We’ve all done it — killed an afternoon drinking in a pleasantly grungy roadhouse, boozily enjoying the illusion of having fallen off the grid, playing semiforgotten blues songs on an outdated jukebox, and thinking aloud: See, I should capture this feeling. This should be a movie. Sobered up, we don’t…
Americano (MTI) Before he is due to take a high-powered corporate job, college graduate Chris (Joshua Jackson) heads off with two friends (Timm Sharp and Ruthanna Hopper) to Europe, where they end up in Pamplona for the running of the bulls. There, he encounters one of those saucy Latinas (Blade…
A Bigger Splash (First Run) Breakfast on Pluto (Sony) Cross of Iron (Henstooth) Event Horizon: Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Games of Love and Chance (New Yorker) Herbie Hancock: Possibilities (Magnolia) Hostel (Sony) I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Plexifilm) Kickboxer: Five-Disc Collector’s Set (Lions Gate) The Killing Time (Anchor Bay)…
“You want an easy job, go join the Red Cross,” someone says well into Thank You for Smoking, a gleeful farce about capitalist mendacity based on Christopher Buckley’s 1994 best seller. The implication, made drummingly plain in the film’s every bon mot, is that our ethical barometers skew lazily toward…
What an age of wonders we live in when we can say, “Oh, another roller-skating black teen dramedy.” But here is ATL, hot on the heels of last year’s Roll Bounce, revealing that this genre may already be tapped out. The movie often sounds great (which is to be expected…
Ellie Parker (Strand) This extremely raw portrait of an actress trying — and failing — to make it in Hollywood showcases Naomi Watts in a wrenching and sympathetic performance. Writer-director Scott Coffey shot the movie over nearly six years, beginning in 1999, before Watts was a household name. Though they…
Caved In: Prehistoric Terror (Lions Gate) The Dark (Sony) Death Cab for Cutie: Directions (Atlantic) Deep Blue (Miramax) Dora the Explorer: Dora’s First Trip (Paramount) 18 Fingers of Death (MCA) The Greatest Game Ever Played (Disney) Laugh or I’ll Shoot Collection: The Naked Gun, Airplane!, and Top Secret! (Paramount) The…
It takes all of three minutes before Sharon Stone is grabbing some semiconscious dude’s finger and sticking it down her panties; all of four minutes before she’s crashing her car through plate glass and drowning said dude in the Thames; and five minutes before David Thewlis is calling Stone “that…
You may not yet have lost your ardor and respect for the pressure-point hammerblow Quentin Tarantino executed on American movies, but it’s difficult at this late date not to view him as an imperative inoculation with unfortunate side effects: gas, bloating, dizziness, delusions of cleverness. Imitators flock when coolness seems…
It’s difficult to tell from the image on the poster for Take the Lead, but that’s not star Antonio Banderas dancing in blue silhouette. In fact the movie isn’t even about Banderas dancing — it’s about Banderas teaching teenagers to dance. You’d think that might be a dream come true…
A gritty portrait of ghetto life in contemporary South Africa, Tsotsi packs an unexpected emotional wallop. Gavin Hood’s film tells a story of violence and redemption that’s even more remarkable when you consider that neither of the lead performers had ever acted in a movie previously. It’s little wonder that…
We are in the middle of a B-movie renaissance, if you haven’t noticed. For years now, the politics of the multiplex have forced films to be either big-budget, Burger King-cup blockbusters; or tiny “indie” projects about college-educated Caucasians with emotional problems (and viewed by college-educated Caucasians with emotional problems). But…
You could read the entirety of this concert doc as an essay in self-determination; it’s the most color-coded movie in ages. Host and erstwhile Comedy Central star Dave Chappelle jokes about the racial makeup of the crowd (mostly black, some white, all looking for “the Mexicans”); Dead Prez raps about…
We all want to believe that in even the most dangerous or frightening of situations, we would have the courage to stand up for our convictions — that we would not name names, that we would not betray our friends or our ideals. Thank God, most of us will never…
It can’t be easy making films about war. It’s so inherently dramatic that, as a setting for art, it’s overdetermined; it drips with meaning even before the first scenes are set. And so much has been said already: War is hell. War is noble. War is surreal. War is absurd,…
Screenwriter Robert Towne has spent decades trying to adapt for the big screen John Fante’s 1939 novel about a struggling writer named Arturo Bandini, and Towne’s affection for the material and its maker is plainly evident here. He is faithful to the novel to a point, but also more forgiving…
Breasts (First Run) Honest, compassionate, and funny, this documentary is remarkable for the bravery of its participants, who bare their breasts as they speak about them. The film delivers 22 women of all shapes, sizes, ages, races, and orientations — all of whom have interesting, surprising things to say about…
The Adventures of Brer Rabbit (Universal) Batman Beyond: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros.) The Billy Wilder DVD Collection (Paramount) Bukowski: Born into This (Magnolia) The Busby Berkeley Collection (Warner Bros.) Capote (Sony) Chicken Little (Buena Vista) Crackheads Gone Wild (Xtreme Films) Dear Wendy (Fox Lorber) Derailed (Weinstein Co.) Dreamer:…
The posters for V for Vendetta read “An uncompromising vision of the future from the creators of The Matrix trilogy.” Uncompromising? It simply isn’t possible to translate Alan Moore’s multilayer comic-book masterpiece into a two-hour movie without making cuts that oversimplify, and it’s certainly not feasible to expect producer Joel…
Hollywood is a sucker for cross-dressing. When the American Film Institute chose the 100 greatest comedies of all time, a pair of drag films — Some Like It Hot and Tootsie — earned the top two slots. From Operation Petticoat to White Chicks, slapping falsies on a dude is the…
Through the Fire (Disney) He’s averaging just nine points in his second season for the Portland Trail Blazers, but considering where he came from and what he’s overcome, Sebastian Telfair is doing just fine, thank you. Jonathan Hock’s fascinating documentary takes us back to the young New York basketball legend’s…
All Dogs Go to Heaven/All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (MGM) American Psycho (Lions Gate) Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers (Warner Bros.) Basic Instinct: Ultimate Edition (Lions Gate) Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo — The Little Black Book Edition (Disney) A Fish Called Wanda (MGM) Get Shorty/Be Cool (MGM)…
