If you’re wondering how Hollywood could possibly adapt Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, a collection of similarly themed short stories bound together by the slenderest of common threads, the answer is that it didn’t. The credits for I, Robot read “suggested by Isaac Asimov’s book,” but the canny sci-fi fan will…
So let’s get this straight: You’re a much-loved comedian who just did a low-budget, multi-award-winning film with an acclaimed up-and-coming director. In recent years, thanks in part to your work with the younger, edgier filmmaking set, you’re starting to be taken seriously as an actor. You even managed to score…
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron, based on a novel by J.K. Rowling. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, David Thewlis, and Michael Gambon. Rated PG.
Those people who live in small towns, they’re not like you and me. So naive, so innocent. And adorably quirky. Why, they’ve got so many lovable quirks you just want to run up and hug ’em. Or, if you’re a filmmaker, perhaps you can make a movie about these simple…
As a professional wrestler, the Rock faced down giants like Hulk Hogan, the Undertaker, and the seven-foot-four Big Show. As an actor, in a relatively short period of time, he’s held his own onscreen with Oscar-nominated Michael Clarke Duncan and Oscar winner Christopher Walken (whom he describes as “geniusly insane”)…
DMX fans expecting the next installment of Exit Wounds or Cradle 2 the Grave may be in for a shock when they sit down to watch his latest cinematic outing, Never Die Alone. For one thing, the movie opens with their hero lying dead in a coffin, and it’s no…
The problem with Spartan isn’t so much that it’s mediocre, but that it could be a whole lot better. Unlike writer-director David Mamet’s last movie, Heist, a film with such a generic plot and predictable Gene Hackman performance that it never had a chance, Spartan has a reasonably compelling story…
To get the obvious out of the way first: Something’s Gotta Give is a film designed to appeal to older women, and it very likely will. Diane Keaton gives a good performance in it as a postmenopausal playwright who gets back in touch with her libido. The movie will probably…
Remember the Farrelly brothers? Makers of Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary? Known for crossing the line of good taste and making fun of the differently abled, but with sufficient sweetness that they could be forgiven? Kinda popular until Trey Parker and Matt Stone came along and one-upped…
A few words of advice for those among you fortunate and/or dogged enough to have seen the original The Singing Detective miniseries that aired on the BBC in 1984: If you plan on seeing the new movie, also called The Singing Detective and also written by the late Dennis Potter,…
Watching Hollywood’s endless stream of John Grisham adaptations — The Firm, The Chamber, A Time to Kill, etc. — it would be easy to assume that Grisham is the worst sort of hack writer, with simplistic morals that usually overwhelm logic and come close to contravening the very law the…
It’s no given that audiences will embrace a passionately homosexual, drug-abusing male prostitute-cum-drag-queen, especially if he happens not to be a particularly nice person to boot. The cinematic tale of Madame Satã, however, has two big points in its favor. One — the most obvious one — is a dynamite…
God bless Johnny Depp. For the second time this year, the man has almost single-handedly redeemed an action movie that would otherwise be indistinguishable from the pack. Introduced right up front in Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, he’s first seen dressed up like Prince in purple glasses…
Those who remember Javier Bardem as the heartthrob poet from Before Night Falls, or the distinguished detective in The Dancer Upstairs, may be shocked to find that in his latest film to reach these shores, Mondays in the Sun, the Latin hunk is balding, bearded, and fat. Admittedly, he may…
Military clerk Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) is something of a modern-day Sergeant Bilko. Anything you need, he can get. Any scam that’s possible, he’ll run. Never mind the bumbling Colonel Berman (Ed Harris) who ostensibly runs the unit — Elwood has him wrapped around his finger. There’s just one major…
There’s something to be said for a movie that’s honest enough to transcribe dialogue that must have emanated from the director’s mouth, and make it part of the script. “Everybody start shooting at somebody!” yells Det. Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) in the midst of a particular situation. Earlier, he gives…
There is one truly striking shock in the new made-in-Hong-Kong-by-Thai-directors horror flick The Eye, but unfortunately, directors Danny and Oxide Pang saved the best for first. If the film’s opening moments don’t grab you, nothing will; the Pang Brothers cut their teeth on commercials, and the first few minutes play…
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it’s all PETA’s fault. Oh, we humored those wacky vegan extremists when they threw paint at rich bitches in hideously overpriced fur coats. We laughed when they’d come on conservative talk radio shows every Thanksgiving to get mocked for…
If you’re reading this paper, chances are you’re more literate than the average American. If you’re reading the film reviews, it’s also likely that you’ve become familiar with words like “bravura” and “eponymous,” which seem to exist only in the vocabularies of professional movie assessors. But what if you were…
It’s usually right about this time of year that film critics begin to feel a slow chill of dread creep up their spines. Suppressing that urge, they generally find it quickly replaced by a sudden rush of sneering condescension and smug mock-martyrdom. “Oh no!” they cry. “This is summer, the…
Neil LaBute is back to his old self again, and the cinematic world is a better place for it. Honestly, what was he thinking when he made Possession? Did the charges of misogyny, still lingering from In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, get to him so…
In 1997’s The Apostle, Robert Duvall took on a subject near and dear to his heart: Southern Pentecostal preachers. No one would make the film for him, so he went ahead and directed it himself, garnering much acclaim from media both secular and religious for his warts-and-all portrayal of a…
