A Christmas Story ranks as the best holiday movie ever, better even than It’s a Wonderful Life. Based on the book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, it’s a period piece set in roughly 1940, telling a series of vignettes about a young boy that’s 9 years old in the weeks leading up […]
Like the honey-glazed ham around which so much of its story sadly revolves, Christmas with the Kranks is tasty at first but soon congeals into little more than a fatty, gelatinous mess. Based on one of John Grisham’s bestsellers that isn’t about lawyers, Skipping Christmas, the film features the fine directing talents of Joe Roth
”It’s about the facelessness of war!” exclaimed a colleague. “The compositions are stunning, with action going on in the foreground and background. It’s a dynamic and apocalyptic visual experience!” This, to me, is madness. Black Hawk Down has been mistaken, in its bloated self-importance, for being cinematically and politically relevant. Take away its timely guise
Look up trinity in the dictionary and it will tell you that it’s the union of three closely related members. That’s a clever guise for this, the third movie about the half-human, half-vampire Marvel comic book hero named Blade. Yet, the film that’s lurking under this misnomer is remarkably dissimilar to the original spectacle of
The Blair Witch Project has the bizarre distinction of being the first horror film ever to give me nightmares before having seen it. The nightmares will probably continue for awhile, even though Blair Witch is not, contrary to the reports I’ve heard, the scariest movie ever made. Not even close. The conceit of The Blair
Blazing Saddles isn’t the funniest Mel Brooks movie (that’d be The Producers), but it’s by far the least politically correct. Oddly, by venturing into new realms of racist humor, Brooks finds comedy gold, because he’s mocking a genre (the western) that’s chock full of racist content. And Brooks realizes, as do we during the screening
Yes, August is upon us and with it comes the second appearance of the twice-yearly dumping ground for Hollywood. Like the February doldrums, August brings us films filled with fading stars and awful storylines that weren’t deemed good enough to break even after a big summer marketing campaign, nor will they be able to go
Blind Shaft shows you the literal underbelly of China. Set in and around shabby little coal mines in the middle of nowhere, it’s a shocking and totally gripping tale of murder and flimflammery that will keep you guessing all the way through. Tang (Wang Shuangbao) and Song (Li Yixiang) are two itinerant workers who wander
A documentary’s potency is usually measured on two levels: the ability to convey information, and its power at swaying you emotionally. When a filmmaker accomplishes both, they truly have something precious to share with others, but striving to do one or the other well can also be acceptable provided you still feel different walking out
Clint Eastwood is back to lay down the law and settle a new score. This time, his pursuit of justice has a new wrinkle (or many, I suppose) his age. In Blood Work, his aging lawman portrayal is highly convincing, but by the end of the film this fascinating character study looses all credibility at
