In 1988 Penelope Spheeris released the amusing rock documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap is an almost perfect parody of Spheeris’ film, and Christopher Guest’s Nigel Tufnel is a perfect parody of Ozzy Osborne’s persona in Spheeris’ film. The…
It’s strange to encounter a movie like The Opportunists, the debut feature by writer/director Myles Connell, because, as it eschews pomp and sensationalism, there aren’t a lot of obvious highlights to mention. The stakes are low, the relationships are subtle, and Christopher Walken hardly even raises his voice, barking only…
Catfish in Black Bean Sauce starts with a promising premise for either a farce or a melodrama: Two Vietnamese-American siblings, adopted and raised by a black couple, find their lives turned upside down when their birth mother arrives in the States 20-some years later. Unfortunately, writer/producer/director/star Chi Muoi Lo doesn’t…
Whatever one might believe about the past centuries of English oppression of the Irish, one thing is sure: No matter how raw a deal they’ve gotten in real life, the Irish haven’t been shortchanged on the screen. From the Easter Rising to the more recent Troubles, the conflict has been…
Try to resist the urge to yell “Focus!” during the first five minutes or so of An Affair of Love. It’s been a while since a director has actively utilized such tools as focus and color to hint at deeper truths, but Frederic Fonteyne (Max and Bobo) knows what he’s…
Amanda Peet has extraordinarily large teeth; you’re surprised she can close her mouth. It may be in vogue for hot, young, would-be sex symbols to have a set of brightly polished choppers prominent in neighboring counties (cf. Neve Campbell, Casper Van Dien, or Denise Richards), but Amanda’s impressive ivories belong…
Be cool, get chicks.” While that’s paraphrased and boiled down, it’s nonetheless the essential creed of Dex (Donal Logue), the corpulent connoisseur of carnality who lumbers through this debut feature from Jenniphr Goodman as if he’s Paul Bunyan and every woman in sight is a tree. Overweight and underemployed, Dex…
The Tao of Duncan The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. This is the koan that begins the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu. This is the fat guy who scores all the hot chicks? Hmph…
Turns out that when goodfellas don’t die–when they don’t get shot or blown up in a car or beaten to death with a baseball bat–they move to Miami’s South Beach. They drive tour buses for the elderly, take orders at Burger Kings, give dime-a-dance lessons to old women in need…
Following in the grand cinematic tradition of cheerleading films– movies such as Gimme an ‘F,’ Revenge of the Cheerleaders, and Debbie Does Dallas (both the original and the why-bother remakes)–Bring It On is about beautiful, young girls in short skirts who have to overcome the fact that they suck. On…
Despite its late-summer release date–usually a sign of studio jitters–The Art of War is a mostly well-constructed action flick with a number of flashy, well-choreographed fight and chase scenes. Wesley Snipes stars as Neil Shaw, a supersecret operative of a supersecret “dirty tricks” agency, whose methods are more than a…
Irish charm and British eccentricity are hot properties on this side of the pond — especially among U.S. moviegoers. Witness the phenomenal success of The Secret of Roan Inish, in which a 10-year-old Irish girl finds her lost brother living among seals off her country’s rugged western coast, or of…
The practice of motion-picture production in China is clearly in flux. While films have long emanated from government studios, political changes in the past decade or so have led to co-productions with other countries — Farewell My Concubine (with Hong Kong — then a British territory), Dr. Bethune (with Canada…
As any Klump family member can tell you, this has been a hot summer for black comedians. New movies starring Martin Lawrence, the Wayans brothers, and Eddie Murphy have already pulled down more than $300 million at the box office, and by the time Chris Rock’s remake of Heaven Can…
For the first half hour or so of John Waters’ latest film, Cecil B. Demented, I found myself reflexively evaluating it in terms of the guidelines we all — critics as well as audiences — have been trained to follow: “This isn’t going to make much money, because it’s not…
In a perfect world, any documentary about televangelists narrated by RuPaul and a couple of sock puppets would be hailed as the conceptual masterpiece of the year. Alas, those stodgy Academy voters just don’t understand cross-dressers, religious broadcasting, or foot warmers made to look like dogs. And so the best…
Make no mistake: The Cell is, easily, the most unforgettable film of a pedestrian, forgettable summer. You will walk out of the theater and be grateful for the light and the heat; it is, in places, a rather chilling and claustrophobic film. In places, The Cell is also a rather…
Directed by Howard Deutch. Written by Vince McKewin. Starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Brooke Langton, Orlando Jones, Jon Favreau, and Jack Warden. Opens Friday.
t would be the easiest thing in the world to write off But I’m a Cheerleader, the story of a teenager discovering her sexual identity through a program designed to repress it, as a Saturday Night Live sketch awkwardly inflated to feature length. But when you start looking deeper into…
Before we get into it, a few of life’s sorrowful inevitabilities: Friends will vanish; romantic love will deteriorate; family will freak; and, sooner or later, the matrix will come to claim your soul. No, no, not that matrix — not some silly, goopy sci-fi escape hatch — but the big,…
Murphy and Pryor. Skywalker and Kenobi. Amos and Zeppelin. Regardless of the creative universe, the maverick apprentice tends to stride off into territory beyond the edges of the master’s map. So it is with Alan Rudolph, whose career blossomed after serving as assistant director to Robert Altman on Nashville in…
There are many, many productive paths a bright, ambitious young fellow can pursue in America. He can, for instance, start a mediocre rock band and try to make music for beer commercials. He can also design a Web site to advertise Web sites about Web sites. Or there’s always the…
