Rather than asking if this senseless and expensive new film from wunderkind entertainer Robert Zemeckis is devoid of merit (it is), or “worth seeing” (it isn’t), we should instead take the movie’s title–What Lies Beneath–as a direct question. Indeed, what does lie beneath? Possible answers include: a glaringly improbable shift…
Twelve hours after seeing Loser, the only thing I could remember about it was Alan Cumming’s performance of “Willkommen” from the 1998 Broadway production of Cabaret–which isn’t technically even in the movie, since the scene is obviously spliced in to make it appear as though the film’s two would-be lovebirds…
In Bryan Singer’s last movie, 1998’s Apt Pupil, Ian McKellen portrayed a Nazi war criminal hiding out in the suburbs, passing himself off as an ordinary old man crouching behind drawn blinds. In Singer’s new movie, X-Men, McKellen plays Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, the son of Jews murdered in Auschwitz. In…
It has taken moviemakers and, more crucially, foot-dragging movie investors almost a decade to catch up with rave culture–the heady mix of secret warehouses, electronic music, designer drugs, and ecstatic dancing that has come to define the yearning and the restlessness of a generation. But now, the 5 a.m. faithful…
Kenneth Branagh’s latest adaptation of Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, is not swooningly wonderful; rather, it is simply quite nice. Kindly note the distinction: If the movie were a dinner guest, it would not be the brash charmer who transforms your party into a par-tay; it would be the crisply attired…
So who are these celebrated Coen brothers anyway, and what’s their point? These days, it’s pretty easy to switch over to critical auto-pilot, to gush about funny-looking friends shoved into wood-chippers or Hula-Hoops being designed, you know, for the kids. But where does the slender path of the Coen mythos…
Imagine being given a do-over, a free pass to correct yesterday’s mistakes and missteps. Perhaps you’d choose a different job, a different lover, a different life; perhaps you’d reinvent yourself altogether, since you have in your possession the gift of hindsight. You know where you went wrong last time; tomorrow,…
Why is the film called Disney’s The Kid? Is it really possible that the studio was so concerned that someone might actually mistake the film for an update of the Chaplin classic that the brand name had to be formally incorporated in the title? Or was this an attempt to…
Is there a more bankrupt genre than the parody movie? Many movies nowadays are so painfully self-aware and referential that there often isn’t much left to make fun of, which is especially the case for Kevin Williamson-penned films like Scream and its clones, clichéd teen-slasher movies that were regarded as…
Director Alison Maclean, from Canada by way of New Zealand, turns her camera on the American landscape–or, more accurately, the underbelly of the American landscape–in Jesus’ Son, an uneven but often effective adaptation of Denis Johnson’s autobiographical book. Billy Crudup stars as a thoroughly marginalized character known to his friends…
In his discomfiting 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind painted a none-too-flattering portrait of a post-Jaws Steven Spielberg. The author portrayed him as a raging egomaniac who wanted a writing credit on the film, though he contributed very little to the script. Indeed, the film’s most famous monologue,…
The press kit for The Perfect Storm contains the damnedest thing I’ve ever read. Right at the top, there is a “special request to the press” that reads, in full: “Warner Bros. Pictures would appreciate the press’ cooperation in not revealing the ending of this film to their readers, viewers…
Despite what many believe, it doesn’t come down to explosions, star power, or millions of greenbacks thrown at the producers. The true indicator of success for a summer movie is The Moment, that one memorable scene that sticks in your head, the one that Billy Crystal parodies the following spring…
So this is what Robert De Niro’s career has come to, starring in films in which he parodies his most familiar roles until he becomes the master painter urinating on his own beautiful canvases. Last year, it was pleasant and harmless enough: Analyze This was no Sopranos, but at least…
For most Americans, the social and political issues underlying Jose Luis Cuerda’s ButterflyButterflybBu may seem remote at best. The tensions between republicans and fascists in Spain after the fall of that nation’s monarchy in 1931, and dictator Francisco Franco’s victory in the bloody Spanish Civil War, may have stirred strong…
In Me, Myself & Irene, Jim Carrey plays a meek Rhode Island state trooper named Charlie whose aggressions are so pent-up they finally erupt in the form of a second personality, “Hank.” Where Charlie silently endures potty-mouthed curses from little girls skipping rope, Hank swipes ice-cream cones from kids at…
About nine years ago, in a humble Los Angeles-area nightclub, urbane British folk singer Billy Bragg reappraised 20th-century politics–as is often his Socialist wont–by means of an intriguing correlation. Might it be, he postulated, that contemporaries Leon Trotsky and Harlan Sanders were not merely striking doppelgängers, but, in fact, the…
I never imagined the day would come when I would cringe to see Ralph Fiennes onscreen. Not only is he shamelessly good-looking but, whether playing the brooding, remote figure doomed by love in The English Patient or the bloodless commandant of a Nazi death camp in Schindler’s List, he projects…
So, when was the last time you shared a woman with your dad? No, not your mom–don’t be gross. You know, just some woman that you and your dad both dug, who perked you up a bit. It’s probably been a while, huh? What? Never? Really? Well, that may be…
Strip the movie of its brand name, mute the Isaac Hayes theme song that’s still icebox cool, and John Singleton’s Shaft doesn’t even qualify as a distant cousin to Gordon Parks’ 1971 original–much less Ernest Tidyman’s 1970 novel, on which the franchise is based. To reiterate a point made by…
It’s the year 3028, and man…is an endangered species! (Haven’t we heard that somewhere before, like last month?) But this time around, the threat is a little more intimidating than those effeminate, Xenu-worshipping Conehead psychologists in platform boots. The villains in Fox’s new animated spectacular Titan A.E. are the Drej…
Kikujiro, the latest release from Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, is likely to be a surprise to his American fans–possibly even a disappointment–if they walk in unprepared. In fact, the movie is altogether worthwhile, so just get yourselves prepared. Kitano attracted international attention when his first two films–the crime movies Violent…
