In the famed cocaine drama Scarface, I remember a lot of gun battles and bowl after bowl of cocaine spilled on the table. I do not remember heartfelt talks with dad, a cancer-stricken girlfriend, and a child custody battle. Yet such is the world of Blow, the most wildly anticipated drug thriller since, well, last […]
The mid to late-‘60s were a heady time for art cinemas in America. While Hollywood was still saddled with content restrictions that forbade nudity, sex, and other bankable cinematic ingredients, less puritanical cultures like those of France, Italy, and Sweden were turning out highbrow features that played to the id and the intellect at the
At 104 minutes, Blue Crush puts the “endless” in the popular surf phrase “endless summer.” It certainly feels longer than any movie derived from a magazine article deserves to be (in this case, it’s author Susan Orlean’s 1998 Women’s Outdoor magazine piece “Surf Girls of Maui”). But the bloated undertaking especially disappoints because Crush positively
Typecasting. Definition, when writers pigeonhole you into one role, assuming you can do nothing more than that. However, typecasting is not just a product of the writers. It is not just a product of your Hollywood image. It’s a product of what you choose to do. Case in point Martin Lawrence, whose new movie Blue
Credits slowly emerge from undulating blue velvet as Angelo Badalamenti’s arousing score fills the soundtrack. Dissolve to clear, blue skies, clean white picket fences, budding red roses, and yellow tulips. A man riding on a passing fire truck waves. A uniformed crossing guard holds a stop sign allowing children to safely cross the street. We
The only thing I remembered about seeing Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue the first part of his Three Colors trilogy (see also White, Red) is that it put me to sleep right at the 40-minute mark. Watched again with a more mature and critical eye years later I didn’t nod off, but impatient types will find the
Directors, screenwriters, and everyone else involved in making a movie have a singular task make an audience believe in the world onscreen. I’ll forgive a lot in a movie, if the characters and their conflicts hold my attention. Boat Trip never makes the effort to establish anything original. The filmmakers are selling you a used
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is clearly Made In Hollywood, but it’s still trying to pretend to be a documentary. The story this time? In Book of Shadows, the original Blair Witch was “just a movie,” but this time it’s for real this is what happened after all those tourists descended upon Burkittsville, MD,
The moment you know that Dignan’s really lost it is during the trio’s getaway from a not so daring bookstore robbery, when he excitedly states, “We’re heading back to Bob’s, we’re gonna split up the loot, and go on the lam!” In this hilarious first feature from writer/director Wes Anderson and screenwriter Owen Wilson, a
As Larry Clark turns the struggles of young adults into so much tabloid fodder, Masato Haradi takes on the subject of teenage high school girls that walk on the wild side in Bounce Ko Gals. Using a vérité approach, without cinematic lighting, he places us in the midst of a young and desperate Tokyo. His
