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Music, sex, nature, romance! Oh, the sweet mysteries of life young Moncho (Manuel Lozano) will find himself awakening to in the summer of 1936. A sweet-faced little boy with a shy smile, so delicate and sensitive his mother calls him her “sparrow,” Moncho is taken under the wing of his gentle and wise schoolteacher, Don … more…
In the cinematic ranking of cool criminals, those who boost classic, collectible cars come in somewhere between jewel thieves and gentleman cat burglars — pretty high up, in other words. The lure of the outlaw, the glamour and sex appeal of nonviolent criminals… does GONE IN 60 SECONDS exude any of this? Nope. Not an ounce. And I thought Mission: Impossible 2 was boring.
Kinda cheap-looking and with a quasi-indie, ‘who gives a shit if we ever make any money’ attitude that Miramax and The Blair Witch Project have all but wiped from the face of studio filmmaking, 1984’s Repo Man reminds us that once, not so long ago, weird-ass movies were not verboten in Hollywood. Deadpan humor, throwaway visual jokes, and oblique political and social satire may have doomed this way-cool flick to the neverland of sci-fi cultdom, but it has good company there, like its similarly themed contemporaries The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the TV series Max Headroom.
But I should have known to trust Branagh, for whom Shakespeare’s works have always been alive and real and relevant: his recent Hamlet is the best filmed version of that oft-produced play, and I’ve rarely seen a movie of any stripe as joyous as his Much Ado About Nothing. And now, I could just kiss him for giving us the exuberant, inspired Love’s Labour’s Lost. This is a wonderful film, an absolute delight.
All politics is local, someone once said, which means that the political, essentially, is personal. Sunshine — a sweeping, semi-autobiographical film from Academy Award-winning director Istvan Szabo — strives to capture the tumultuous political upheaval of the first half of the twentieth century within the story of three generations of a single Budapest family. Does it succeed in this ambitious attempt? Yes… and no.
Was American Beauty the single best film of 1999? I can’t decide. The second time I watched the film, on a widescreen video screener after it won the Oscar for Best Picture, I thought with horror: I named this sitcom one of my best films of the year? On a third viewing, also on the small screen, I saw once again all the brilliance that I saw the first time around, and more.
The generous spirit of a generation too often disparaged is on full view in writer/director Greg Harrison’s stylish and fun Groove, the story of one night in San Francisco’s underground rave scene. There’s Ernie (Steve Van Wormer), embodying typical GenX entrepreneurial gung-ho in risking arrest by organizing, with almost frightening efficiency and for no pay, … more…
Sidewalk book vendors are a familiar sight to anyone who has walked the streets of Manhattan below 14th Street, and yet they have an air of mystery about them. Sure, I’ve been lured by the siren call of cheap books — most New Yorkers are — but I’d always been a bit suspicious of the … more…
The word hero gets thrown around so much that its use has lost much of the intended impact. Indie filmmaker Denise Ohio restores a bit of the word’s luster with this surprisingly compelling portrait of Frank Minden. Who? An ordinary, hard-working man, a WWII vet and master diesel machinist, the 76-year-old Minden has never signed … more…
I felt like such an insider, watching Coven, seeing as how I was right there, behind the scenes, for its production via the documentary American Movie. There’s Uncle Bill, executive producer! There’s Mark Borchardt’s best bud, Mike Schank, stoner extraordinaire! Despite what the heartbreaking, Ed Wood poignancy of Movie might lead you to believe, Coven … more…
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