By 1967, Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) had become the youngest con man to make the FBI’s “Most Wanted List.” He’d cashed millions of dollars in forged checks, posed as a co-pilot for a major airline, landed a job as a surgeon in Atlanta, and passed the bar exam in New Orleans. At the time, […]
A wry and sarcastic (and thick as hell) book about the ridiculous duplicity of war? Sounds like a movie to me. And so it did to Mike Nichols and Buck Henry, collaborators on The Graduate who conspired once again to make one of the greats of cinema. While Catch-22 has none of the cachet of
There’s an important lesson every male should learn, even at a young age: Women always get their way. You listening, fellas? Pack it up, party’s over, that’s the way of the world. The likable but unambitious Catch That Kid delivers this bubble-bursting curveball to ten-year-old boys everywhere, delivering a preteen heroine that knows the only
At the American Ballet Academy, there is an abundance of passion, talent and determination. Of course these things simply aren’t enough when it comes to making it as a professional ballet dancer. As the camera probes into a crowded room of ballerinas spinning and dipping, a young blond is immediately isolated from the bunch. The
Hollywood is a pimp. A fat, cigar-smoking chump wearing a fur hat and 12 gold chains around its fat, hairy chest. All of its stars and starlets are an evil brood of scum-sucking vampires looking for the next percentage take, the next summer blockbuster, the next casting couch to audition on. Pumping out comic-book adaptations,
I don’t understand why directors decide to remake perfectly good movies. This thought races through my head because I recently saw Charade, the 1963 Stanley Donen gem featuring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and an endless amount of thrills, chills, and sweet goofiness. It’s an unabashed delight, featuring two screen legends whose charisma is unmatched whether
Angels fight in slow motion. Angels show skin in slow motion. And most importantly, Angels explode in slow motion. Thus we have the three immutable laws of the reinvented Charlie’s Angels, that most improbable crossover hit from the 1970s TV show. Alas, what made the original film such a guilty pleasure wears thin in this
If you have a special connection to The Catcher in the Rye, and if you can take Road Trip uber-geek DJ Qualls seriously in a dramatic role, then maybe you’ll fall in love with Chasing Holden. Qualls stars as Neil, son of the governer of New York, sent to prep school at the age of
In my mind there are two types of metaphor movies: those that kick and those that scream. Those that scream take their metaphors and make them painfully obvious to the viewer. We can’t help but notice them. Those that kick, on the other hand, have metaphors that are silent and effective. Children of a Lesser
Since the beginning of time (or at least the domestication of animals), the chicken has been man’s feathered enigma. Like so many of its feathered friends, it has fallen into the realm of the metaphor (i.e. “He’s a chicken.”). Unlike so many of its edible counterparts, it has survived the hassles of religious communities unscathed
