Month: March 2004

Look, I’ve got no problem with Kevin Smith thinking it was time to grow up. Not that I see anything wrong or even necessarily juvenile with the kind of clever snarkiness and fanboy exuberance that Smith’s movies were full of — my god, he was a geek who made it big, maybe the most famousest of all geeks, and that’s saying something. But after *Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,* Smith told us all he was ready to move on to something… more mature. Okay, fine. I was looking forward to seeing what would spring from the fertile, irreverent imagination of a grown-up geek.

Spike Lee’s former cinematographer Ernest Dickerson checks in with a gangsta flick that’s all flashy visual angst and, despite its literary pretensions, utterly inconsequential, if bloated with a fervent desire to be seen as Art. Druglord King David (rapper DMX: Cradle 2 the Grave), stabbed in an attack with desperately pseudo-Shakespearean overtones, dies a miserable … more…

O Coen brothers, where art thou? Where is your deft touch, your perfect balance between the affected and the authentic? Why did you let Tom Hanks (Catch Me If You Can) channel George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill via Colonel Sanders? How did you manage to make stereotypes like elderly Southern black churchlady Mrs. Munson … more…

As the Germans march into Paris, high society retreats to the Hotel Splendide in Bordeaux, including, among a cast of delightfully screwball characters, a half-shrewd, half-ditzy actress (the splendide Isabelle Adjani) and the politician besotted with her (a sprightly Gérard Depardieu: CQ); the scientist (Jean-Marc Stehlé) with the secret weapon that could turn the tide … more…

Plausibility, alas, is not a central feature of *Taking Lives,* even as FBI-agent-versus-serial-killer movies go. The scoffing cop, Paquette, one Montreal’s supposed finest, is played by Gallic supermodel-esque hunk of manliness Olivier Martinez — if you like that kind of thing — in designer clothes, even though we all know real cops all look and dress like Wojciehowicz from *Barney Miller.*

Anyone despairing over the state of journalism in America can take heart from Audrey Brohy and Gerard Ungerman, muckrakers in the fiery, old-fashioned sense, the kind that, when they roamed the Earth in mighty herds, used to make the powerful and corrupt tremble with fear. Today, seeking out work like theirs has become a political … more…

It’s all about the Depp. And hats. He pulled off the pirate tricorn smashingly, but that’s not as big a challenge as the knit ski cap he dons here, which isn’t the kind of chapeau that flatters anyone. Add nerd glasses, a ratty bathrobe, and a scruffy unshavenness, and Depp is in his glory as … more…

How refreshing is it to see a movie about Israel that isn’t about terrorism or religion? So refreshing that this cozy little film about domestic strife, motherly exasperation, and sibling warfare feels fresher than the much-explored ground it covers. Dafna Ulman (Orly Silbersatz Banai) struggles alone to raise her four children in a small Haifa … more…

Definitely Mamet.