The soon-to-be-talked-about sensations in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream include three or four flashing, near-subliminal montages that combine an eye’s iris and dilating pupil, an extreme close-up of heroin cooking in a teaspoon, and a sucking hypodermic needle; a surpassingly frightening sequence in which Ellen Burstyn, in the midst…
There once was a man, and he called himself Seuss, Who wrote the best children’s books ever produced. With drawings elaborate, and tales subtly moral Of his greatness, not even this critic would quarrel. Alas, he’s now dead, and so all is not groovy, For someone said, “I know! Let’s…
Refreshingly, the biggest wonder about the new Arnold Schwarzenegger ride is not that human cloning has become a reality, nor that the America of the future (“sooner than you think,” as an opening caption ominously suggests) very closely resembles present-day Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. It’s not even that technological…
Given the stress and emotional turmoil associated with family holidays, in the cinema, as in life, it’s very peculiar that anyone feels obliged to entertain the notion of Thanksgiving anymore. Really, thanks for what, exactly? Jammed freeways? Delayed flights? Overcrowded supermarkets? Big, dead birds? Witchhunts? Territorial conquest and genocide? Well,…
This fall, two local film festivals celebrate their second birthdays, and already both have learned to run before they bothered to crawl. The Vistas Film Festival, which had its run last month, proved that no line exists between “great Latin cinema” and “great cinema”; Vistas featured some of the best…
November may mean Thanksgiving to most of you, but in the film biz it means a rush of “serious” films trying to gouge an impression into the short memories of Oscar voters. This shouldn’t be a bad thing, but since the relationship between “Oscar” and “actually interesting filmmaking” is nearly…
Little Nicky will redefine the phrase “worst movie ever,” because it might actually be the worst movie ever. Never again will one be able to so casually sling around that phrase about, say, anything produced by Jerry Bruckheimer or anything starring Richard Grieco or Robert Davi or Rodney Dangerfield (who,…
If you’re planning to take a look at Antony Hoffman’s Red Planet, it is highly advised that you squint. This way, instead of observing a facile romance lightly spiced with danger and heavily laden with rawkin’ effects, you’ll see the movie for what it really is: a cadre of little…
At first glance, the new Japanese import Non-Stop seems to be a crude knockoff of German director Tom Tykwer’s wonderful Run Lola Run, but Non-Stop was released in Japan (under the title Dangan Runner) in 1996, two years before Lola was shot. Could Tykwer have seen the film at a…
The opening credits of Charlie’s Angels hint at a movie that never appears in the film’s expurgated 94 minutes; the tease is too soon rendered a disappointment. A Mission: Impossible-style prelude suggests a live-action cartoon as directed by Robert Altman; a camera stalks the aisles of a jumbo jet, capturing…
Gopher. Explosives. Gopher… explosives. Gopher! Explosives! There. Now you know exactly what was running through this critic’s mind during The Legend of Bagger Vance, the impeccably aimed new tranquilizer dart from Hollywood’s Mr. Honeydrip, Robert Redford. Of course, it’s really not fair to compare this meditative drama to that other…
If you need proof that The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name has turned into The Love That Won’t Shut Up, look no further than Outtakes Dallas 2000. The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and try-sexual (those enterprising folks who’ll try anything once) filmmakers whose features, documentaries, and shorts are scheduled…
Fascinating and engrossing on every conceivable level, this beautifully constructed feature-length documentary opens with the mournful sound of a train and images of toys and books that sit untouched in what was once a child’s bedroom. As the credit sequence ends, an elderly woman addresses an unseen interviewer, recalling the…
Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand (Jesus of Montréal) isn’t the first guy to skewer what Tennessee Williams called “the bitch-goddess of success.” Or to lay bare the absurdity of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame. Or to otherwise annihilate celebrity worship. But in his observant, swiftly paced Stardom, Arcand does it…
Although it must have been a no-brainer to make a sequel to The Blair Witch Project, it was hard to imagine an intelligent follow-up to a film that culminated in the apparent death of all the principals. Romeo and Juliet 2, anyone? Hamlet Returns? But given the inevitability of Book…
Any moviemaker who ventures into the sewers of New York City corruption will find Sidney Lumet’s wet footprints. In films such as The Pawnbroker, Serpico, and Q&A, this streetwise director has explored, among other things, individual morality in the face of big-city vice, and individual transcendence of ethnic conflict. Other…
The stark simplicity of A Time for Drunken Horses, one of the few films that have slipped out of post-revolutionary Iran to the West, does nothing to obscure its emotional power or the complexity of the geopolitical issues underlying it. Filmed on location in wintry Kurdistan, it is the heartbreaking…
Early in Spanish director Carlos Saura’s stunning new film, the 82-year-old protagonist, the great 19th-century painter Francisco de Goya, awakens from a disturbing dream and rises to see an apparition of his lost love, the Duchess of Alba. Following her down a surrealistically white hallway, he suddenly finds himself outdoors…
Italian-Americans might be glad to note that Two Family House, which focuses on the Italian community on Staten Island, features not a single gangster, gun, or ring to be kissed. They might be even happier if the film had also chosen not to depict them as fat, pasta-eating, quick-tempered racists…
To put it mildly, it is uncomfortable and embarrassing to have one’s cynical ass whipped by a huge, hulking Hallmark card, and this is exactly the sensation one takes away from Mimi Leder’s Pay It Forward. Not that the near-total emotional submission isn’t preceded by a knock-down, drag-out battle for…
Let’s be honest: As much as people may complain about Spike Lee’s public pontifications on race, or his controversial stances, or his being a rabble-rouser, that’s the way we like him. What first comes to mind when you hear his name mentioned? Certainly not Girl 6 or The Original Kings…
The setting of Stephen Daldry’s uplifting comedy Billy Elliot, about a working-class boy who wants to be a ballet dancer, is a beleaguered coal-mining town in the north of England, circa 1984. A coat of grime covers the squat brick-row houses, drying laundry flaps sadly in the breeze, and the…
