Anyone who remembers the 1977 Wes Craven film The Hills Have Eyes, which was and remains a piece of Milwaukee-beer shit, remembers it because (A) they had a memorable fuck-or-puke night at the aging neighborhood drive-in; (B) Michael Berryman’s uniquely hairless mug, which glared from the video store horror sections…
If French writer André Malraux was correct when he claimed that “all art is a revolt against man’s fate,” the most horrific events in human history can give rise, incongruously, to images of soul-searing beauty. How else to explain the stunning black-and-white images that fill Fateless, the story of a…
This is — and isn’t — an adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. The eighteenth-century novel, described by Steve Coogan in the film itself as “a postmodern classic written before there was any modern to be post about,” is highly acclaimed but very seldom…
The Tenants (Sony) Fifteen seconds into the video for “Nuthin but a G Thang,” it was obvious that Snoop Dog had charisma to spare. More than a decade later, with his performance as ’70s-era radical author Willie Spearmint, it’s official: The man can act. Snoop’s shambling, searing performance is just…
The Best of the Best of The Electric Company (Shout Factory) Breaking News (Palm) Buster Keaton: 65th-Anniversary Collection (Sony) The Californians (Hart Sharp) Curse Death & Spirit (Asia Vision) The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town (Warner Bros.) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros.) The House on…
The mix is almost too much, but the mission is stunningly simple: The nation’s largest community college once again is producing one of the world’s most ambitious celebrations of the art of the motion picture, concentrating as much of the best as possible into what amounts to a glamorous orgy…
Didn’t Richard Donner retire? A 1980s star-director name, among many, that should now send bolts of discouraging dread down your spine, Richard Donner may well be seeing his filmmaking skills peak with 16 Blocks — even if saying it’s his best, least flatulent, most efficient film is tantamount to saying…
Walk the Line (Fox) No matter what a junkie does with his spare time — say, redefine country music, or forge one of history’s most enduring personas — movies about junkies are a drag to watch. So it’s too bad this Johnny Cash biopic is a by-the-numbers fall-and-redemption tale. A…
Annie Duke’s Conquering Online Poker (Big Vision) The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset (A&E) Battle’s Poison Cloud (Cinema Libre) Bleak House (BBC Warner) Camara Oscura (Warner Bros.) Charmed: The Complete Fourth Season (Paramount) Death Tunnel (Sony) The Hobart Shakespeareans (Docurama) The Ice Harvest (MCA) The Lords of Discipline (Paramount)…
Tommy Lee Jones’s feature directorial debut is probably much as you’d expect: a blast of nostalgia that nonetheless accepts the realities of modernity, which isn’t surprising coming from an actor who’s getting up there in years but has found more fame as an old man than as a young’un. The…
If you’re a parent trying to teach your sullen teenagers that movies with subtitles aren’t all bad, try taking them to see Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor). Like Christophe Gang’s The Brotherhood of the Wolf or Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this is a foreign-language film proving geekdom observes no…
The centerpiece of this preposterous bit of historical fiction is an opulent dinner party hosted by a wealthy Hungarian-Jewish industrialist and his elegant wife, for the purpose of signing over everything they own to the Nazis in return for their safe passage to Palestine. Among those tearing into the roast…
All the President’s Men (Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command…
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (MCA) The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends (Shout Factory) Domino (New Line) Dorian Blues (TLA) First Descent (Universal) Left of the Dial (HBO) The Memory of a Killer (Sony) Midnight Cowboy: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Collector’s Edition (Sony)…
In his 1961 farewell address, President Eisenhower warned Americans an insidious new force was taking hold in the country. He called it the “military-industrial complex.” Born of necessity during World War II, this once valuable conjunction of the military, the federal government, and the armaments industry was suddenly taking on…
Freedomland manages a seemingly impossible feat: It’s both turgid and overwrought, eliciting the shriek that fades into a yawn without anyone ever noticing. It’s a wholly dreary piece of work, yet another dismal entry on the resumé of director Joe Roth, an only-in-Hollywood hack who’s allowed to make movies —…
In Frank Marshall’s inspirational adventure movie, based on a 1983 Japanese blockbuster, a team of intrepid sled dogs marooned in Antarctica struggles to survive winter without benefit of man or Milk-Bone. Beautifully trained, these eight gorgeous huskies upstage the two-legged actors of the piece (notably Into the Blue star Paul…
Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson: Uncensored! (Paramount) This sucker is vulgar — duh — but not shocking in the least bit; Sarah Silverman swears, and Courtney Love drinks and smokes . . . who knew? That said, this roast ranks among the meanest ever televised; why Bea Arthur shows…
Disney Princess Sing Along Songs, Vol. Three: Perfectly Princess (Buena Vista) Emmanuel’s Gift (First Look) The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: The Complete First Three Seasons (Warner Bros.) The Frisco Kid (Warner Bros.) Gimme a Break!: Season One (MCA) Grey’s Anatomy: Season One (Buena Vista) He-Man and the Masters of the…
It is often written of Harrison Ford that he’s the most profitable movie star in history, to the tune of some $3.8 billion in box-office receipts worldwide. Of course, once one subtracts from that total the first three Star Wars movies, the Indiana Jones trilogy, and two outings as CIA…
Let’s get right to the point: If you are the type of person who enjoys seeing attractive naked girls meet a hideously graphic demise, there’s a scene in Final Destination 3 that will wear out the pause and rewind buttons on your DVD remote a few months from now. Megastereotype…
Sporting a prosthetic bulb-nose, a faceful of warts, and a lumpy torso Lon Chaney might envy, the usually elegant Emma Thompson makes for a grotesque presence in this rather dark children’s fantasy — at least until her character’s no-nonsense good works start to score points with the seven unruly brats…
