When a Los Angeles publicist for a major Hollywood studio asks, “Which Kid do you want to interview?” the choice is tough. Two days apart, two different staffers in Paramount’s L.A. publicity office called with offers to chat with any of the five Kids in the Hall about the feature…
The original screen version of Jane Eyre, released in 1944–with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, both at the height of their powers–is one of the minor masterpieces of the studio system’s Golden Age. Like all the best Victorian pictures of the time (The Heiress, Gaslight, and others) the entire production…
Have you noticed how there’s been a backlash against the use of stunt breasts? Guys are deciding that they’re not that crazy about artificial breastskis anymore. There are only so many Silicone Sacs you can look at before you go: “You know what? I knew this girl who had breasts…
On an uncharacteristically chilly morning in March, writer-director David O. Russell looks every bit the brooding auteur: uncombed black hair stands up in patches all over his head; flinty brown eyes manage to penetrate and deflect every bold question. Russell doesn’t take his image seriously, but he’s earned it in…
Most domestic dramas fall into two types: The profound kind tends to be confrontational and even loud, where the true characters of the participants are forged in an intense furnace of conflict, and big emotions get played out for everyone to see. The gentle kind has conflict, too, but the…
First came topless dancing. Then came table dancing. (This doesn’t mean the tables dance, it means the girls dance on your table or at your table, even though sometimes the table is more attractive than the girl.) Then came couch dancing. And couch dancing begat lap dancing. I think the…
Diabolique, the black-and-white 1955 French classic from director Henri Georges Clouzot, seems like a murder thriller, but it’s much closer in tone to a ghost story. The callous headmaster of a boys’ school cheats on his prim wife Mia (played by the director’s own wife, Vera Clouzot) with the more…
As Antonia’s Line begins, Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy) is 88, and fully aware that she will be dead by the end of the day. As a kind of final purification, she fondly recounts the events of her life, beginning with her return 40 years ago to the village in the…
What is this deal with three people in bed? I’ve reviewed at least 10 movies in the last two years in which people are aardvarking around in weird combinations, making the sign of the triple-snouted octopus with so many arms and legs flopping around on the bed covers that you…
When is a kid’s film not for kids? When it uses child characters to portray universal adult dilemmas, when one simple but philosophically profound problem propels all the action, and when a witty script attempts to capture the foibles of grownups in all their childish (or, more accurately, unchildlike) guile…
Among my most cherished television memories are the outrageous movie parodies shown almost weekly on the old Carol Burnett Show. Burnett’s staff had a genius for writing those bits–distilling a two-hour movie down to its essential characters, events, and motivations, then extracting from what was left 15 minutes worth of…
Movies hold a special, sentimental place in Giuseppe Tornatore’s heart. His second feature, 1988’s Cinema Paradiso, was the loving counterpoint to more somber films like The Last Picture Show. By providing escape from the dangers and despair of rural living in post-war Italy, moviegoing served two functions: one as entertainment,…
I recently made up with my girlfriend, Cherry Dilday–for the 37th time–and we were on our way to catch One Night Stand at the triple-screen Astro Drive-In on Loop 12 in Dallas. I was thinking how it was really weird that nobody has ever used the title One Night Stand…
The movies of Spike Lee must present something of a nightmare to the mainstream liberal mind. He’s the most confrontational, radical-left political filmmaker of his time, and a personal friend of the most powerful pair of Michaels in entertainment (Jackson and Jordan) to boot. As a director, he glides comfortably–and…
Henceforth, herewith and therefrom, we have the final week of Drive-In Academy Award nominations. Yay, saith the Lord, there are too many Hubbies. If you haven’t voted yet, I don’t wanna hear about it. Just get to work. OK, gimme the envelope. The You’ve-Made-Too-Many-B-Movies Award * Adrienne Barbeau, Bram Stoker’s…
Conventional wisdom says that the Coen Brothers–Joel, who directs, and Ethan, who produces–can do no wrong artistically. Of course, that’s not true. Barton Fink, with its arrogant antihero wittily subverting the idea that the creative process can take the place of real-life experience, was a generally dense and often obtuse…
There are two theories behind the Hollywood mistreatment of Julia Roberts’ latest vehicle, Mary Reilly: Either the studio, TriStar, shot several endings because the film sucked, or because its fitful, mischievous tone wouldn’t suit Julia Roberts fans. The movie was pulled from its original release date last summer and subjected…
Mike Nichols’ new film, The Birdcage, has most of the trappings of a typical domestic comedy: Val (David Futterman) returns from college to announce to his father, Armand (Robin Williams), that he’s engaged to the daughter of a right-wing U.S. senator (Gene Hackman). The senator is embroiled in a controversy,…
I always wanted to use the word “penultimate” in a sentence, and this is the penultimate week of the 1996 Drive-In Academy Award nominations, better known as the Hubbies–the only awards that never honor Emma Thompson under any circumstances. And the nominees are… Best Geek Acting * Penny Arcade, Hellroller,…
No he don’t I Feel Alright Steve Earle Warner Bros. Records A country boy who busted into the honky-tonk swinging an electric guitar like a longhair and spitting out his junkie lyrics like a Springsteen who never even heard of the promised land, Steve Earle fucked himself up but good…
I’m no fan of mob justice, but in the name of good filmmaking, I say American audiences should campaign to get the American citizenship of Barbet Schroeder revoked. The filmmaker began his career 27 years ago in France, making a series of deliberately obscure personal dramas–two of which featured soundtracks…
Trends in movie themes are peculiar things. Sometimes they don’t manifest themselves in predictable or expected ways, but they’re there right on the screen, looking you straight in the face, begging to be noticed. Case in point: Less than a week after Dallas’ first and only showing of Abel Ferrera’s…
