You are your memories. They define you. Attraction is something not to be trifled with, a dangerous thing. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is the amazing new collaboration between writer Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation”) and director Michel Gondry (“Human Nature”). Jim Carrey, cast way against type, is excellent as Joel, a shy […]
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Kevin Smith is the writer/director behind controversial films like “Dogma” and “Chasing Amy.” He’s known for rapid-fire, hard-R dialogue in movies like “Clerks,” “Mallrats,” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” He has amassed a loyal fanbase and cult following (me included), who forgive him for his lack of lofty cinematic goals as a director […]
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“In America” is a modern underdog story set in a somewhat familiar place at no specific time. Director Jim Sheridan (“My Left Foot,” “In the Name of the Father”) co-wrote the semi-autobiographical screenplay for his newest film with his two daughters Naomi and Kirsten Sheridan. It was the 1980s when Sheridan moved his Irish family […]
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Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara has long been thought of as an efficient and cocky architect of war. History has painted him in black and white. In his newest movie “The Fog of War,” accomplished documentarian Errol Morris shows us a lot of gray area. His portrait is of a conflicted man, one still […]
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Written and directed by Patty Jenkins, “Monster” is a powerful, unflinching movie based on a true story that dares to humanize the woman best known as “America’s first female serial killer.” When one thinks of serial killers, it is impossible not to think of the countless number of movies modeled after “The Silence of the […]
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Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is the director whose jarring yet thoughtful “Amores Perros” wowed audiences two years ago. His new movie, “21 Grams,” is his first English language film, and mines similar territory as the last one, albeit far less successfully. It would be giving away too much to start with a plot summary of “21 […]
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How many reviews have you read of “Paycheck” that featured some clever quip along the lines of this: “‘Paycheck’ is so bad that star Ben Affleck and director John Woo must have been simply thinking about their paycheck!” Any reviewer worth his salt in soundbites could’ve come up with that one. And they’d be right. […]
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Siamese twin sisters joined at the hip. A gentle giant. A pint-sized circus ringleader. A witch with a glass eye. And a fearless main character who has seen the method of his own death at a very young age. You’ve just landed in the middle of director Tom Burton’s larger-than-life new film, “Big Fish.” It’s […]
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Directed by Oscar winner Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) and starring Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, Oscar nominee Jude Law, and multiple-Oscar nominee Renee Zellweger, the Oscar-grubbing studio Miramax presents its front-runner for the 2003 Academy Awards. Ladies and gentlemen… “Cold Mountain”! For such a hugely pedigreed film, “Cold Mountain” is largely a disappointing game of […]
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I’ve got a couple things to say about this older-generation romantic comedy. First, it’s good to see Diane Keaton in a peppy, quirky role again. She and Jack Nicholson are having a hell of a good time in “Something’s Gotta Give,” and it shows. Director/writer Nancy Meyers has fashioned a populist script from the idea […]
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At last, after three years, the ten and a half-hour sweeping and majestic triumph that is Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy has come to a close. The visionary achievement that has been brought to fruition here cannot be underestimated. The three “LOTR” movies are classics for the ages, like J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. I […]
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Peter and Bobby Farrelly made their reputation with two movies. “Dumb and Dumber” was so dumb that critics everywhere blasted it for bringing gross-out humor to a new low. “There’s Something About Mary” was a near perfect meld of that same brand of zaniness and a new sort of sweetness. “Stuck on You” is their […]
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One of the reasons I enjoy going to the movies is to have new worlds opened up to me. I like my imagination to be stirred, and nothing can do that as quickly and deeply as a movie. Sure, I can read a book about the last of Japan’s magnificent samurai warriors struggling to uphold […]
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Considering the somewhat familiar territory that Catherine Hardwicke’s first movie “Thirteen” covers, it is no small feat that she took home the Directing Award at this year’s Sundance film festival. After seeing the film, I can see why. Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed play two thirteen year-old (go figure!) girls in Los Angeles going […]
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It would not be my first choice, if I were head of a major studio, to set my big action picture almost entirely on the H.M.S. Surprise, an English naval warship sailing the Atlantic Ocean during the Napoleonic wars in 1805. But if I had to pick any one Hollywood star to bring depth, credibility, […]
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