Scotsman Irvine Welsh became a literary sensation in Britain with the publication of his first novel, Trainspotting; and Danny Boyle’s film version of this depressing look at the underbelly of Edinburgh brought Welsh fame in America as well. Now director Paul McGuigan makes his feature debut with an adaption of…
Less a documentary than a memoir, the absolutely enchanting film Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember features Mastroianni reminiscing about his life and career, his extensive travels, the people with whom he worked (directors Fellini, Visconte, De Sica) and, above all, his love for the cinema. You don’t have to be terribly…
Trust Allison Anders and her old running mate Kurt Voss to come up with a piquant, carefully observed movie about tarnished hope, overfed vanity, and half-baked scheming on the treacherous L.A. music scene. They know the territory. In 1988 the ex-UCLA film school classmates wrote and directed Border Radio, one…
Based on his directorial debut, there are three things we can safely say about Antonio Banderas: 1) He’s an actor’s director — he can pick a good cast and coax great performances from them; 2) he knows how to make a good image and where to point the camera; and…
Wes Craven — purveyor of fine horror movies, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and the Scream trilogy — has apparently decided to go “legit.” And with Music of the Heart, he has done so with a vengeance. The film’s only death is the result of…
Ever since the mid-’80s release of Emir Kusturica’s first two features — Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business (which was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar) — Kusturica has been the most internationally visible figure in Yugoslavian cinema (that includes all the former…
Actor Frank Whaley has appeared in more than 30 movies, including Swimming with Sharks and Pulp Fiction. But none of them cuts as close to the bone, I suspect, as Whaley’s debut in the writer-director ranks, Joe the King. Set in the Seventies and carefully described by its maker as…
How can you tell it’s fall? Just as the hurricane season dissipates we get more things to do … indoors. This week the Alliance Cinema and the Absinthe House Cinematheque are unreeling film festivals with offerings for which it’s well worth marking your calendars. On the Beach the third annual…
The Limey.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay by Lem Dobbs. Starring Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Luis Guzman, Melissa George, and Barry Newman.
Welcome to Happy, Texas, the town without a frown. Yes, apparently there really is a Happy, Texas. No, they didn’t actually shoot the movie there. But director/co-writer Mark Illsley’s feature directorial debut is still a fun, funny way to spend an hour and a half of your time. Steve Zahn…
David Fincher needs a hug, the poor bastard. Or possibly a diaper change. Ever since 1992, when he ruined the Alien series with the excrescence of his pointless, senseless third installment, he’s been making the same bratty, obnoxious movie over and over again: gloom, doom, indestructible protagonist, bureaucratic evil, quasi-religious…
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The repressed Irish-Catholic schoolgirl that Molly Shannon plays on Saturday Night Live is certainly not everyone’s cup of glee. But there’s no denying the tug she exerts on anyone whose past is littered with the dry husks of Latin verbs and memories of nuns swinging big…
Am I a traitor to my gender because I didn’t find this unabashed film about female sexuality erotic, brave, or even — can I say it — interesting? The ironically titled Romance, directed by the audacious French filmmaker Catherine Breillat (36 Fillette), has become something of a cause célèbre wherever…
The British-made Bedrooms and Hallways has all the makings of a break-out hit, even with straight audiences. The second feature from director Rose Troche, this comedy of gay male manners is radically different from her 1993 no-budget debut film about New York lesbian bohemia, Go Fish. And Troche more than…
Take pity on poor Sebastian (Adrian Grenier). As your typical teenager in a small town in upstate New York, circa 1983, he’s already got enough problems: His divorced parents have both remarried, his sister is leaving for college, and life seems meaningless. To top it all off, his stepfather, Hank…
On to the central character of this film, director Christopher Nolan has grafted his own obsessions. His film noir, the black-and-white 16mm Following, deals with a tortured young man’s uncontrollable addiction to following people around the streets of London. Indeed the entire movie is in itself obsessive. Supported by an…
There is something fairy-talelike, but also deeply human, about Twin Falls Idaho, a gentle, beautifully realized tale of love and intimacy that marks the feature-film debut of Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Identical twin brothers, Mark Polish wrote the script, Michael Polish directed it, and both brothers star. It is…
This work is winning audience awards at festivals all over the world, and it’s easy to see why. Although it’s not much more than an exuberant home movie, Roko Belic’s film Genghis Blues perfectly captures his subject’s motley, epic journey to the almost mythical republic of Tuva. Blind blues musician,…
Late August, Early September takes an intensely up-close look at its characters. French director Olivier Assayas broke through to American audiences two years ago with Irma Vep, his clever homage to and vehicle for the great Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, whom he subsequently married. His new drama is much…
Ten-year-old Fraser Pettigrew leads an idyllic existence. He lives on a bucolic estate in Scotland with five siblings, four dogs, his gentle mother, Moira (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), eccentric inventor father, Edward (Colin Firth), and indomitable grandmother, Gamma Macintosh (Rosemary Harris). For Fraser (Robert Norman, making his professional acting debut), life…
Grownups, take heart. Even if you misspent your summer at the movies pigging out on reheated space adventure, slob humor, and stubborn, old ballplayers who won’t hang up their spikes, all is not lost. A powerful and intelligent film called American Beauty has volumes to say about the way people…
Since his TV show ended, Martin Lawrence has gotten more ink for his off-camera life than for his movie career. Nothing about Blue Streak is likely to change that. It’s a shame because the basic plot, which sounds like something from one of Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder novels, is promising…
