Year: 2002

Ben Chaplin stars with that other tabula rasa, Sandra Bullock, in what is perhaps the dullest and least interesting movie about death ever made, Murder by Numbers. If they’d called it Movie by Numbers, they wouldn’t have been far off. Maybe that’s low and obvious, but they walked right into it.

World Traveler doesn’t get off to a promising start, not to the moviegoer tired of tales of self-involved yuppie men working through their unearned midlife crises by running away from their comfortable lives. I really thought I’d had enough of movie-men, whiny in that annoyingly undemonstrative way, running off from dream jobs and beautiful wives … more…

If there’s one thing that director Clare Peploe’s adaptation of Pierre Marivaux’s 18th-century play proves, it’s that some things should stay buried in the past, where they belong. That’s not quite fair, perhaps — maybe Marivaux is fine in French, and maybe properly staged it’s a treat. Here, it comes off like a bad imitation … more…

Are you a man, a monkey, or a mouse? Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the brilliant lunatic who conceived Being John Malkovich, now gives us an equally bizarre, startling, and hilarious exploration of what it means to be human. At the one extreme of the human experience is anally mannered researcher Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins: Antitrust); at … more…

Golden Age movie mogul Thomas Ince, 42, died in his home on November 19, 1924, from heart failure. Or was he shot to death during a weekend yachting party hosted by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst? This snippet of Roaring 20s snarkiness favors the latter explanation for one of early Hollywood’s great mysteries, and speculates … more…

It’s a rare thing that I’m not cynical enough. While my shriveled optimism lobe was thinking its optimistic little thoughts, the rest of my head was telling me that ‘without the sugar’ would translate into ‘mean-spirited.’ And still I was completely unprepared for the level of degradation I would be exposed to. Sewer rats could watch this movie and be so skeeved out that they’d need a shower.

Love Tim Allen, much to my own chagrin. Love Janeane Garofalo. Love Jason Lee. Love Rene Russo. Adore Patrick Warburton. Afraid of Tom Sizemore. Love Barry Sonnenfeld, when he’s on. (When he’s off, it’s Wild Wild West time, which is too horrifying to contemplate.) So this slight tale loosely spun out of barely interconnected character … more…

DIRECTOR CARL FRANKLIN: I really liked Traffic. I wish the whole movie could look like this, all gritty and hard and real. But Ashley’s stylist put the kibosh on that right away, you better believe.

Ever been awakened on a Sunday morning by the doorbell, and you stumble to answer it and you’re hung over and exhausted and you look like hell, and it’s bright shiny Mormons, and you just wanna smack ’em? Now imagine if they moved into your house and wouldn’t leave you alone, ever. That’s what The Other Side of Heaven is about, only it’s from the Mormons’ point of view, and they think you’re perfectly happy to listen to them prattle on.