reviews

At last, we have the answer to the question that has haunted humankind for the last twenty years: What would *Raiders of the Lost Ark* look like if Jerry Bruckheimer had gotten his grubby paws on it? And in retrospect, it seems we always really knew the answer, deep in our hearts: It comes as no surprise that the precisely calculated *National Treasure* is overflowing with endless chase sequences and stuff blowing up and acres of nonsense that no one even bothers to disguise, with a few Indiana Jones torches left lying around for the characters to pick up and use to cast a fiery golden light on the plot holes and the characters that are little more than loose concoctions of Hollywood cliches and the desperate reek of money-grubbing emanating from the screen.

This is one of those neither-here-nor-there movies, the kind that defy genre conventions and attempt to approximate the messiness of real life… the kind of movie we could use a lot more of, even though this one will probably disconcert more viewers than it enthralls. Graphically sexual, in spots, and cozily domestic throughout, this is … more…

Creative people get asked the question all the time: ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ It’s a question that mystifies creative people, who know that if we aren’t a million ideas behind, we’re doing something wrong: the problem isn’t finding ideas, it’s in stopping the flow in order to concentrate on just a few of them. Inspiration is everywhere, in all the places we go and in all the people we meet… and I’ve never seen a film capture that sense of being immersed in one’s own imagination better than *Finding Neverland* does.

I’ve heard tell that there are some grownups who don’t get why other grownups might want to watch a cartoon. I guess those grownups have forgotten how good it feels when you’re braying like a hyena for 90 minutes straight. Maybe if we told them, I dunno, that nonstop laughter is good for the abs or something, they might see the value in it.

Okay, dolls can be supercreepy when they’re inanimate and merely staring at you from across a semidarkened bedroom. Pour a serial killer’s deranged soul into one of those plastic nightmares, and the skin-crawlingness should go way up, right? But actually, Chucky (the voice of Brad Dourif: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) is … more…

Bridget Jones, the stupid bint, is an embarrassment to my entire gender: she’s shallow, petty, irrational, self-obsessed, neurotic, immature, totally devoid of character, simultaneously smug and completely lacking in self-confidence, in constant need of stroking and reassurance, and she expects men to be able to read her mind and bend to her every whim. She is the kind of woman who gives women a bad name. In fact, she doesn’t even deserve to be called a woman: she’s a girl, a child.

Joanne Woodward won an Oscar for her indelibly effective performance as Eve White, a mousy housewife suffering from multiple-personality disorder… and as Eve Black, an aggressively sexual vamp, and Jane, a smart, sensible, modern woman. The power of the film as a whole has been lessened with time, however; mental illness is now a frequent … more…

Produced by Iowa Public Television, this compilation disc is pledge-drive fodder, the stuff your local PBS station airs — with constant interruption — when begging for your bucks. Not that constant interruption is fatal to this choppy special. Hosted by Penelope Keith (of the PBS staple Britcom To the Manor Born), this thoroughly inoffensive “tribute” … more…

Troy Duffy is a dick. A grade-A hothead asshole with an ego that practically verges on the psychotic. That’s not me talking — that’s *Overnight,* a kick-ass documentary by two of Duffy’s former friends, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, who demonstrate most ably why they are no longer his friends, in this tale of greed and arrogance and the very very dark side of the seductive power of Hollywood. It’s so perfect an example of well-earned comeuppance and karmic justice that if it weren’t true, someone would have had to make it up.