After venting his spleen in theater and film for a quarter century, it seems like David Mamet would be ready to divulge something human about humanity. Sure, his fervid fans may point to his Pulitzer and leap about singing hosannas to frothing hucksters and sexual miscreants, but after all the…
If there’s one man on the planet who knows how to market rustic charms to the masses, it’s Paddy Maloney. As the mercurial leader of Ireland’s phenomenal traditional ensemble, the Chieftains, he’s outdistanced countless Celtic contemporaries, trotting his group’s unmistakable sound around the globe. Who better, then, to provide the…
As the year winds down, breathlessly and apprehensively, the most anxiously awaited releases left on the schedule offer nothing less than whimsy and reveries. We’ve had enough of the real world for now, so we look forward to leaving it behind and joining the merry company of Harry Potter, Frodo…
Joel and Ethan Coen’s periodic genuflections to classic Hollywood are inevitably accompanied by a knowing wink from one brother and a wry smile from the other. These devoted movie buffs’ versions of vintage gangster pictures (Miller’s Crossing) or the populist comedies of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges (The Hudsucker Proxy)…
In Domestic Disturbance, John Travolta provides a rare recent performance worthy of his fame, and it arrives bereft of laughable facial hair, flaccid special effects and overwrought speechifying that too often renders him paunchy parody. As Frank Morrison, a builder of expensive wooden ships at a time when they’ve been…
At 73, Jacques Rivette is one of the oldest of the original French New Wave directors–older by a few years than the 70-year-old Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut (who would have been 69), younger only than 79-year-old Alain Resnais and 81-year-old Eric Rohmer. And, like his remaining compatriots, he has…
Against a completely black background comes the low, ominous rumbling of thunder. A sense of unease washes over the viewer. When the first images appear on screen, they only heighten our level of apprehension, because in the middle of a curvy mountain road lies a figure. There is no way…
If you’re a college freshman, don’t read this. Just grab your newfound peers and go see Richard Linklater’s new movie, Waking Life, then head off to one of those ethereal late-night dining establishments for which you’ll desperately pine once the real world gets ahold of you. Discuss. For others, this…
Ask David Lynch, and he will tell you apple-pie America just isn’t what it seems. People behave strangely, sometimes violently, and sometimes they even transform into different people without being polite enough to warn you first. Eerie and freaky, shot through with sporadic bursts of humor and sex, Mulholland Drive…
Here you’ll find madness, mayhem and murder, in no short supply. The Hughes brothers, Albert and Allen, have always had a knack for horror, as evidenced by their edgy gangster flicks, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, which they’ve stated were influenced by the styles of Brian De Palma and…
Some guys have the kind of face that suggests they’ve been to hell and back. The narrow, steely eyes, graying hair and deep lines crisscrossing the countenance of a James Coburn or Clint Eastwood can practically do all of their acting for them in any role that calls for a…
There exists a devoted audience for whom Beverly Donofrio’s 1990 autobiography, Riding in Cars With Boys: Confessions of a Bad Girl Who Makes Good, is the stuff of by-the-book inspiration; such is the worship for her memoirs that in 1994 it was included in Penguin’s compendium of 500 Great Books…
In the new low-budget indie comedy Haiku Tunnel, former temporary office worker Josh Kornbluth plays “Josh Kornbluth,” a temporary office worker who, early in the film, faces a premature midlife crisis–whether to stay a temp or “go perm.” After great hesitation, the company makes him an offer he can’t refuse–they’ll…
Plot aside–way aside, as it’s almost a non-issue in a film that telegraphs its final scenes during its opening moments– Bandits is really about only one thing: Billy Bob Thornton’s and Bruce Willis’ bald heads. As Joe Blake (Willis) and Terry Collins (Thornton), two bank-robbing fugitives in search of retirement…
No one has more to say about life than someone who hasn’t lived it yet. While pop culture’s juvenile slaves would shout down this concept to their last breaths–jeans slung at half-mast, navel-rings linked in passionate solidarity–there’s only so much material to be strip-mined from the angst of youth, especially…
Thanks to his justly lauded work as action choreographer on The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, director Yuen Wo Ping is among the most famous creators of Hong Kong action in the United States. Following the latter film’s astonishing success, Miramax, with a prod from Quentin Tarantino, has wisely…
Tran Anh Hung’s beautiful meditation on family ties and family traumas, The Vertical Ray of the Sun, marks a captivating new chapter in the career of the writer-director who was the first to give Americans a glimpse of Vietnamese filmmaking. In 1994 Tran’s The Scent of Green Papaya made its…
This may be a strange time to release a thriller about the dangers of corrupt law enforcement, but Training Day–with no explosions, no cheap thrills, no international conspiracies–is about as distant from current East Coast realities as possible. Still, that doesn’t mean that it qualifies as escapism. This gripping police…
It’s generally considered a violation of the unwritten code of film criticism to reveal anything that happens more than halfway into a movie, let alone near the end. Entire “flame wars” have been waged over the Internet over the slightest of spoilers, even when they involve something as minor as…
Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that’s been unearthed from an antique store’s attic and polished off for display. It reeks of quaint and cute, from its gauzy panoramas of Manhattan at Christmastime to its tattered plot of lovers bound by destiny to its scenes of travelers casually…
A quarter-century after C.W. McCall’s smash novelty single “Convoy,” there’s still a generous spirit out there for our 18-wheeled good buddies. But consider the less catchy flip side of that single, “Long, Lonesome Road,” and its lament of a maddeningly grim and endless horizon. It’s within this uniquely American wasteland…
The cynic may notice only how Hearts in Atlantis plays like a Stephen King best-of compilation, a reheating of familiar stories and favorite themes. At times, it feels so much like Stand By Me–with its nostalgic, flashback tale of cherubs and bullies accompanied by sad and weary narration–one might confuse…
