reviews

If the Blair Witch guys decided to remake Oliver Stone’s JFK, it might look something like Neil Burger’s spare and stunning mock documentary Interview with the Assassin. Out-of-work news cameraman Ron Kobeleski (Dylan Haggerty: The Postman) has the story of the century drop in his lap when his neighbor, creepy ex-Marine Walter Ohlinger (Raymond J. … more…

But I can imagine how much more thrilling it must be for all of Harry’s preteen and early teen fans, who get to relate to Harry onscreen as a contemporary just as they can in the books. They get to see Harry growing up at the same pace they are, and it only makes even more genuine the delicious feeling that Harry and Hogwarts and magic are real.

As a portrait in cluelessness, Dylan Kidd’s debut as a writer and director is a hoot: Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott: The Imposters) considers himself a real ladies’ man, the dude with the inside scoop on this whole sex thing that drives the rest of us crazy. He is, of course, wildly mistaken. Scott’s having a … more…

Bursting with a bitterness tinged with joy and humor, like Frida Kahlo’s work itself, this life of the artist brings her out from Diego Rivera’s considerable shadow and into her own long-overdue spotlight. With a rare sensitivity and understanding of the psychology of creativity, Salma Hayek (Wild Wild West) as Kahlo and director Julie Taymor … more…

(Best of 2002) On a gray January Sunday in 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, British soldiers opened fire with live ammunition on unarmed, peaceful demonstrators, killing 13. Shocking and visceral, writer/director Paul Greengrass’s documentary-style re-creation of the horrifying events of that day pulls no punches, bluntly depicting the powder-keg atmosphere of the city: the disquieting … more…

*8 Mile.* Also known as *The Eminem Movie.* Because everyone knows that anyone who sells lots of CDs will automatically sell lots of movie tickets.

Teen boys and young men, the intended audience for this breathtakingly idiotic mess of an action flick, are unlikely to have even heard of the original 60s series, one of the few to escape endless syndication, so why was it necessary to besmirch the memory of a beloved classic like this? Moronic even on the … more…

It’s not too suspicious, is it, that the every-28-days, beware-the-moon rhythm to werewolf tales is so similar to the female menstrual cycle? Are lycanthropes a mythic way for men to appropriate some female sexuality, so legendarily mysterious and arcane to the male gender? Werewolves are almost exclusively male, after all, and lycanthropy is almost exclusively tied to a ramping up of male libido. (Insert your own ‘Oh, you’re such an animal…’ joke here.) And it seems like the last 30 years — and in particular the 1980s — were rife with werewolf movies, in a period when women were becoming more sexually independent than they’d ever been before.