Mission: Impossible III (review)
Look, I realize that it can be hard to distinguish from dry snark, but I swear to god I am being 100 percent totally and sincerely sincere when I implore you to feel Tom’s pain. Maybe.
spy
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (review)
Oh my god could this be any more delicious? It’s hot and sexy and stuff blows up real good and there’s genuine *wit* and smarts and luscious allowance for the mysteries of lusty attraction and even lustier strife between men and women and did I mention it’s hot and sexy even though there’s hardly any actual sex worth mentioning actually in the movie?
Johnny English (review)
Rowan Atkinson (Scooby-Doo) has successfully straddled the full spectrum of funny, from the sharp intellectual wordplay of Blackadder to the pathos-imbued silent comedy of Mr. Bean. Here, alas, he lands somewhere squarely in the uninspired middle with a character who is by turns bumbling and sophisticated, idiotic and brainy, dorky and irresistible to women, contradictions … more…
The Recruit movie review: stating the obvious
Welcome to the Hollywood Action Movie, post September 11, wherein the hero is a jaded rogue with a videogame-honed trigger finger and his own conspiracy-theory Web site, and the villain is a jaded rogue driven mad by a lack of appreciation for a lifetime devoted to public service.
Mission: Impossible 2 and Shanghai Noon (review)
Can it be a coincidence that both of the big new flicks this Memorial Day weekend — the kickoff for Hollywood’s first summer movie season of the twenty-first century — are basically Hong Kong action movies? The people who think about these kinds of things — current-events journalists, mainly — have already predicted that if the 1900s were the American century, the 2000s may well be the Asian century… but they were speaking economically and politically. I guess it’s probably inevitable that Asia would start to hold some cultural sway in the West, too.
Star Wars (review)
What can I possibly say about *Star Wars* that hasn’t already been said a hundred times? George Lucas’s modern fairy tale must be one of the most discussed, most analyzed films of the century…
Lawrence of Arabia movie review: gone native
T.E. Lawrence was what a friend of mine calls a “transethnic,” like the couple of Italian guys you always see playing bagpipes in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. David Lean’s gorgeous film captures this enigmatic man beautifully.
Casablanca (review)
I’d never seen Casablanca before — sure, bits and pieces here and there while channel surfing, but not as much as I thought I’d seen. And watching it at last was like a revelation. This is the ultimate movie. This is the purpose for which Hollywood invented itself. This is how good a film can be.
Enemy of the State movie review: someone to watch over me
Director Tony Scott (Crimson Tide, Top Gun) has crafted such a thrilling, edge-of-the-seat roller-coaster ride that you won’t realize till after the end credits roll how ridiculous it is, how much it relies on outrageous coincidence, and how it cops out in the end with a clever but cheap finale.
Ronin (review)
What a difference it makes to a movie when it’s real actors — as opposed to, say, studio executives’ personal trainers — blowing things up. The Fugitive stood out in the action movie genre by drawing its energy from the intense performances from both Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones (Oscar winner for a popcorn flick!). And now Ronin shows just how smart car chases and gunfights can be when thinking actors are the ones behind the wheel and behind the trigger.
