Adolf Hitler killed his own dog. Most of his other evil is well-documented now, and words alone are inadequate anyway, so let’s begin by considering this comparatively microscopic offense. For the many who shower their canines with at least as much affection as they offer other human beings (and often…
The Harry Potter phenomenon–on the page, in the movies, at the bank–has aroused in publishers and studio heads alike a sudden new appreciation for our children’s needs. These people understand that no consumer is more motivated than a kid in the heat of a craze, so every last one of…
Among Anger Management’s copious flaws is the fact its premise doesn’t wash. Adam Sandler’s Dave Buznik, a designer of catalogs for overweight-cat clothing, isn’t really angry at all; he’s just a self-loathing, introverted mess whose insecurities date back to a crowded street party in Brooklyn circa 1978, when he was…
In 1997’s The Apostle, Robert Duvall took on a subject near and dear to his heart: Southern Pentecostal preachers. No one would make the film for him, so he went ahead and directed it himself, garnering much acclaim from media both secular and religious for his warts-and-all portrayal of a…
Imagine a large, dead Saint Bernard with its bones removed. Then visualize a hefty bellows inserted into it from behind, with a gorilla hopping up and down on it, causing the huge dog’s baglike corpse to twitch spasmodically, wheeze and croak. Voilà, this is today’s Nick Nolte. What’s amazing is…
The title Morvern Callar may sound like an Edward Gorey book or a job designation for telephone solicitors, but it’s actually a name–pronounced (roughly) “Mawvin Calla” (like the lily). Although some sources claim that “morvern callar” is Scots for “quieter silence,” the words don’t show up in online Scots dictionaries…
The Guys is a simple movie about an overwhelming thing: grief suffered in the shadow of September 11. It has a small cast, but the camera stares only at two people: Nick, a fire captain who must speak at eight memorial services for men who died in the collapse of…
Even under our current government, drugs are still something of a problem in society, which means that the rockin’ and reelin’ Spun hasn’t arrived too late to buzz with significance. In modern pop culture, being young, hooked, miserable, depraved and endlessly self-pitying reached its zenith of coolness about a decade…
A man, peering through the scope of a sniper’s rifle muffled by a silencer, holds hostage someone he considers an evildoer. They communicate via telephone: The sniper insists that if his prey disconnects for any reason, he will shoot to kill. To prove he is serious, not merely a lunatic…
Couldn’t believe they were going to release Basic before bombs started falling over Baghdad; if it isn’t the worst movie of 2003 I’ve watched, it’s only because I haven’t seen Boat Trip yet. Now, in the shadow of smoke rising from the rubble in Iraq–where U.S. soldiers are missing and…
When you see a glamorous movie star like Kate Beckinsale tying her hair back and wearing glasses, it’s surefire shorthand that she’s an uptight soul. But just in case you aren’t familiar with all the usual signals, writer-director Lisa Cholodenko gives a couple of even more obvious ones in her…
It was only in 1967 that Great Britain struck from its jurisprudence the “common scold,” essentially a crime of catty insolence for which the convicted party–almost always a woman disturbing the peace by nagging a man–was punished via a public ducking into cold water. Nobody likes a bitch, but arguably…
Once upon a time, a scuffling actor named Sylvester Stallone decided that the key to stardom was to write a screenplay as a perfect vehicle for himself. Since then, untold hundreds or thousands of hopefuls, mistaking Stallone’s good luck (and, yes, talent) for some sort of cosmic justice, have confidently…
You know how boys love to play soldier? How they get stern-faced and march out to destroy an enemy whom they believe needs destroying? Well, actors are into that, too. Sometimes they soldier on even when Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson isn’t around to help them frown determinedly. Such is…
Lawrence Kasdan directs and co-writes (with William Goldman) Dreamcatcher, the latest addition to the Stephen King adaptation genre, currently at 74, including film and TV, and counting. Taking the Internet Movie Database as a source, this puts King handily ahead of Michael Crichton (23) and Bram Stoker (38), closing in…
The Dallas Video Festival folks like to say that when Bart Weiss and Melissa Berry conceived their child in 1986, before the fest even had a name, video was the dominion of pornographers and avant-gardists who were experimenting with the still-burgeoning medium. Video cameras were years away from being the…
Perhaps the most incomprehensible image from Lee Hirsch’s documentary Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony is that of the smiling faces seen throughout. Even under the oppressive rule of the National Party, responsible for making “official” the apartheid laws of segregation and humiliation that defined and defiled South Africa for…
What more can go wrong in suburbia? Director Rose Troche (Go Fish) wants us to know, and to that end she has recruited another army of wounded parents, troubled children and broken dreamers, then marched them all into a whirlpool of dysfunction on the quiet, tree-lined streets just minutes from…
The Hunted pits Tommy Lee Jones against Benicio Del Toro in a battle of hand-to-hand, wit-to-wit fighting skills. Frankly my money would be on Tommy Lee any old day: He may be old, but he’s a tough geezer who looks like he could mop the floor with Benicio. (Also, frankly:…
In nature, living things prey upon each other all the time. Humanity, on the other hand, has a choice. It’s flouting this choice that turns on director Gaspar Noé. In his latest project, Irrversible, he basically swipes Christopher Nolan’s backward-narrative structure from Memento to tell a lurid tale of rape…
Filmmaker Terry Gilliam is no stranger to fiasco. After all, this is the human dynamo who saw 1989’s inventive (if sometimes incoherent) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen through a series of artistic and financial crises that would have landed most people in an asylum. But Gilliam’s encounter with the tale-spinning…
John Shaft went to Africa, so why shouldn’t Die Hard’s John McClane? In the new action romp Tears of the Sun, Bruce Willis undertakes a jungle rescue operation on the Dark Continent, and for his part it’s a McClane adventure in camouflage, minus all the sass and most of the…
