reviews

The Believer was the toast of Sundance last winter, winner of the Grand Jury Prize (and also recipient of the Gold St. George at this year’s Moscow International Film Festival). But no distributor would touch it. Why? Because it’s a powerful, inflammatory film about religion that dares to question an ancient faith, and about hatred … more…

The film looks gorgeous — all late-afternoon sunlight and adorably elfin-yet-serious child actors — but that truncheon just keeps bashing you in the head: Isn’t! Growing! Up! Scary! Yet! Kinda! Interesting!

How often can we see Michael Douglas slink around Manhattan in expensive overcoats, driving expensive cars, slouching ghoulishly around women young enough to be his daughters, before the novelty of it wears off?

Thank you, Mariah, for scheduling your breakdown over the summer. If Glitter had been released in August, as originally planned (a plan foiled by your inability to promote the film, seeing as how you were probably filling your days by staring into space), then our Great Nation would have been deprived of the chance to laugh — and laugh hard — when we needed it most, in this, our Darkest Hour.

But now we are living in the rough, post-dot-com bust, economic slowdown of the early 21st century, and even guys who used to grab their crotches for Calvin Klein are looking for work. And so we get The Musketeer, featuring Justin Chambers, who plays — and mispronounces his own character’s name whenever possible — D’Artagnan.

Unaffected and thoroughly charming, Rock Star is, as Chris’s mom’s friend might say, a nice movie. And the soundtrack kicks ass… nicely. I’m sure I’d never have imagined, back in the 80s, that heavy metal would ever be called nice, but there we are. I’m turning into an old fogey, and the music of my high-school years is showing up not only on the classic rock station but on the oldies station. And it’s nice.

Is there a more appropriate place to transfer a Shakespearean tragedy than the viper pit of interpersonal politics known as the American high school? Screenwriter Brad Kaaya’s and director Tim Blake Nelson’s adaptation of the Bard’s Othello almost seems as if it was intended to be set in Charleston’s Palmetto Grove Academy. Passion, jealousy, anger, … more…

Nicky Arnstein, Nicky Arnstein… If dreamy Omar Sharif isn’t enough to send you running to the multiplex for the revival of William Wyler’s (Ben-Hur) 1968 musical Funny Girl, then know that some chick named Babs appears in it, too. Legendary diva Streisand won an Oscar for her performance as legendary Ziegfeld girl Fanny Brice, who … more…

Maybe Brooks’s 1987 spoof of Star Wars came too long after the mania that inspired it to be truly effective, because I remember sitting in the theater as a teenager, laughing intermittently but mostly thinking, What is this shit? Star Wars is so over.

The year is 1975, but the 60s haven’t ended yet. The Stockholm collective that calls itself “Tillsammans” (Swedish for “together”) is managing quite nicely, thank you, without television or meat, without requiring underwear in the kitchen, and without any of that romantic possessiveness inherent in exclusive relationships. But then into this little counterculture comes suburban … more…