Assessing the merits of Quills, the lusty new feature by director Philip Kaufman (Henry and June), it’s tempting to seek correlative characters from popular movies to illustrate just how radical this business is not. In Kaufman’s film — affectionately constructed upon a screenplay by Doug Wright, who adapts his award-winning…
What Women Want could be the first movie to win a Clio Award for Advertisement of the Year. No fewer than two dozen products receive prominent placement in the film, from Federal Express to Foster’s Lager to Cutty Sark to L’eggs panty hose to US Airways. After a while you…
For the longest time you’ve sported the black-turtleneck-and-narrow-pant uniform worn by Mike Myers’s German beatnik character Dieter. Yet you’ve never understood what compelled you to adopt such a somber-hued wardrobe. You live in sunny Miami, not dreary Berlin. You’re a computer programmer, not an avant-garde performance artist. You’re often seen…
Magda Watts cuts two slits in a clay head and nudges them open. White plastic eyeballs eerily appear; the vague blob is no longer blind. With another tool she sculpts a deep wedge, forming a mouth through which a voice, a song, a scream can escape. Carefully she tends to…
Christmastime is here, but for the first time, Charlie Brown’s father will not be around to watch his depressed, round-headed child celebrate the holiday. He will not be in front of the television next week to watch his little boy seek psychiatric help from a nickel-grubbing girl who diagnoses her…
Works that penetrate the façade of normalcy in marriage are nothing new to American theater audiences. In the 1938 classic Our Town, Thornton Wilder pioneered what we now call “relationship drama” when he placed a young couple on the altar and allowed the audience to listen in on their innermost…
There’s bound to be a philosopher somewhere who has offered the opinion that banality, if marketed well enough, becomes the model of success. Given the spew of mediocrity that’s hyped in the media, that theory is a reasonable assumption. But there’s a corollary that’s worse. If it hasn’t been hyped,…
Documentaries have been out of fashion in the film world, though exactly what a documentary is remains debatable, at least in Hollywood circles. (Roger and Me and The Thin Blue Line did not qualify for Oscar consideration, according to the rules.) Whatever you want to call these offerings from the…
About halfway through the megabudget mountain climbing adventure Vertical Limit, even the most rugged, thrill-hungry fans of disaster movies may find themselves going numb. Not from the howling weather on the icy face of K2, in the Himalayas, where the action supposedly takes place. Not from oxygen deprivation. Not even…
In 1950 Rex Artist Supplies was just another business on Coral Gables’ Miracle Mile. Purveyors of house paint, wallpaper, frames, and, of course, art supplies, the store was cofounded by artist E. Rex Gerlach and housepainter Joseph Platt. By the mid-Fifties, Rex had evolved into a reliable outlet for artists…
Dreams of a white Christmas remain unfulfilled year after year for most of us in this land of vitality and vice. Except for what emanates from our beloved air conditioner and the occasional chilly day, cold weather doesn’t exist here. Sitting inside by the fire would be silly. Sledding is…
Some would say it’s a guy thing: crushed cans of Schlitz strewn across the floor of a Motel 6 room, belching as an alternative to conversation, and the inevitable discussion about the undeniably rhetorical question, “How could you be my best friend and screw the love of my life?” Such…
Karel Teige was born in 1900. He was a modern man but not just because of his birthday. The Czech critic, designer, poet, theorist, graphic artist, and agitator showed symptoms, through his work and politics, of that twentieth-century malaise, the condition of constant crisis, guilt, and cynicism that colored the…
To create a real change we must strive not for revolution, but for evolution,” says painter Rafael Lopez Ramos, who looks to Asian mystics for wisdom. “Revolution is an imposed change. Evolution takes longer, but it’s long lasting.” The Cuban painter has lived both the censure and repression resulting from…
Happy hooker? Femme fatale? Damsel in distress? The movies have always been fascinated with prostitutes. Most films generally portray them as resourceful, often wise and amusing, and somewhat scary, using sex in ways that both amaze and titillate (from Blue Angel on through Mighty Aphrodite). The sordid aspects of the…
If the concept of that dubious celebrity Ben Affleck romping in a water park with cinematic darling Gwyneth Paltrow and two adorable moppets does not inspire in you spasms of dizziness and nausea, then you may find plenty to tolerate in this new romantic dramedy Bounce, from writer/director Don Roos…
In 102 Dalmatians, a new brood of puppies is born, one of which, Oddball, doesn’t develop spots. The resulting feelings of inadequacy are such that the poor thing runs away from home and hides in a cave, gets bitten by a bat, and turns into a slavering mad dog. Cruella…
In a converted warehouse not far from the glitter and glitz of Versailles restaurant’s hall of mirrors and the Santería symbols decorating neighborhood botánica windows is a small black-box theater. Ensconced between Southwest Seventh and Eighth streets, the space is dark and intimate. Strains of salsa and merengue from the…
Legend has it that a couple of hundred years ago, a Scotsman traveling through England was condemned to death for carrying what the local authorities considered an instrument of insurrection. They were talking about his bagpipes, of all things. How skittish can the British be, you ask? Consider that bagpipes…
Unbreakable is such a quiet film that whenever a character speaks above a whisper, it sounds like the shattering of glass in a monastery. It’s also a terribly sad movie; almost no one cracks a smile or a joke, and everyone wears the look of someone who’s just spent the…
So many elements make up a boyhood, from joyful laughter and games, to purloined porno mags and pointless aggression, to the scary realization that something vital is slipping away, something that may never be reclaimed. Naturally nostalgic reflections on this magical time form the basis of countless films, with two…
The current release of French director Nicole Garcia’s Place Vendôme, which was nominated for eleven César Awards when it debuted in France two years ago, is yet another sign that the dropoff in French imports that has plagued U.S. screens in recent years is reversing. This is roughly the fifteenth…
