The 2003 Miami International Film Festival is in full swing, with four nights remaining for the marathon run of features, documentaries, and shorts from all over the world. Tonight, however, is the last night to experience “Beachstock,” the series of free screenings on the beach at Nikki Beach: Victor/Victoria, a…
Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse the pain, the harder the laughter. If that is the case, then the Terry Gilliam seen throughout Lost in La Mancha, Keith…
There’s a lot of goodwill out there for this year’s Miami International Film Festival to succeed, and there’s a lot out there this year to see. With 65 features, plus shorts and documentaries — playing at three theaters — you would well deserve an Olympian award if you caught them…
It was supposed to be make-believe, a disturbing but ultimately uplifting work of science-fiction from a celebrated author of grim futurama and glorious fantasy. The subject matter of Orbiter, a hardback graphic novel about a spaceship that disappears for years and returns sheathed in skin after visits to faraway places…
Some filmmakers use documentaries to explore complex subjects. Others use docs to ram home their own agendas. That’s certainly the case with The Trials Of Henry Kissinger, a fast-paced, 80-minute exposé that is more an accusation than an examination. Directed by Eugene Jarecki and written by Alex Gibney, Kissinger lays…
While virtually no one in this country foresaw the American disaster in Vietnam, the late British writer Graham Greene glimpsed it with astonishing clarity a decade before the first U.S. “advisor” set foot on Vietnamese soil. Greene’s 1955 novel The Quiet American, which has now been made into a disturbing…
Astaire & Rogers. Hepburn & Tracy. Heck, Ball & Arnaz, Houston & Washington, or Vardalos & Corbett. Over the decades Hollywood has proved that its romantic comedies needn’t suck. But alas, they often do, as is the case with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Clearly, bigwig co-producers…
Rawson Thurber has been so busy the past few days that by the time he finally returns a reporter’s phone call, he does so at 1:30 in the morning–and he doesn’t even realize the late, or early, hour till he hears the groggy croak on the other end. He’s sorry…
Last October, Sue Vertue found herself in a Los Angeles soundstage watching the filming of a pilot for a would-be NBC sitcom. The storyline of this particular episode dealt, more or less, with the horrific (and, of course, capital-H hilarious!) fallout that comes when a man’s girlfriend finds his porn…
First off, make no mistake: Biker Boyz is not, and has no intentions of being, The Fast and the Furious on two wheels, which will be considered a serious shame by the twelve-to-twelve-year-old demographic who were hoping to chug a little more Diesel fuel till the official sequel’s release this…
It used to be that the only Korean films to be seen in the U.S. were somber art-house films like Jeong Ji-yeong’s White Badge or veteran Im Kwon-Taek’s Chunhyang and Sopyonje. But as South Korea has developed a more technically sophisticated commercial film industry, these have been joined by hard-edged,…
Just when a cynic might think there are no more Holocaust stories to be told, yet another undiscovered perspective pops up on local screens. But even if you’ve seen The Pianist and The Fighter and Night and Fog, there is still Shanghai Ghetto, a documentary by Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir…
Compiled in the cold light of day, the sum of Chuck Barris’s contributions to American culture are the top 40 ditty “Palisades Park,” which he wrote in 1962, and his discovery, a few years later, that many people are willing to make complete fools of themselves in front of a…
It all begins with the word. “I believe I may have a first sentence,” murmurs Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) to her husband, Leonard (Stephen Dillane), commencing labor on the author’s fourth novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The year is 1921, but skillfully intercut segments illustrate that the book’s heady emotional content will…
Small-town stud Tully (Anson Mount) works the family farm with his younger brother Earl (Glenn Fitzgerald) and their inexpressive, unsmiling widower Dad (Bob Burrus) in Tully. The sudden possibility that they might lose the farm opens up a trove of disturbing family secrets, challenging Tully’s heretofore shallow nature. Hilary Birmingham…
While filmgoers hungrily await this year’s Miami International Film Festival feast, there are several tasty cinematic hors d’oeuvres now being offered at the Cosford Cinema. George Capewell, the Cosford’s programmer, has scored a number of Miami premieres that should keep art cinema lovers happy in advance of the festivals yet…
Paul Morse (Jason Lee) has this terrible problem. He’s all set to marry the take-charge, raven-haired beauty Karen (Selma Blair, thanklessly playing second fiddle as usual), but late in the game finds himself also falling for her free-spirited blond cousin, Becky (Julia Stiles). Gee, what’s a guy to do? It’s…
Music industry insiders and audiophiles may be the only people who have heard of Tom Dowd, despite his work engineering and producing countless classic albums for five decades, and a 2002 Grammy Award. Miami-based director Mark Moormann spent the last seven years filming a documentary, Tom Dowd and the Language…
As far as he can remember, he always wanted to be an actor. To him, being an actor was better than being president of the United States. Even before he first wandered into the high school auditorium for an after-school audition, he wanted to be one of them. It was…
There have been other films dealing with the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi occupation of Poland — some very good — but The Pianist, the latest feature from Roman Polanski, may be the best. Of course it starts out with a huge advantage: The 69-year-old Polanski is probably the only…
There are myriad stories to tell in Miami. Two-bit fraud schemes, big-time drug smugglers, and quirky tales of immigrants in America add fodder to a screenwriter or director’s imagination. The city is, after all, a funky and cinematically appealing world to set a movie in. Add to that television shows…
In all, a far better year than any in recent memory, so much so it feels impolite and irresponsible to choose a mere ten best among the annum’s offerings. This list remained in flux till the last possible moment; five seconds ago it featured, among others, Signs, Full Frontal, Human…
