Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the French film The Piano Teacher, aside from Isabelle Huppert’s unnerving and masterful performance, is the totally nonexploitative manner in which the story is presented. A tale of sadomasochism and self-destruction, the film easily could have succumbed to the inherently lurid aspects of its…
Whatever problems Stolen Summer may have encountered during the production process, as documented on the HBO reality series Project Greenlight, it doesn’t feel like the disjointed outcome of a troubled shoot. For better or worse–plenty of both, in fact–it’s a movie that has a coherent vision. It’s a shame that…
A police detective (Koji Yakusho, star of Eureka and Shall We Dance?) is confronted with a series of inexplicable homicides. All have the same M.O., but they involve different perpetrators, who remember their actions but cannot explain why they did it. The police finally discover the common link: They’ve all…
Directed by Joe and Harry Gantz, of HBO’s popular Taxicab Confessions, Sex With Strangers follows three couples in the swinging “lifestyle.” Mississippians Shannon and Gerard realized they were cheating on one another, and decided to do so with other couples together so as to eliminate the whole dishonesty thing. Washingtonians…
As astute an appraisal of post-modern feminine confusion as today’s cinema has to offer, this freakish fish story from French-Canadian writer-director Denis Villeneuve (August 32nd on Earth) offers the flash of rock videos fused with solid performances and eerie atmosphere. Imagine an 83-minute Tom Waits video with good-natured twists. Bibiane…
There has always been something infuriating, if not appalling, about killing thousands of people in the name of blockbuster entertainment. Buildings would blaze, streets would turn into rivers of gore, corpses would stack like cordwood–and before September 11, no one thought much about it. Audiences accepted wholesale slaughter on the…
The first generation to be labeled with a letter suffered through some serious metaphysical shit in the ’90s (if you doubt this, try listening to the period-specific music–emphasis on try), but now this societal clusterfuck is searching for antidotes to its own pop-culture poison. Evidence of a renewed hope abounds,…
The weird thing about Rain is that there’s virtually no rain in it. Characters mention precipitation briefly and metaphorically, but the cloudburst never happens. Fortunately, we get light showers of emotion a couple of times, but then–strangely–these wane to an inconsistent and ultimately unsatisfying drizzle. It’s as if fledgling director…
The beauty of Malcolm D. Lee’s smart, sharp comedy lies in its dexterity, as it raises one fist in a friendly Black Power salute and firmly gooses the whole audience with the other. Based on the animated Internet series (at UrbanEntertainment.com), the script explores a soulful, secret solidarity known as…
This latest film from 82-year-old French New Wave stalwart Eric Rohmer is enough of a departure that it may either confound or irritate his fans. Unlike his usual stylistically restrained explorations of morals and manners (My Night at Maud’s, Claire’s Knee), The Lady and the Duke, based on the journal…
Here we have an intuitive, polyrhythmic art form bridging cultures and titillating the young at heart. This definition could easily apply to baby-making or gang-banging, but in Doug Pray’s trenchant documentary, it’s “turntablism” distracting the passionate kids from reproducing and/or mowing each other down. Immersing us in the endlessly inventive,…
A real missed opportunity, this update of a Herman Melville short story is all surface and no substance, like the pilot episode of yet another workplace sitcom. David Paymer steps into the role of the nameless boss, with Crispin Glover as the troublesome employee Bartleby, who for no apparent reason…
The bad news for Memento fans is that Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia is far less complex and challenging in form than the backward-edited art-house hit that sparked as much disdain as devotion among moviegoers last year. The good news for Memento-haters is that Insomnia is far less complex and challenging in…
The plot of The Importance of Being Earnest, for those unfortunates who’ve missed it these past 109 years, goes something like this: A dandified London wastrel by the name of Algernon (Algy) Moncrief (portrayed in this adaptation by Rupert Everett) welcomes into his chambers his friend and ally Ernest (Colin…
A year ago, Jeffrey Katzenberg hit the promotional circuit to support his green baby Shrek, and even before its release he proclaimed that its successor would be “bold and daring and unlike any other animated movie ever made.” If by “bold” he meant “monotonous” and “daring” he meant “histrionic,” the…
It’s very tempting to not just dismiss Enough, the latest bill-paying gig by Michael Apted (Enigma) starring Jennifer Lopez, but shred it altogether. Ms. Lopez hasn’t exactly added to her acting credibility with a string of showy, glamorous roles in such mediocre fare as The Wedding Planner and Angel Eyes…
This 2001 Spanish production, directed by lvaro Fernández Armero, is so derivative of numerous other sources it’s almost novel; it’s either a brilliant fusion or a heap of baffling confusion, but the end result’s not entirely unsatisfying. At first, it plays like little more than a I Know What You…
Every movie lover has heard of Pepe le Moko, the suave French crook hiding in plain sight in the slums of Algiers, with his romantic watch-cry of “Come wiz me to ze Casbah.” But in America, Pepe has always been connected to the romantic myth of Charles Boyer, the star…
Anime director Rintaro (X) is out to dazzle us with this adaptation of a 1940s Japanese comic, and for the most part he succeeds. Blending eras as deftly as Baz Luhrmann in Moulin Rouge, he gives us a detail-heavy computer-animated city populated by hand-drawn characters who resemble old newspaper comics…
Three years have passed since The Phantom Menace thrilled some and infuriated others, yet the schism in the Church of Lucas remains. Die-hard supporters still refuse to admit that Episode I has some truly awful acting, dialogue and borderline offensive caricatures; and dyed-in-the-wool detractors won’t acknowledge that, despite its faults,…
While the world queues up to gawk at George Lucas’ latest homage to himself–and make no mistake, Star Wars: Episode II–Attack of the Clones is but a sleek and sanitized redo of Empire Strikes Back–a far better, and smaller and quieter, film awaits next door; skip the lines, and your…
If you enjoy movies about a violently widowed man who’s unsure of his identity–and is covered in tattoos that remind him of his mission of vengeance–but you can’t be bothered with the frustration of watching a movie that’s edited backward, put that Memento DVD aside and check out The Salton…
