On the lips of many moviegoers, the name Joel Schumacher is tantamount to blasphemy. Visions of a blue-skinned Arnold Schwarzenegger and a head-bobbing George Clooney in rubber nipples instantly come to mind, inducing shudders of revulsion and indicating an oft-held view that Mr. Schumacher epitomizes the worst American directing can…
During this cinematic Summer of Dumb, it would be all too easy to celebrate half-assed clever as a virtue, especially when proffered by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, who elevated the gross-out to an Art Form (or, more likely, Fart Form) in Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary. Osmosis Jones, one…
There is something fairly amusing about this title, Apocalypse Now Redux. Think about it: Prophetic Disclosure Presently Shows Up Again Newfangled. Of course, in the 10 years since the release of the documentary Hearts of Darkness, we’ve been taught to revere the legend of Francis Ford Coppola walking the line…
For a few moments, American Pie 2 tastes every bit as stale as junk food left out on the countertop for two years. “Just like old times,” says one actor to another as they amble through settings borrowed from the first installment of 1999’s Last American Virgin revisit: Jim’s bedroom,…
It was about two years ago that there was real hope for the horror movie coming once again due for a decent revival. The Blair Witch Project made people remember how to fear the unknown, and remakes of The Haunting and House on Haunted Hill promised a return to the…
When last we spotted indie icons Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau onscreen together, they were knocking back fruit-flavored martinis and chasing L.A. skirt in the inventive Gen-X hit Swingers. The goofy charm of that phenomenon now gives way, sad to report, to a labored fringes-of-the-mob comedy called Made, in which…
The most telling scene in Rush Hour 2 comes during the closing-credits montage of outtakes, which have become the most enjoyable part of Jackie Chan’s Hollywood outings. Chris Tucker, the poor man’s Eddie Murphy who now pockets more than the real thing per picture, and Chan have just pushed one…
“I want you to suck my big dick. I want you to lick my balls.” Thus begins Larry Clark’s Bully, a return to Kids territory, following a forgettable detour into adulthood named Another Day in Paradise that apparently didn’t kick up enough of a fuss for the guy. So he…
Chopper, the first feature from Australian video director Andrew Dominik, is a strong, effective but often stomach-churning portrait of notorious Aussie criminal Mark “Chopper” Read. It can be characterized as “sensational”–in both the positive and negative senses of the word. According to the filmmakers, Chopper Read is a legend Down…
Times certainly have changed. Twenty years ago, a musical about an East German transsexual rock singer would have premiered in one of New York’s off-off-Broadway theaters or cabarets, run for a couple of weeks and remained the pleasant memory of a select few. But when John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and…
There are scenes in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes redo so hysterical they drown out minutes’ worth of dialogue that follow, which is hardly a knock. Indeed, the film is often so comical, so ridiculous in that self-aware wink-wink sort of way, it plays like a parody of the…
If there’s any justice in moviedom, this summer’s feel-good hit will be an unassuming Dutch comedy called Everybody’s Famous! Defying long odds, writer-director Dominique Deruddere has taken a couple of shopworn subjects–the public obsession with celebrity and the ineptitude of amateur criminals–and parlayed them into an original and inventive farce…
Actor “Beat” Takeshi Kitano has built an international reputation over the past decade, primarily through a series of ultra-hard-boiled crime films in which he plays either a cop or a felon. With the exception of Gonin (1995; released in the United States in 1998), which was directed by Takeshi Ishii,…
A third Jurassic Park movie was inevitable, given that the second shattered box office records. But when you have one of the hottest box office properties of all time, isn’t it worth taking a little time to craft it? Just because you know it can only be better than The…
A year ago, John Cusack was smarting over his breakup with Catherine Zeta-Jones, who, he lamented, was “out of my class–too smart, too pretty, too much.” He couldn’t figure out why such a self-absorbed glamour doll was going out with such a regular-Joe schmo in the first place; he waited…
Back in her early teens, Reese Witherspoon proved herself a terrific actress in her big-screen debut, Man in the Moon in 1991. Since then, she’s done first-rate work in critical hits like Pleasantville, cult faves like Freeway and Election and underrated gems like Best Laid Plans. So how is it…
Even more than the recent Depression-era comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the turn-of-the-century drama Songcatcher is an absolute treasure trove of old-timey, traditional folk music. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia in 1907, the film follows city-bred musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) as she traverses the…
Thirty minutes into Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, I realized I had no idea what was going on…and could not have cared less. The New Age-tinged tale set 60 years in the future–about an alien infestation and the dueling schemes to eradicate it from the planet, one of which could…
In the movies, dead husbands and dearly departed boyfriends have an irksome habit of revisiting the women who once loved them–usually at inconvenient moments. Consider Demi Moore in Ghost. Poor thing had to put up with the dramatically challenged shade of Patrick Swayze, who droned on and on about a…
Now that A.I.’s out of the way and it’s safe again to read movie reviews without dictionary and NoDoz in hand, onward and downward to the Summer of Dumb. Who has time for serious and thoughtful when there’s plenty of stupid to slather all over audiences that like to stay…
Kiss of the Dragon–the latest vehicle for martial arts star Jet Li, a mainland Chinese talent who became a superstar in Hong Kong and has since succumbed to the blandishments of Hollywood–has a little of the best (and a lot of the worst) of Hong Kong films, and a lot…
There’s plenty of French star power in The Closet (Le Placard), a comedy written and directed by the prolific director Francis Veber. The movie stars Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu and Thierry Lhermitte, which in U.S. terms is roughly equivalent to a movie featuring Robin Williams, Nick Nolte and Tom Hanks,…
