This is a glowing review for a play about plutonium. For three hours in Michael Frayn’s fact-based Copenhagen, nearly perfect in the impressive production at Theatre Three, two brilliant World War II-era scientists discuss the splitting of the atom and the scary prospects of nuclear Armageddon. They talk quantum ethics,…
One of our more humiliating childhood moments was having to run laps around the camp mess hall after committing the faux pas of putting our elbows on the table during a sloppy joe feast. The term “mess hall” doesn’t necessarily equate with “bastion of fine dining,” but at least there…
It was not among the Christmas care packages Miramax sent to critics compiling Top 10 lists and Academy Award voters filling out ballots; it was Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein’s bastard child, no beloved prodigal son like Chicago or Gangs of New York or even Comedian and Tadpole, copies of which…
Director Roger Donaldson was part of a wave of Australian talent who went Hollywood in the ’80s, but he hasn’t fared as well here as colleagues like Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce and George Miller. His biggest hit was probably Cocktail, and his best American film was either Species or No…
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 12- to 12-year-old demographic who were hoping to chug a little more Diesel fuel till the official sequel’s…
There are enough good scenes within the 94 minutes of The Guru to make an entertaining coming-attractions trailer. Wait, that’s unfair. Such previews are only one minute long. It’s simplistic and snarky to say there are only 60 seconds of fun to be found in this “Bollywood-meets-Hollywood” romantic comedy. I’m…
Though The Laramie Project recounts some scant details of his life and the awful facts of his death, Matthew Shepard himself is never depicted in the three-hour theatrical docudrama now onstage in its area premiere at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre. That Shepard’s absence is the point clearly serves as motivation for…
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…
The image for which sports photographer Neil Leifer is most famous–the shot pictured below of Muhammad Ali roaring over a prone Sonny Liston during their 1965 heavyweight championship fight, perhaps the greatest sports photograph in history–is seen as a glorious triumph, for Ali and for Leifer. To me, though, it’s…
He lived for so short a time, 39 scant years, that he’s barely recalled now except by film reviewers who conjure his name in critical comparisons (in Newsweek he was most recently likened to, of all people, Eminem) and historians who lament his early demise and wonder, “What if?” He…
Hitler as artist…Hitler as artist…Damn. So much for the ol’ “summarize plot, tease overpaid actors, pontificate wildly” formula. Reviewing Max–about the wonder years of Der Führer (Noah Taylor) and his eponymous, fictional Jewish benefactor Max Rothman (John Cusack)–looks to be something of a task. Set in 1918 Munich, this confident…
Once upon a time, in the town of Darkness Falls… “Wait,” you’re probably saying to yourself, “Darkness Falls is the name of the town?” Yes. Yes, it is. And it’s haunted by an evil tooth fairy. Are you sure you want to know more? OK, good. Because once you get…
Ever since Amores Perros burst onto the international scene two years ago, Latin American cinema has been experiencing one of the most fertile periods in its history. Encompassing such works as Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mamá También and Walter Salles’ Behind the Sun, these socially conscious, frequently brutal portraits of…
If comedy is tragedy plus time, then 150 years from now, The Complete History of America (abridged) might be hailed as a comic masterpiece. As it is now, however, the show’s two hours of skits, song parodies and adolescent silliness, written by the same trio of author-actors who condensed all…
It’s hard to ignore Plano-based author H.J. Ralles’ ambition. “Move over Rowling, here comes Ralles,” reads the blunt headline of a press release from Ralles, announcing the release of her latest sci-fi fantasy novel aimed at the preteen market. Let’s see: Ralles, like J.K. Rowling, was born in England. Both…
Two months and 2 ounces (just kiddin’, Mom) later, Grand Theft Auto Vice City’s starting to feel a bit played out; only so many times I can hear “I Ran” while driving a stolen sports car through a city that looks like Miami and feels like soggy Cleveland. And who…
Compiled in the cold light of day, the sum of Chuck Barris’ 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…
Just as writer-director Menno Meyjes’ Max was premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Overlook Press was shipping to bookstores Frederic Spotts’ Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. Meyjes’ film and Spotts’ book say essentially the same thing: Adolf Hitler was a reluctant dictator, a potentially insignificant man who wanted…
It all begins with the word. “I believe I may have a first sentence,” murmurs Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman, really) 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…
These are the dog days of January, the poor put-upon month used by studios as a dumping ground for product considered too lethally toxic for release during those real moviegoing months–December, say, when audiences are buzzed on two weeks of vacation and award-contenders do their Oscar striptease and reveal that…
As light and crisp as the bubbles in a Buck’s Fizz, the dialogue in Oscar Wilde’s infrequently performed comedy-melodrama Lady Windermere’s Fan stands as some of the playwright’s best. “I don’t know what society’s coming to,” moans a snooty duchess, “the most dreadful people seem to go everywhere. They certainly…
Things learned from the season premiere of Dinner for Five, the Jon Favreau-hosted Independent Film Channel production in which the Swingers writer-star invites famous pals to spill infamous tales: Director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats) and Favreau once feuded via the Internet over allegedly disparaging things the latter once said about…
