Month: August 2000

Bernie McPhelimy (Julie Walters) doesn’t consider herself political, but in Belfast’s explosive atmosphere, speaking out for peace is tantamount to treason — if she’s asking the IRA to stop shooting, she must be pro-British. Bernie is the heart of Titanic Town, based on Mary Costello’s autobiographical novel and directed by Roger Michell, and her story is full of the tragic ironies of the Irish struggle for independence.

If you’re someone who thinks you can choose your family, and that family is what we make it, then you’ll love this wonderfully charming dramedy. Harold and Dolores Williams (Paul Winfield: Strange Justice, and Mary Alice) adopted Mai (Lauren Tom) and Dwayne (Chi Muoi Lo) when they were only 10 and 6. That the Williamses … more…

On the seedy side of Yokohama, Maiku “Mike” Hama (Masatoshi Nagase) — “that’s my real name” — runs a detective agency out of a rundown movie theater. He doesn’t seem to do much investigating — instead, he gets into a lot of trouble, gets called “punk” by the local cops, and gets beaten up quite … more…

There are two kinds of women in the world. There are those who put up with boring guys they can’t stand to be around just “because sometimes you just have to get out of the house.” And there are those who develop their own interests, nurture their own friends, and are quite capable of taking … more…

A guided tour through a serial killer’s demented mind sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Imagine the cool CGI we’d find there. Surely there’d be demons and monsters and women chained up like animals and blood and medieval torture and stuff, right? Yup. *The Cell* has it all.

Cube is one of those rare films that make you itch uncomfortably on the inside. It’s not relentlessly grisly, though it does contain a couple of glimpses at more horrible things than you’ve probably ever imagined could happen to a human body — it’s the things we never see onscreen, the things that go unexplained, that worm their way into your head.

It’s a nice fantasy: an honest politician… and one as gorgeous as Tom Selleck. Cable network TNT’s timing couldn’t be any better — Running Mates is airing between the party conventions — but this comedy/drama falls a little flat as either. A presidential hopeful, Michigan governor James Pryce (Selleck: The Love Letter) hasn’t yet announced … more…

Take this spring’s Where the Money Is, give it a dose of weary reality, and you’ll come up with this compact and understated treasure of a film. First-time writer/director Myles Connell takes us deep into the lives of hard-luck, working-class guys who turn small-time crooks more out of sheer, stupid desperation than anything else. Queens … more…

Just ask Johnny Depp, Book Detective. Depp plays Dean Corso, an unscrupulous New York City rare-book dealer — and by ‘unscrupulous’ I mean ‘double-dealing money-grubbing bastard,’ to quote The Ninth Gate, the most ominously silly movie since Eyes Wide Shut.