Month: September 2003

Revered anime filmmaker Satoshi Kon’s latest film has been critically acclaimed at film festivals around the world, and there’s little wonder why. Delightfully warm and unexpectedly, deeply humanistic, this is an excellent introduction for the curious to the specifically Japanese animation genre that’s neither too culturally alien nor too geekily science fictional (as anime has … more…

Dreary, tedious, and mean-spirited. And those are its good points. Two smug yuppies with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement buy a beautiful Brooklyn brownstone dirt cheap, and never imagine that the small catch — the unevictable tenant in the upstairs apartment — will turn out to be the old lady from hell (Eileen Essel). If … more…

You had me at hello, Mr. The Rock. You lost me later, sure, though it’s more the movie itself that lost me, not you yourself per se. But with the knowing twinkle in your eye that starts twinkling knowingly right at the outset and never stops, and the sly grin dazzling with all those supernaturally white teeth and the not-taking-this-too-seriously thing, you had me right then. The vibe works, the big-dumb-lug with smarts, with wit, with an inkling of class, with a surprising lightness and limberness that should be at odds with your imposing physical presence but isn’t.

It’s like if Bob Vila made a thriller: ‘Booga booga booga! Be careful which house you choose to renovate– Ooo, look at that beautiful original 19th-century molding!’ Some spoiled rotten yuppies decide they’re fed up with the big city and chuck it all to move to the country, which is never a good idea under the best of circumstances and goes especially horribly wrong here. Which is kinda metaphoric for the movie as a whole, too — movies about arrogant city slickers rubbing the countryfolk the wrong way are rarely a good idea, and here particularly so.

Prepare for major throat lumpage by the end of this buoyant coming-of-age tale, elevated to a glorious level by its extraordinary cast. Walter (Haley Joel Osment: A.I. Artificial Intelligence), 14 years old, neglected by his mother (Kyra Sedgwick), and adrift on the sea of directionless adolescence, is dumped for the summer with his crazy old … more…

So, I’m confused. When you become a vampire, do they issue you the gothy, lacey, leathery all-black wardrobe? Or are only people who already dress in gothy all-black leather-and-lacey stuff susceptible to vampirism?

You usually can’t go wrong with a flick in which warriors ride into battle on elephants, and yet this stolid and solemn slice of Thai history manages to make pachyderm cavalry — and bare-breasted amazons and multiple beheadings and bad omens and gruesome poisonings and invading legions and general palace intrigue — surprisingly dull. Filmmaker … more…

Poor Elijah Wood. Not only must he suffer the indignity of a direct-to-video release so soon after his Lord of the Rings triumph, but it’s at the hands of writer Charles Kephart, whose pallid teen comedy tries so hard to be cutesy and precious and adorably wacky, and director Jeffrey Porter, who took Kephart’s script … more…