The Agronomist, a documentary from director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), works for the same reason his previous non-fiction cinema (Stop Making Sense, Cousin Bobby) does. He picks an interesting subject, and then steps out of the way. Here he profiles the inimitable voice of Radio Haiti Inter, Jean Dominique. In 1968, […]
Based on the 2002 Hong Kong horror movie, “The Eye” stars Jessica Alba as the recipient of a cornea transplant that restores her sight, but with the added superpower of being able to see the dead spirits that walk the streets with us. The original movie was relatively popular in Hong Kong, though it only
“The Thing” is john Carpenter’s 1982 of the original 1951 film “The Thing From Another World”. It recreates the premise of a group of scientists, stuck in the Antarctic, that find a hostile shapeshifting alien that has laid dormant for thousands of years in the Antarctic ice. As a shapeshifter, once it gets going, it
Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” is one of his most renowned and best loved films, with his mastery of audio and visual language on full effect for this barely coherent horror movie centered on a coven of witches. Years after its 1977 release, the film has lost much of its weight; the gore and special effects are
Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-Sheng was the centerpoint of the films of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang; working with the celebrated director must have taught Lee something about filmmaking, as he’s reinvented himself as a director of his own accord. “Help Me Eros” is his second feature, and it screened at the Sydney Film Festival, on a
Directed by Ulrich Seidl, “Import/Export” pauses on this image only for an instant, giving the audience a momentary glimpse of what we saw on the poster before treading into a much more bleak scenario. The film contains two independent storylines: One, about Olga, a nurse in some small town in Ukraine, who is desperately trying
When remembering 3 Women, many viewers mistakenly recall it as being titled 2 Women. That’s understandable (though it’s a different movie), because the third woman in question (Janice Rule) is barely present in the film and has no intelligible lines. Welcome to Robert Altman’s personal nightmare (literally, he came up with the story in a
For many Christians, the time of Lent is dedicated to 40 days of prayer and fasting. While most will give up red meat, caffeine, or Girl Scout cookies, the main character of 40 Days and 40 Nights has decided to give up sexual activity. I’m sure that’s not exactly what the religious order had in
Seeing horror movies has turned me into Morgan Freeman in Seven grizzled, embittered and always expecting the worst. Don’t believe me? Watch Halloween: Resurrection, They, 13th Child, and House of the Dead in the course of a year and see what you become. Still, I’m always rooting for horror movies because you’re never as alive
I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a movie as thoroughly bad as 13th Child. And I don’t mean bad in a Halloween: Resurrection way where you can laugh a bit at the stupidity and go home none the worse for wear. I mean the kind of complete awfulness that Joe Queenan devotes a
