Email Author Bill Gallo

2003 Stories by Bill Gallo

• Mountainous Achievement

  published December 25, 2003

  Anthony Minghella's magnificent film version of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain has much more going for it than Hollywood grandeur.... More >>

• House of Pain

  published December 25, 2003

  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... More >>

• Lucky in Love

  published December 18, 2003

  William H. Macy's plain-vanilla features and hang-dog screen demeanor have served him well. Who could resist him as the clueless car dealer who... More >>

• Rémy, Hero

  published December 18, 2003

  Evidently, the French-Canadian writer-director Denys Arcand has a tremendous capacity for dividing the art-movie/film-fest crowd into enemy camps.... More >>

• White Dork Down

  published December 4, 2003

  In his career as a Hollywood action figure, Tom Cruise has been dressed in some pretty hip outfits--a macho fighter pilot's sleek leather jacket,... More >>

• Muck, Raked

  published November 13, 2003

  In the annals of fraud and fakery, a discredited ex-magazine reporter named Stephen Glass likely will wind up a mere footnote. The people who... More >>

• Spring in his Step

  published November 13, 2003

  When we first see Fanda, the craggy, octogenarian hero of a sublime Czech tragicomedy called Autumn Spring, he alights from a sleek... More >>

• Elephant's Graveyard

  published November 6, 2003

  The spooky beauty of Elephant, Gus Van Sant's strange take on the Columbine massacre, arises not from the shock of sudden violence... More >>

• Black Like Me?

  published October 30, 2003

  The riddles of identity that drive and disturb Philip Roth's impressive body of fiction usually focus on contemporary Jewish characters whose... More >>

• Too Much of a Gooding

  published October 23, 2003

  That a new feel-good sports movie called Radio contrives to move us is just fine--that's what feel-good sports movies are supposed... More >>

• Tuscan Raider

  published September 25, 2003

  The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes' best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of... More >>

• Romancing the Drone

  published July 31, 2003

  From the lofty American vantage point, Mexico's New Wave filmmakers have materialized like magic, the unexpected fruit of a renaissance that even... More >>

• Bum Deal

  published July 17, 2003

  So much for those crackpot theories about flighty teen-agers and their short attention spans. For four long years now the bland pop star Mandy... More >>

• Green Gobblin'

  published June 19, 2003

  He's 12 feet tall. He's ripped. He's quick as a tiger and fierce as a dragon. Lit by his fury to a dull green glow, the guy is sheer, boundless... More >>

• Sweet 'n' Sour

  published June 12, 2003

  The hero of Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen is an isolated teen-ager mired in a gray Scottish slum with only a vague dream of family life... More >>

• 2 the Extreme

  published June 5, 2003

  Whenever the stars of the adolescent street-racing fantasy 2 Fast 2 Furious were feeling balky or temperamental on the set, as movie... More >>

• Heart Felt

  published June 5, 2003

  Credit the quality of a superior educational system. Or the native wit of two quick thinkers with a gift for understanding the human animal. Or... More >>

• Undersea No Evil

  published May 29, 2003

  If grown-ups were meant to watch Walt Disney cartoons, God would have kept us all in the third grade for two or three decades. Still, somebody has... More >>

• Heaven Help Us

  published May 22, 2003

  Many moviegoers see hyperactive Jim Carrey as the second coming of Jerry Lewis, but no one's ever mistaken him for God. Clearly, he'd like to... More >>

• Blood From a Stone

  published May 8, 2003

  What a strange enterprise, making a movie about reading a book. It's the kind of paradox philosophy students chew over at 3 o'clock in the... More >>

• Guilt Trip

  published May 1, 2003

  The Chicago-based filmmaker Steve James rose to prominence in 1994 with Hoop Dreams, a gritty, uncomfortably intimate portrait of two... More >>

• A Horrible Mind

  published April 24, 2003

  Director David Cronenberg has led his loyal fans down some pretty spooky corridors, including the telepathic netherworld of Scanners, the... More >>

• Digging for Treasure

  published April 17, 2003

  The Harry Potter phenomenon--on the page, in the movies, at the bank--has aroused in publishers and studio heads alike a sudden new... More >>

• Winter of Our Discontent

  published March 13, 2003

  What more can go wrong in suburbia? Director Rose Troche (Go Fish) wants us to know, and to that end she has recruited another army of... More >>

• Impossible Dreamer

  published March 6, 2003

  Filmmaker Terry Gilliam is no stranger to fiasco. After all, this is the human dynamo who saw 1989's inventive (if sometimes incoherent) The... More >>