If you’re a college freshman, don’t read this. Just grab your newfound peers and go see Richard Linklater’s new movie, Waking Life, then head off to one of those ethereal late-night dining establishments for which you’ll desperately pine once the real world gets ahold of you. Discuss. For others, this…
Ask David Lynch, and he will tell you apple-pie America just isn’t what it seems. People behave strangely, sometimes violently, and sometimes they even transform into different people without being polite enough to warn you first. Eerie and freaky, shot through with sporadic bursts of humor and sex, Mulholland Drive…
Here you’ll find madness, mayhem and murder, in no short supply. The Hughes brothers, Albert and Allen, have always had a knack for horror, as evidenced by their edgy gangster flicks, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, which they’ve stated were influenced by the styles of Brian De Palma and…
Some guys have the kind of face that suggests they’ve been to hell and back. The narrow, steely eyes, graying hair and deep lines crisscrossing the countenance of a James Coburn or Clint Eastwood can practically do all of their acting for them in any role that calls for a…
There exists a devoted audience for whom Beverly Donofrio’s 1990 autobiography, Riding in Cars With Boys: Confessions of a Bad Girl Who Makes Good, is the stuff of by-the-book inspiration; such is the worship for her memoirs that in 1994 it was included in Penguin’s compendium of 500 Great Books…
In the new low-budget indie comedy Haiku Tunnel, former temporary office worker Josh Kornbluth plays “Josh Kornbluth,” a temporary office worker who, early in the film, faces a premature midlife crisis–whether to stay a temp or “go perm.” After great hesitation, the company makes him an offer he can’t refuse–they’ll…
Plot aside–way aside, as it’s almost a non-issue in a film that telegraphs its final scenes during its opening moments– Bandits is really about only one thing: Billy Bob Thornton’s and Bruce Willis’ bald heads. As Joe Blake (Willis) and Terry Collins (Thornton), two bank-robbing fugitives in search of retirement…
No one has more to say about life than someone who hasn’t lived it yet. While pop culture’s juvenile slaves would shout down this concept to their last breaths–jeans slung at half-mast, navel-rings linked in passionate solidarity–there’s only so much material to be strip-mined from the angst of youth, especially…
Thanks to his justly lauded work as action choreographer on The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, director Yuen Wo Ping is among the most famous creators of Hong Kong action in the United States. Following the latter film’s astonishing success, Miramax, with a prod from Quentin Tarantino, has wisely…
Tran Anh Hung’s beautiful meditation on family ties and family traumas, The Vertical Ray of the Sun, marks a captivating new chapter in the career of the writer-director who was the first to give Americans a glimpse of Vietnamese filmmaking. In 1994 Tran’s The Scent of Green Papaya made its…
This may be a strange time to release a thriller about the dangers of corrupt law enforcement, but Training Day–with no explosions, no cheap thrills, no international conspiracies–is about as distant from current East Coast realities as possible. Still, that doesn’t mean that it qualifies as escapism. This gripping police…
It’s generally considered a violation of the unwritten code of film criticism to reveal anything that happens more than halfway into a movie, let alone near the end. Entire “flame wars” have been waged over the Internet over the slightest of spoilers, even when they involve something as minor as…
Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that’s been unearthed from an antique store’s attic and polished off for display. It reeks of quaint and cute, from its gauzy panoramas of Manhattan at Christmastime to its tattered plot of lovers bound by destiny to its scenes of travelers casually…
A quarter-century after C.W. McCall’s smash novelty single “Convoy,” there’s still a generous spirit out there for our 18-wheeled good buddies. But consider the less catchy flip side of that single, “Long, Lonesome Road,” and its lament of a maddeningly grim and endless horizon. It’s within this uniquely American wasteland…
The cynic may notice only how Hearts in Atlantis plays like a Stephen King best-of compilation, a reheating of familiar stories and favorite themes. At times, it feels so much like Stand By Me–with its nostalgic, flashback tale of cherubs and bullies accompanied by sad and weary narration–one might confuse…
Combine teenage angst with suburban emptiness and you’ve got a movie formula with an appreciable advantage over some other current movie formulas–particularly in the eyes of those who believe the American family has disintegrated and most of us are headed for eternal damnation. This is not to say the right-wing…
Together is the second feature from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, whose 1998 Fucking Amal was shown here two years ago under the title Show Me Love, renamed for obvious reasons. Together is an ensemble piece–a sharp, perceptive look at a Swedish commune in a suburb of Stockholm, circa 1975. That…
Lacking the good taste to postpone the release of this silly thriller until a less volatile time in American history (assuming one ever comes), the producers of Don’t Say a Word have opted to foist upon us images of detonating New York City buildings, carefully calculated acts of violence and…
The Italian film Bread and Tulips is a first cousin once removed of the American comedy Home Alone. A tremendous hit in Italy (it won nine Donatello awards last year, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars), it concerns a woman who, on a bus holiday with her family, accidentally gets…
In the annals of social change, Alma Schindler is strictly small potatoes, and Bruce Beresford’s new biopic, Bride of the Wind, unwittingly threatens to erase her altogether. For those who don’t have the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at their fingertips, Alma (Sarah Wynter) was an outspoken party girl from…
Finally, here’s this season’s candidate for worst movie ever made, a distinction cherished (and frequently awarded) by the bellicose lummoxes of this trade. Be warned: Those hoping for a return to the salad days of Meatballs should commence singing “Are You Ready for the Bummer?” right about now. Even playing…
When marching-band director Tyrone Brown asks his Jackie Robinson Steppers, “Are you motivated?” he’s not so much inquiring as presenting a challenge. It’s the middle of a sweltering summer in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, where tensions, temptations and distractions are omnipresent. Synchronizing 60 players–while diverting some of them from becoming…
