reviews

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.

It’s kinda like a medieval episode of Law & Order, and I always feel that one simply cannot get too much of Law & Order. Here, the role of the nice Catholic cop Chris Noth played in the series will be performed by Paul Bettany (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), as … more…

Two words: Veee-go! If there was any doubt — not that there seems to have been — that Viggo Mortensen could pull off this movie-star thing without cute hobbits and magic rings to prop him up, well, check out *Hidalgo.* This is a spectacular film, as grand as old Hollywood and as fun and as breath-taking and as touching as anything you’ll see at the movies today, and while it’s not all down to Viggo, none of it would have worked without him.

There is nothing ‘just a movie’ about this self-flagellating exercise in inciting mass religious frenzy. In fact, there’s so little that’s ‘just a movie’ about *The Passion* that it cannot even be appreciated on any level, never mind the ‘just a movie’ level, unless you enter the theater already in a state of religious ecstasy.