While the world queues up to gawk at George Lucas’ latest homage to himself–and make no mistake, Star Wars: Episode II–Attack of the Clones is but a sleek and sanitized redo of Empire Strikes Back–a far better, and smaller and quieter, film awaits next door; skip the lines, and your…
If you enjoy movies about a violently widowed man who’s unsure of his identity–and is covered in tattoos that remind him of his mission of vengeance–but you can’t be bothered with the frustration of watching a movie that’s edited backward, put that Memento DVD aside and check out The Salton…
Merchant Ivory productions–Howard’s End and A Room With a View being two of the most notable–are famous for their almost tactile sense of time and place. The company’s latest effort, which was not directed by the team’s customary director, James Ivory, but by its producing half, Ismail Merchant, is no…
A more nasty and cynical film was never made, and this from a director (Alexander Mackendrick) known previously for his comedies; though, when read between the lines, this 1957 masterpiece plays darkly hysterical–the laugh that coughs up blood. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a pathetic PR man peddling mediocre clients…
It’s easy to see why this comedy-drama about a thoroughly assimilated Indian-American college student at loggerheads with his tradition-minded father has been such a big hit on the indie film festival circuit. Written and directed by Anurag Mehta and starring his brother Aalok, American Chai doesn’t have anything especially new…
At first, they approach tentatively, their pens and posters timidly extended as though afraid the two men standing beneath the blank movie screen might bite or bark them out of the theater. “No, no,” insists Chris Weitz, standing next to his older brother Paul. “I’m happy to sign your poster,”…
The actresses playing conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton in the musical Side Show, now on view in a fine, emotionally charged production at Theatre Three, don’t use any special tricks to achieve the illusion of being attached at the hip. Their costumes aren’t even stitched together. Julie Stirman (Daisy)…
The way the story goes, a famous Hollywood mogul was once asked why he kept so many screenwriters working on so many scripts. The reply: If you lock a dozen monkeys in a room with a dozen typewriters, eventually one will bang out Hamlet. I don’t know whether the movie…
Binge-drinking isn’t even remotely compatible with parenthood, so Sunday mornings find my husband and me clear-headed, albeit bleary-eyed-tired from a long week of toddler-chasing. We cling to two other vices when the baby’s asleep–chain-smoking and coffee-chugging–out on the porch. I’ll usually start the conversation with a button-pushing rant for my…
What’s most surprising about Nine Queens, a wry if awfully derivative caper come-on from first-time feature director-writer Fabián Bielinsky, is how easily it suckers you into its swindle. After all, you know from jump that something’s up. You’ve sniffed out this con before in the films of David Mamet and…
To the woman who broke Adrian Lyne’s heart all those years ago: Stop what you’re doing right this minute. Drop everything, pick up the phone and call him. Apologize profusely for cheating on him. Tell him it’s all your fault and you’re a worse person for leaving him. Offer him…
Last month GQ ran a disquietingly flattering profile of Joe Roth, who, in January 2000, quit his gig as Walt Disney Studios chairman to “revolutionize the industry” (GQ’s words) by forming his own studio. With a billion bucks on loan from men with money and bridges to burn–among them News…
The most remarkable thing about Bart Weiss, founder and director of the Dallas Video Festival, is not his patience or taste but his empathy for filmmakers and audiences alike. He knows there will be plenty of films, both short and long, screening in the 15th Annual Dallas Video Festival that…
In those old mummy movies from the 1930s, nobody could outrun the corpse. The angry and very dead 3,000-year-old pharaoh in The Mummy and its dozens of sequels and remakes traveled with a step-drag, step-drag cadence that couldn’t outpace a three-legged sloth, but somehow the creature always caught up with…
It’s cliché: Women at midlife suffer hot flashes; men at midlife buy hot cars. So what happens to a 53-year-old butch lesbian grandmother entering menopause? In playwright Peggy Shaw’s case, she puts on a double-breasted suit and suspenders, passes for a 35-year-old man and lets loose the tiger within. The…
Outside the Dallas Museum of Natural History is the Leonhardt Lagoon, a nice little pool intended to preserve a small ecosystem, a little part of the Texas habitat. Therefore small animals such as ducks, turtles, insects and grackles (as if they needed any help) have a small plot set aside…
Kick a boy enough times, and he’ll become a man. The question is, of what sort? In his long-awaited feature portrait of the comic-book hero, Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi brings forth a kaleidoscopic answer full of hope and verve. Flashy enough for kids and insightful enough to engage adults, the…
Ten years after The Scandal–and its negative effect on the size of his audiences and his power and independence–Woody Allen broke his longtime avoidance of the Oscar telecast with his pro-New York stand-up shtick at this year’s ceremony. The positive audience response suggested that all is forgiven, the industry still…
Actor Arliss Howard’s debut as a director explodes with brave ambition while falling a little short, perhaps, on traditional narrative sense. So be it. If devotees of the cinematic art were willing to slide down a tunnel into John Malkovich’s head a few years back, there’s no reason to balk…
In the late ’50s, the head of a Brooklyn street gang (Stephen Dorff) must fight off attacks from a neighboring gang run by a junkie (Balthazar Getty), who is fronting for a drug dealer (Norman Reedus) fresh out of prison. At the same time, our hero’s brother (Brad Renfro) is…
Kicking around the film-fest circuit since 2000, this football film (soccer, actually, but we are in Scotland) is the quintessential sports film, complete with a ragtag team of small-timers sniffing the big time, an aging vet (Jackie McQuillan, played by feature-film newcomer Abby McCoist) seeking redemption on and off the…
There is more than a little of A Beautiful Mind’s John Nash in Tom Jericho, the hero of Michael Apted’s World War II-era romantic thriller. Both men are brilliant mathematicians, breaking military codes for the government while hovering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nash, of course, was a…
