John Woo has often cited the films of Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) as among his greatest influences — particularly 1967’s Le Samourai — and it’s easy to see the connection. Even in France, Melville spent most of his career as a cult director: His series of gangster films, starting in 1956…
A different, more “traditional” (in the sense that Naked Killer’s gleeful man-maimers are a tad atypical) kind of serial killer prowls the streets of Roberto Benigni’s drop-dead comedy The Monster. This film’s mass slayer preys on women; the movie opens with a shot of elevator doors slowly opening and closing…
There’s no getting around comparing the lurid Hong Kong lesbian assassin flick Naked Killer with Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Like Meyer’s cult classic, this over-the-top romp from the busy workshop of prolific filmmaker Wong Jing details the deadly shenanigans of a handful of lusty, bloodthirsty felines (two of…
In a recent essay in the New York Times, writer Larry Gelbart traced the roots of modern comedy to ancient Rome. Gelbart, creator of the television series M*A*S*H and coauthor of the 1962 musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, now in revival on Broadway,…
Errata Owing to a copyediting error, last week’s art column incorrectly stated the year Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti. The election was held in December 1990. The image reproduced at left and featured on the cover of the April 18 issue was not properly credited to photographer Sergio…
Know anybody in L.A. who could use a 1988 Nissan Sentra? Filmmaker Matthew Harrison needs to unload his this week, when he returns to New York City after a year in Lotus Land. New York native Harrison moved to the West Coast shortly after his remarkably accomplished low-budget feature Rhythm…
How sorry can you feel for an attractive, intelligent young woman who earned upwards of six million dollars per year by willfully engaging in an ongoing criminal enterprise and arrogantly thumbing her nose at the law until undercover cops busted her? Not very, especially considering that the woman didn’t need…
Go ahead, try to run from them. I guarantee, however, that if you go to the theater on a regular basis, you will not be able to hide from the contemporary phenomenon known as the one-person show. In the past two decades solo shows have proliferated at an exponential rate…
Reviews of each new Pedro Almod centsvar film seem to fall into one of two categories: (1) He’s back! [NEW FILM NAME HERE] is his funniest movie since Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown! (2) He’s lost it! [NEW FILM NAME HERE] is nothing like Women on the…
Director Franco Zeffirelli reminds me of George Foreman. Like the larger-than-life boxer, Zeffirelli is a one-dimensional slugger. They both hit hard but telegraph their punches; put either man into the ring with powerful, straight-ahead material (Joe Frazier in Foreman’s case, operas such as Rigoletto or Don Giovanni in Zeffirelli’s) and…
Few people come to Miami in search of history. If anything, people flock here to escape the past. They flee oppressive political regimes, depressed economic conditions, and brutal weather. Retirees trade in work for golf and a poolside seat. Families relocate for the promise of jobs. Artists and entertainers leave…
As anyone who reads this column with regularity knows, I make it a point to boycott that annual orgy of industry politics and self-congratulatory ass kissing known as the Academy Awards. On Monday night, March 25, it seemed as if everybody I know A not to mention most of the…
In Flirting With Disaster, writer-director David O. Russell continues to tap into the fertile subject of family to create his edgy comedies. In his first film, 1994’s acid-washed Spanking the Monkey, Russell fashioned a sensitive, understated black comedy out of his nineteen-year-old male protagonist’s confusion over sexual politics, masturbation, and…
When Juan Cejas resigned as artistic director of ACME Acting Company in November 1994, the innovative — yet struggling — theater group seemed to be facing its last stand. Sure, the troupe had an eight-year history of acclaimed productions, from 1978’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea through 1994’s Jeffrey…
Costume exhibitions generally pose a challenge to their organizers and their audiences, simply because clothes are created to be worn, not displayed. Fashion designers show off their wares on runway models. Curators, however, must come up with other devices to bring empty garments to life. The idea of turning costumes…
On January 3, 1956, the Coconut Grove Playhouse opened its doors for the first time with a European tragicomedy, overzealously billed by its American producer as the “laugh sensation of two continents.” Tennessee Williams and Walter Winchell attended the premiere. Actors Bert Lahr and Tom Ewell were on-stage. And two-thirds…
If men such as Guy Baran didn’t exist, neither would books about smart women and foolish choices. Strong, handsome, intelligent, and confident, Guy attracts a lot of interest from members of the opposite sex who do not realize that his impeccable faaade masks a cruel, arrogant, manipulative liar. Mia and…
Maybe Spike Lee figured, “I made a great movie [last year’s Clockers] about a serious subject [crack and violence and their impact on ghetto life]. The film got excellent reviews, but nobody saw it. Maybe if I make a frivolous movie [Girl 6] about a titillating subject [phone sex] and…
Ever notice how you can never wager on really interesting propositions? For example, you could have made a fortune betting that Fernando Trueba’s Two Much would be a mess. If only some bookmaker had offered odds against the made-in-Miami movie’s success. All the ingredients for a flop were in place…
Mike Nichols’s The Birdcage has a lot in common with Two Much. Both contemporary comedies make extensive use of bustling Miami Beach as a location. Both stories center on characters who pretend to be somebody they aren’t. And neither Birdcage director Nichols nor Two Much star Melanie Griffith has enjoyed…
At first glance the premise of Jane Martin’s bizarre 1993 play Keely and Du seems to be the product of a hot-wired, somewhat paranoid imagination: A group of extremists abducts a young woman from an abortion clinic, spirits her away to an underground cell, and keeps her there against her…
Fans of black comedy and fiendishly frisky film noir rejoice: The Coen brothers are back! The savagely funny Fargo is a vicious sidesplitter, easily the drollest, hippest, sweetest satire Joel and Ethan Coen have dreamed up since 1987’s Raising Arizona. The film marks a return to form for the sick…
