If only Dogville were at least involving enough to be perplexing. Sigh. In simplest terms — which it definitely deserves — Lars von Trier’s latest thingamabob is a large, pretentious blob of coulda-been. As in, it coulda been deep and insightful. It coulda been sociologically challenging. It coulda been formalistically…
In Israeli writer-director Nir Bergman’s Broken Wings, we never see an automatic weapon, a military roadblock or a horrific explosion on a city street. Rather than dealing with the volatile politics of the Middle East, this quiet, soul-wrenching film examines the unresolved traumas of one middle-class family trying to cope…
The six-month intermission is over; those of you left in the lobby, wondering if Uma Thurman ever did kill Bill, may now return to your seats and unbuckle your belts and resume your gorging. Rest assured that Kill Bill Vol. 2, the final half of Quentin Tarantino’s fifth movie, offers…
When the lights first flickered on for Cinema Vortex back in 1993, it was little more than a cool name with the occasional screenings to go with it. Repertory and experimental art films were its trade, playing to small audiences of mostly hard-core cinephiles. The event chugged along in the…
Here’s a subject with which no one should ever have to grapple: Is this new version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane as the comic-book assassin, better than the 1989 adaptation with Dolph Lundgren? They both offer slight variations on a tale first told in a 1974 Spider-Man comic, where…
When we first see the title characters of Connie and Carla, a penny-dreadful imitation of one of Hollywood’s most inimitable comedies, they are loud-mouthed junior high girls mugging in the school cafeteria. A minute later, they are loud-mouthed grownups (well, they’re the size of grownups) screaming out show tunes in…
The most notable thing about The United States of Leland, a youth violence drama from writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge, is its earnestness. This is a film that wants to be good. It wants to mean something, it wants to move you, and it wants to ask (if not answer) some…
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”)…
She’s a premed farm girl intent on administering to the world’s suffering children. He’s a car-racing Danish prince looking to shed the burdens of royal duty. They’re both in America’s heartland, where they share a chem lab, an employer, and a penchant for driving fast. What, pray tell, is going…
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 Ladykillers is the second film in as many years made by Joel and Ethan Coen to fill space between pet projects that seem to run off leash; it’s their time-killer, if you will. But even their recent paychecks reflect the brothers’ restlessness: Their movies have grown more manic and…
Jersey Girl, the sixth film by writer-director Kevin Smith, is the least Kevin Smith-y film he’s ever made, which will be welcome news to those exhausted by Smith’s everlasting obsession with his dick, fart jokes, and stack of comic books; and bad news to those enamored of Smith’s everlasting obsession…
It’s a bit unorthodox to ladle superlatives all over a film in the opening paragraph, but The Reckoning deserves them. Moving, gripping, and powerful; suspenseful, stylish, and literate, this exploration of justice and art may be set in 1390s England, but its resonance is fully relatable and significant today. This…
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…
For the record, this article is NOT about Andy Warhol. I repeat: Neither Andy Warhol nor his “films” will be featured in the following story. Rather, this article is all about the filmmaker Paul Morrissey. Never mind that Andy Warhol’s name appears in large bold type all over and preceding…
Maybe the most amazing thing about the big-screen version of Starsky & Hutch is how much smaller it feels than its predecessor, the William Blinn-created, Aaron Spelling-produced cop series that ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. Everything about this cineplex variation feels rinky-dink, like some extended variety-show skit that…
At its best, the Winter Music Conference is a sprawling six-day party in the gentle Miami winter with 10,000 of your closest friends and the greatest DJs in the world, all found on a two-mile stretch of sandy beach. At its worst, WMC is a sprawling, disorganized, and overpriced mass…
At first glance Hidalgo seems to be nothing more than an old-fashioned, flat-footed adventure epic plunked down on a vast stretch of desert and amply furnished with the usual Hollywood conventions — a strong, silent cowboy on horseback, a couple of villains with nasty black mustaches, a killer sandstorm, and…
This Jew has spent several hours in the past week reading all four Gospels, as well as various supplementary (and often inflammatory) texts, upon which Mel Gibson based his The Passion of the Christ. I’ve read the interpretations of scholars, the apologias of popes, and the damnations of zealots. I’ve…
This is not a good movie. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is, in fact, a bad movie. The script bleeds one cliché after another, the female lead can’t fire up the heat necessary for her role, and the plot resolves nearly every conflict it introduces within minutes. Worse, even as the…
It is by now clear that Meg Ryan, the bubbling sweetheart of half a dozen romantic comedies, means to bring new substance and seriousness to the latest phase of her career. Witness the lonely New York English teacher she played in last year’s brainy slasher flick, In the Cut: In…
It is so very nice when a movie completely outstrips the expectations conjured by its trailer, as is the case with The Dreamers. At first blush, this tale of three passionate youths caught up in the Parisian counterculture revolution of the Sixties looked downright trite. Never mind that esteemed veteran…
