In 2004 A.D., as the five remaining members of the legendary Monty Python comedy troupe lie in coffins in a Vanity Fair spread to jeer at their own deaths, it’s really nice to have them back together commanding the big screen. Behold anew their wonderfully wiggy Monty Python’s Life of…

“We must keep the atmosphere electrified!” announces creepy Igor in reference to an abominable experiment in Van Helsing, but he could be appraising the entirety of this enormous event movie. Breathless cutting, nonstop special effects and a pummeling soundtrack camouflage very silly plotting and mediocre-to-sappy dialogue–and yet the thrash-and-burn technique…

One thing few may mention about Mean Girls is that it could have been unrelentingly terrible. It isn’t–it’s actually pretty fabulous on its own terms–but consider: a rush-job comedy (hastily lensed a few months ago) constructed around a high-concept title with built-in ka-ching and endless potential as talk-show fodder. Produced…

If only Dogville were at least involving enough to be perplexing. Sigh. In simplest terms–which it definitely deserves–Lars von Trier’s latest thingamabob is a large, pretentious blob of coulda-been. As in, it coulda been deep and insightful. It coulda been sociologically challenging. It coulda been formalistically thrilling. But it isn’t…

Up front, it’s “full disclosure” time. Let it be confessed here, publicly, that I have never been a religious Neil Young fan. Always liked him OK, always appreciated his adventurous spirit, never bought his albums. But since I’ve also never met a Canadian I didn’t like (apart from Mike Myers),…

As a proud sponsor of the Colin Farrell media blitz, Intermission opens on the lad’s salable mug, basically sporting the same buzz-cut ‘n’ tats look from his punky cameo in Veronica Guerin. It’s a cunning editorial move, pushing the product from the get-go, yet it gets interesting as Farrell’s dumb…

It’s a bit unorthodox to ladle superlatives all over a film in the opening paragraph, but The Reckoning deserves them. Moving, gripping and powerful, suspenseful, stylish and literate, this exploration of justice and art may be set in 1390s England, but it resonates today. This is a brilliant and unpretentious…

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 Bernardo…

So this grown man walks into another teen girl movie. He is not stunned to learn that it concerns clothes, fun, clothes, peer pressure and clothes. The world outside can be ugly as hell, though, so he commences with the cynicism on low. This particular teen girl movie is not…

This may seem incredible, but there’s a group of people in the world called “the Japanese,” and apparently some of them like to travel to other countries. Within the skewed perspective of Japanese Story, this amazing “novelty” is represented by an uptight young corporate heir named Hiromitsu (pretty Gotaro Tsunashima),…

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…

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 cinematic…

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…

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…

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Hungary and listen to a song that supposedly causes people to kill themselves, along comes Gloomy Sunday. This tragic romance is elegant, picturesque, sensuous and rather stilted, but three out of four makes for reasonable enough viewing. As long…

Michael Crichton seems pretty clever. The doctor-screenwriter-novelist digs odd history (Eaters of the Dead, a.k.a. The 13th Warrior), clashing cultures (Rising Sun) and cutting-edge biotechnology (Jurassic Park, and virtually his whole canon). His 1999 novel and its inevitable new movie adaptation, Timeline, both attempt to deliver all this and more,…

If you’re hankering for a movie about an awkward yet lovable “outsider” type who wanders into a pastel mock-up of Middle America and cajoles the straights to get saucy, you’re in luck. It’s called Edward Scissorhands, and it’s been available on video for years. Renting it will absolve you of…

Russell Crowe to his agent: “More Oscar-bait. Now.” Agent, considering his cut of Crowe’s $20 million payday: “Yes, sir.” A possible scenario, anyway. Thus, Crowe is back in another iconic, self-serious performance, and his beefy mug will stare down upon us from this season’s heroic movie posters until Tom Cruise…

A not terribly long time ago in an uninhabitable galaxy called Burbank, a generally astute movie studio founded by four Polish siblings alienated a young hotshot filmmaker. The studio was Warner Bros., and the project was a cold, disturbing, highly stylized vision of a mechanized future called THX-1138. Not wholly…

Remember that silly little-girl version of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, snuffling “I’m difficult!” through a charming tantrum? Well, make it a point to greet Ryan’s new incarnation in the psycho-sexual thriller In the Cut. Post-Crystal, post-Hanks and even post-husband Dennis Quaid (toward whom this performance almost plays…

Sometimes something so wonderful appears on the big screen that I want to leap up like a shameless non-professional and hug it. Such is the case early on in Sylvia, a superb drama based on the brief life of writer Sylvia Plath. While boating in Cambridge, England, with her beau…

Veronica Guerin isn’t at all a bad movie, and some kind things will be said about it here. But cynical appraisal also has its place, so we’ll cover that aspect as well. Even before that, a significant disclaimer: Since this review is being written for several New Times publications, which…