Pegasus is his delectable co-star, Sharon Stone. But I get ahead of myself. In The...
If Kevin Williamson has anything to say about it, the good works of noble movie schoolteachers like Mr. Chips and Miss Dove and Mr. Holland will be wiped out in one fell swoop. In their place, the creator of TV's hormonal Dawson's Creek series proposes an unmitigated horror -- a...
Woe to the scribbler who presumes to rewrite a master--unless he is so deft that his invasion of privacy produces something new and exciting. Enter British writer/director Oliver Parker. He has the nerve to meddle with Oscar Wilde's sublime farce An Ideal Husband and the skill to pull it off...
