Brooklyn’s Finest (review)
Wails with a quiet, desperate urgency amidst the loud brashness that it wears like, well, a badge…
Don Cheadle
my week at the movies: ‘The Unborn,’ ‘Bride Wars,’ ‘Hotel for Dogs,’ ‘Notorious,’ ‘Yonkers Joe’
And so another movie year begins, and it’s time to get back on the hamster wheel of screenings. I was all set to say, “You know, maybe The Unborn (opens wide in the U.S. on January 9, and in the U.K. on February 27) ain’t gonna be so bad after all. Yeah, it looks rather … more…
Traitor (review)
Well, it took only seven years, two invasions, one extralegal offshore prison, pretend justifications for torture, and the trashing of the U.S. Constitution, but here we finally have it: the smartest, savviest, most seditious movie yet about the ‘global war on terror.’
Talk to Me (review)
Oh my god and wonder of wonders, here we have a studio movie — a drama! — starring not one but two actors-of-color. God, what a terrible phrase. Don’t we all have a color? Okay: two actors who aren’t the usual medium peachy-beige of those who typically get to star in studio movies unless their name is Denzel Washington.
Unleashed and Crash (review)
With its clear and obvious choices — think Eddie Izzard’s ‘cake? or death?’ bit — *Unleashed* really is a fairy tale next to *Crash,* where half the time when you think you’ve got a grasp on what’s the ‘right’ thing to do and the ‘right’ way to live, you turn out to be wrong, even if the other guy is wrong, too.
best production design of 2004 (plus some other bests and worsts of the year)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN (encompassing production design, costumes, and makeup) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou I usually favor invented worlds when picking the year’s best production work… and maybe I’ve done that here, too. Steve Zissou’s universe feels like it’s a baby step off skew with our own — the colors just a tad flat, … more…
best performances of 2004: ready for their closeup…
BEST ACTOR Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda It’s a role that, in the hands of even another very competent actor, could have descended into pathos and sentimentality, but Cheadle’s performance goes way beyond mere competence: As an Oskar Schindler-type figure in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, he approaches incomprehensible horrors in a way that makes us intimate partners … more…
best and worst movies of 2004 (and why I’m gonna spend a lot of money on DVDs)
Damn, but I had a good time at the movies this year. I sat through a lot of cinematic toxic waste, it’s true, but I also had a tough time winnowing down my best-of list to only ten films: the top 25 or 30 films in my annual ranking delighted me, made me laugh, moved … more…
Ocean’s Eleven movie review: it’s so money, baby
Are you up for a little larceny that may be dangerous but is too much fun to pass up? Are you up for a smart dumb movie, the kind of delicious popcorn flick you get when some of the most talented and most watchable people in the biz let their hair down? Cuz this ain’t a movie that’s been fortified with vitamins and minerals or morals or anything good for you — this is pure cinematic junk food of the highest, tastiest order.
Mission to Mars (review)
So how else can I react to Mission to Mars but with enthusiasm? Here is a mostly scientifically accurate movie about the planet that actually looks as if it were filmed there. No, it’s not a perfect film — but as one of the like-minded friends with whom I saw Mission to Mars pointed out, we’re so hungry for real science fiction on film that we can forgive its flaws.
