In director Jem Cohen’s films, especially earlier efforts such as 1987’s This Is a History of New York and 1992’s Drink Deep, he manages to tell a story without letting on exactly what story he’s telling. Meaning: He’s definitely saying something, but it’s up to the viewer to decipher what…
The film is called Erin Brockovich, but it might as well be titled Julia Roberts. Never before in the actress’ erratic career has a film been so custom-made for her; it’s as though a screenwriter has been replaced by a seamstress who knows Roberts’ every curve. No matter that she…
The gun is a coward’s weapon — always has been, always will be. Likening it to the sword is like equating rape to romance. However, for reasons that can only be attributed to collective insanity, Hollywood absolutely loves to romanticize the gun, serving as an adjunct advertising agency for the…
“You are here to heal, so start healing!” announces a plucky nurse (Linda Bassett) to a grumbling trio of wounded men convalescing under her care in a crowded London hospital room. Dramatically, the scene marks as good a place as any to focus on writer-director Jasmin Dizdar’s complex and truly…
Hollywood may be crass when it comes to cloning success, but it’s not alone. Take the British Isles, for instance, ever since the success of a certain working-class comedy about unemployed louts turned male strippers. It seems as if there’s been a law put into effect that every comedy out…
What if fate has something horrific in store for you, and you can’t escape it? It’s an idea that has been around for a long time, from Oedipus Rex to The Twilight Zone. Cinematically, we tend to prefer the idea that destiny is going to be a positive force (Star…
It’s a movie cliché that when someone is possessed by a spirit or Lucifer himself, the bewitched one takes on the mannerisms and speech patterns of the possessor. The effects can be subtle: demon-possessed victims singing a Rolling Stones tune in Fallen. Or they can be a bit more, um,…
Unbuckling the Bible beltWriter-performer Paul Bonin-Rodriguez thinks Dallas is the perfect place to unleash his irrepressible, small-town, Dairy Queen-working “sissy boy” alter-ego, Johnny. He also believes the McKinney Avenue Contemporary’s theater space is the perfect venue to tell “The Bible Belt and Other Accessories,” even though he’s heard of the…
Painter Edvard Munch said, “The camera will never compete with the brush and the palette until such time as photographs can be taken in heaven or hell.” To him the camera was clinical, confined to here and now. It was, and still is, objective. A camera can’t feel sorrow, joy,…
We don’t like bugs. Spiders in our vicinity elicit a quick “yuck” and are thereafter squished. Wasps and their stinging brethren are cautiously run away from. Slugs bring on a severe case of the willies, but it’s not as if they’re going to charge at us. If you want to…
It’s a brave thief who reveals his booty to the man from whom he stole it. But Jim Jarmusch could not resist showing his film, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai to Seijun Suzuki, the 76-year-old Japanese director whose 1967 film Branded to Kill is echoed throughout Ghost Dog…
If you have read this space before, you know that I advocate theatergoing as a habit rather than as a secular, arts-patron version of the token-church-visit-every-Easter kind of attendance. While the best theater is more visceral than anything in a multiplex or on DVD, many folks are unprepared for that…
Unlike dog owners who tend to look like their dogs, or married couples who take on each other’s characteristics over time, artists seldom look like their paintings or sculpture. It’s often the smallish, geeky guy who paints big, bold canvases or crafts throbbing, tumescent sculpture. And it’s the squeaky-clean, plain…
Money, money, money You can count on one hand the number of living, local artists who can command $40,000 for a single work of art. So, heads up, all the rest of you. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority is requesting statements of qualifications, including résumé, slides, and supportive materials, from…
Roman Polanski begins this interview by asking the questions — about last names, countries of origin, family members murdered by the Nazis. After all, as much as any landmark film (Chinatown or Rosemary’s Baby) or connection to tragedy (the 1969 murder of his wife Sharon Tate by members of Charles…
The creationists are going to have a field day with this one. Oh, it’s not as though it’s possible to spoil the plot: The trailers for Mission to Mars reveal everything but the end credits. It would be near impossible to step foot into the theater without knowing the story,…
Calling the subject matter of Errol Morris’ latest documentary, Mr. Death, “unpleasant” is like referring to the lavatory on a tuna boat as “lightly scented.” The director who brought us the zany Americana of Fast, Cheap and Out of Control and the lukewarm Stephen Hawking snoozer, A Brief History of…
Three decades after Rosemary’s Baby, two decades after The Tenant, and after a series of five non-horror films, Roman Polanski returns to the supernatural thriller with The Ninth Gate. What could be more promising? Regardless of what one thinks about Polanski’s personal life or legal status, the man is clearly…
Titus, Julie Taymor’s gorgeous film version of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, with Anthony Hopkins as the doomed title character, may be the most opulent release of the season…and also the most perverse, on nearly every front. It’s easy to see why there has never been a feature version of this tragedy…
You’ve had to feel sorry for the Scottish Board of Tourism when the nation’s film industry started to do robust business. Normally a successful film industry would be great for a country’s image, but in the case of Scotland, it seems, well, counterproductive. After all, most of the films depict…
Just when the McCain mania of the presidential campaign peaks and Ross Perot’s Reform Party teeters toward meltdown, Ralph Nader arrives to pick up the banner of reform vérité. The respected consumer activist and critic of corporate power last month kicked off his fight for the fledgling Green Party’s nomination…
It seems that cooking, along with letter-writing, sewing, and being courteous, is becoming a lost art. And really, who needs to be able to cook these days? Preprepared, heat-and-eat “gourmet” foods, recently the domain of elite gourmet markets, are popping up at plain old grocery stores. Convenience foods are becoming…
