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
The spirit of that French master of mime, of nonverbal, physical comedy, Jacques Tati, lives on in Sylvain Chomet’s wonderful The Illusionist. This eccentric animated tale of the friendship forged between a struggling, aging French magician and a young Scottish girl is based on an unproduced 1956 screenplay by Tati. Chomet, responsible for The Triplets
Looking back at how some familiar and famous cinematic figures first made lasting impressions on audiences is an enjoyable though sometimes embarrassing experience. John Cusack continues to endure, in his younger days often reliably called upon for edgy dramas that had their finger on the pulse of popular taste. In its day, Grosse Point Blank
Would a sextet of CGI penguins leave their live-action counterparts in the dust? Would this be another nail in the career of Jim Carrey? Or would the world’s most underrated and, not coincidentally, my personal favourite actress, Carlo Gugino, save the day and Carrey’s bacon in the process? I can’t say I was overly curious
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a monstrous waste of time. I’ve never witnessed something that had so much, and yet so little, going on. For over two and a half hours this film hammers your senses with extra precision given the 3D glasses and you come out the other side extra pissed off. The
