One has to wonder if Martin Scorsese’s worldview stops at the New Jersey state line. A shocking disappointment, Bringing Out the Dead marks Scorsese’s first film since Kundun, and his first contemporary movie since Casino. So neither of these took place in New York, but Scorsese is so in love with his hometown, it shows […]
Let’s just get it out there: Bubba Ho-Tep is about an elderly Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) fighting a mummy in a Texas rest-home. In Elvis’s corner, there is an elderly African-American fellow (Ossie Davis) who believes he’s JFK. You could say JFK is included out of faithfulness to the short-story upon which Ho-Tep is based
In this lighthearted, unpretentious comedy, Daniel Auteuil sheds the intensity of his previous roles in Les Voleurs, Ma saison préférée, Manon of the Spring, to name just a few and plays a shy, crooked-nosed accountant too boring to be tolerated by just about anyone. His François Pignon an appropriate name for somebody who is about
Austrian bad boy filmmaker Michael Haneke follows up his nihilistic home invasion psychodrama Funny Games with the elusive Code Unknown. Frustrating and seemingly disconnected, Haneke’s crafted one of those strange films that, at the time of viewing, inspires reactions ranging from outrage (“What a waste of my time!”) to bafflement (“What’s the point?”). It’s certainly
Coffee and cigarettes. What is it about this magical combination of caffeine and cancer that’s so irresistible to millions of café and pub patrons around the world? Despite its title, don’t go looking to Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes for the answer. A series of vignettes populated by an all-star cast of actors and musicians,
After their son is injured walking on the bustling streets of New York City, Cooper and Leah Tilson (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone) inexplicably decide to move their family to the “safer” confines of the countryside (because danger certainly doesn’t lurk out there). The house they buy is Cold Creek Manor, a massive property that
Masterpiece Theater meets Mayberry in Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain, a stodgy and superfluous adaptation of Charles Frazier’s Civil War romance novel that’s every bit as unconvincing as it’s meant to be epic. Frigid and detached to the point of numbness, the passionless period piece is too staged, too dry, and too silly to matter, though
There are two kinds of roller coasters. The most modern kind uses maglev technology to take you from 0 to 100mph in a matter of seconds. The old-school kind slowly creeps you up an incline before letting gravity pull you down at sickening speeds. Collateral is definitely the latter, and actually delivers more in the
Comedians are not funny people. If we’re to believe Christian Charles’ aptly-titled documentary, they’re obsessive, jealous, self-loathing, analytical and petty. Remember, dying is easy and comedy is hard. Two paths are followed in Comedian. On one, a comic on the verge of success named Orny Adams receives what could be a career-defining break. On the
Released in 1991, The Commitments was Alan Parker’s third film about pop music. His first, Fame, was a frothy coming of age musical that made the most of its youthful enthusiasm despite a disease of the week style script. The second, Pink Floyd: The Wall, was a depressive, insular, and angular pastiche of moody myth-making
