The press kit for The Perfect Storm contains the damnedest thing I’ve ever read: a “special request” that reads, in full, “Warner Bros. Pictures would appreciate the press’ cooperation in not revealing the ending of this film to their readers, viewers, or listeners.” All due apologies but that seems highly…

Had Julian Glover not broken his leg at the beginning of January, it’s quite likely he would be off filming a movie. But, Glover reminds, having a broken leg in the movie business is like being pregnant in the movie business: “It lasts five years,” meaning casting agents don’t phone…

Nick Park speaks so softly that the tape recorder barely registers him at all. His is a whisper of a voice, the sound of a man who has spent years in isolation talking to no one but himself. Transcribing an interview with him is like trying to decipher a man’s…

Blink — or, more likely, doze — and you will miss it, this tiny, beautiful oasis in the middle of an otherwise barren wasteland. For a moment, a precious, frustrating moment to be treasured in a movie that flaunts its disposability, Nicolas Cage reminds us how good an actor he…

There exists deep within any man who once read comic books and collected them–protected them, actually, with plastic sleeves and cardboard backs and boxes that fought off the yellowing of time–the mythical being known as The Fanboy. A long time ago, The Fanboy pored over every issue of World’s Finest…

His name appears in almost every book written about Groucho Marx, so much so, he has been given the appropriate appellation by members of the Marx family: Wesso. But Paul Wesolowski is of no relation to the famous clan. He’s a man in his 40s who lives outside Philadelphia and,…

For a moment or two, David Lowery–frontman for the band Cracker, and before that, beloved college-radio revolutionary sweethearts Camper Van Beethoven–found himself enjoying the book. He laughed in the right places, winced in the appropriate spots, and thought, for a moment, the book wasn’t half bad. And there’s no reason…

Do not judge Shanghai Noon by its trailer, which serves as the very antithesis of advertising: It begs you to stay far away from any theater in which this film is screening. Laden with dreary sight gags (a horse that stays by sitting … just like a dog) and woeful…

Michael Moore often worries about being seen — and worse, dismissed — as the plump, ball-cap-wearing windbag who barges into company headquarters, demands to see the chairman of the board, then gets kicked out or even arrested. He frets about being reduced to a stuntman of shtick, Captain Ambush, the…

The following is a list of women who have been raped, mutilated, tortured, enslaved, crippled, or murdered–and quite often, all of the above. In some cases, these women have also suffered miscarriages, been rendered infertile, contracted horrific diseases, and gone insane. Some of them have even been killed twice, perhaps…

This was to be a column extolling the daring and inventiveness of a very groovy Sci Fi Network television show called good vs. evil, in which two dead men — a ‘fro-sporting, cool-spouting brutha and his pale-faced partner — try to save the souls of those who have made Faustian…

Peter Becker is the most important man in the movie business, even though you have no idea who he is. Becker himself would not cop to such a description; he, like few else in the business called show, does not put himself before the work. To describe what he does…

The voice-mail message begins with the caller identifying himself in a clear, sharp tone: “Hey, this is Chris Thompson, executive producer of Action and Ladies Man, and I hear you’re trying to get a hold of me…” Long pause. “For some ungodly reason.” Then, in a split second, the voice…

A mildly retarded man who works in a grocery store believes he is Batman, the Dark Knight on a mission to free Gotham City from the clutches of The Joker. An actress playing the role of Wonder Woman becomes a spokeswoman, then scapegoat, for the Commie witch-hunters working for the…

It’s quite possible that American Psycho is a brilliant movie. It’s also quite possible that it’s a dreary, obvious chop-’em-up dressed in Alan Flusser suits and Ralph Lauren boxers, drenched in Pour Hommes after-shave, all to disguise it as bracing satire on the greed-is-good Eighties. The option audiences choose to…

Even if you have devoured every word about the cinematic adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis´ 1991 novel American Psycho, about a Wall Street yuppie obsessed with using skin-care products and devouring the entrails of prostitutes, you have not read this one particular fact. And it is a fact. No one…

Grass director Ron Mann’s archival history of weed, Mary Jane, skunk, boo, mezz — you name it, we’ll smoke it — is damn entertaining, to a point. See, perhaps we made the mistake of actually watching it stoned, which seemed a good idea at the time; I believe the words…

From its opening moments, The Road to El Dorado looks and sounds oddly out of time, as though it were removed only yesterday from a time capsule sealed and buried in 1972. With its Peter Max visuals and Elton John vocals, it’s a decidedly unhip piece of work — Starlight…