Those who will sit around wondering whether Munich is the work of an anti-Israeli or just a self-hating Jew–which is to say, Steven Spielberg, who has been branded both by Israeli officials and newspaper columnists in recent weeks–give the movie and its maker far too much credit. The story of…
The notion that Wolf Creek is opening nationwide on Christmas Day brings to mind the scene from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, in which a young boy opens up his holiday gift and finds a severed head. The movie is about as diametrically opposed to the concept of “goodwill…
In 1968 it was a movie. In 2001 it became a musical. Now it’s a movie again? Yep, and there’s actually pretty good reason to return The Producers to the screen. The original film, though intermittently inspired, was slow and often boring, and its homophobic, misogynistic humor no longer plays…
The Jerry Lewis chromosome is running amok again inside Jim Carrey, and if you don’t feel like getting clubbed half to death with a slapstick, stay away from Fun With Dick and Jane. On the other hand, if Carrey’s tireless antics–slithering onto nightclub tables, speaking in tongues and all manner…
We popcorn-chomping hitchhikers never know who will pick us up on the roadside. In Flirting With Disaster, it was a neurotic Manhattan adoptee on a nationwide search for his biological parents. The desert-parched heroines of Thelma & Louise brought us along as they raised hell en route to their doom…
For your Heath Ledger holiday-movie options, you have a) a cowboy in love with another man and b) history’s most infamous womanizer. Since the name Casanova is synonymous with an unquenchable thirst for straight sex with women (or at least boasting about it), the role might seem to be a…
The gifted Irish novelist and filmmaker Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Michael Collins) says that his overriding concern is “how individuals work with what they’ve been given.” Case in point: Jordan’s new feature, Breakfast on Pluto. This bittersweet, gender-bending drama takes a page from Candide–its beleaguered hero, too, happily perseveres…
The studied British theatricality and sharp wit of Mrs. Henderson Presents are likely to make it a favorite among nostalgiaphiles, theater buffs and the tea-and-crumpets set. Sailing along on the strength of another showy performance by Judi Dench, Stephen Frears’ period frolic is this year’s Being Julia, adorned with the…
It’s impossible to talk about The Ringer, a comedy about someone pretending to be retarded in order to rig the Special Olympics, without mentioning that episode of South Park in which Cartman does the same thing. The Ringer was already in production when that episode was made and has taken…
Serenity (Universal) Joss Whedon’s film version of his TV series Firefly came and went like a lightning bug in October; the predicted phenom stuck around the multiplex just long enough to lose millions. But like Firefly, which sold enough boxed sets to warrant a movie, Serenity’s bound to do well…
Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated (Buena Vista) Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s near frame-for-frame adaptation of Miller’s bone-crunching comics finally gets a rewarding DVD treatment, following a shamefully sparse edition earlier this year. The theatrical cut boasts two commentary tracks (with Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Willis, among others), but there…
For whatever reason, the modernized, comic redo of King Kong released exactly 29 years ago has become less the “pop classic” that Pauline Kael insisted it was at the time than a dimly remembered punch line. It barely registers with modern-day moviegoers, who recall it as a campy, eco-aware update…
It’s not hard to predict how Ang Lee’s controversial Brokeback Mountain will play in John Wayne country. This romantic tragedy about a pair of lean, wind-burned cowpokes who secretly live to poke each other flies in the face of everything that most people in Casper or Riverton or Laramie think…
One cannot, in good conscience, describe the countless strands of plot and strains of characters skittering through The Family Stone without knowing that description merits at least a snicker…OK, all right, bellowing guffaws. The movie’s too overstuffed by half with pointless people and plot lines that dangle like warning signs,…
“Agony and beauty for us live side by side,” laments Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), the most successful geisha in Gion. You’ll know how she feels: Memoirs of a Geisha, as directed by Chicago’s Rob Marshall, is beautiful to look at, but when it comes to the dialogue and storytelling, agony just…
Cinderella Man (Universal) Back in the Great Depression, boxing matches only cost a nickel and the ring was uphill both ways. That’s the central message of this well-made if sappy bio of 1930s boxer Jim Braddock. Ron Howard’s direction and a stellar cast save the film from its one-dimensional characters…
Warner Bros. put $50 million into Syriana and allowed writer-director Stephen Gaghan as much time and travel as necessary to research and write his story. They’d be well advised to pony up a few extra bucks to provide filmgoers with a flow chart that connects the scattered dots that make…
If you’re a fan of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact. If you’re not a fan, perhaps you’re among…
Hands down (and hands down her pants, from the sound of it), the funniest bit from the summer’s raunch smorgasbord The Aristocrats was hearing Sarah Silverman tell the infamously profane family-act joke at the center of Paul Provenza’s documentary. Where Robin Williams, Drew Carey, George Carlin and a hundred other…
With nearly 9 percent of the U.S. retail market to itself and $288 billion in annual sales, Wal-Mart takes in more revenue than most countries. And despite a swelling tide of allegations regarding unfair and illegal labor and environmental practices, Wal-Mart’s reign continues unmolested. In his latest documentary, director Robert…
It begins with a very literal cliffhanger. Five snowboarders–the best in their field, we’re told–are dropped via helicopter atop an Alaskan mountain called 7601, imaginatively named for its height above sea level. Swooping aerial shots around the peak convince us that it’s steep, high and dangerous. All they have are…
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Fox) The pairing of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, both in real life and on celluloid, is so obvious as to be almost cartoonish. So even though both are better actors than they need to be, they perfectly belong in this goofy, explosiony world. Married assassins,…
