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Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer… I pretty much hated this the first time around, when it was called Liar Liar. Of course, Liar Liar made $180 million in 1998. I also hated the last time Carrey was so outrageously, unthinkingly extreme on screen, in 2003’s Bruce Almighty, and that one made … more…
I mentioned in comments here how December for film critics is so insanely busy it feels like there’s no time to sleep. A week like this is what makes me feel this way. Today’s not so bad, as far as being jam-packed with screenings goes, except that today my first screening was at 10am, and … more…
Funny? Sure, *Lord of War* is funny. Funny like how you’re not sure whether that headline is from Reuters or The Onion. Funny like how Jon Stewart has to insist that what he’s about to tell you really happened and is not the invention of his team of political wagsters. Satirical? Sure, *Lord of War* is satirical. Satirical like the front page of *The New York Times* is satirical. Satirical like how, at the end of Andrew Niccol’s black comedy about a relatively small-time freelance arms dealer, he tells us that the biggest arms dealers in the world are the nations that are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
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…
Here, in one place, the most quotable movie lines of the year 2004. They’re not ranked — they’re all great. [Warning: May contain spoilers.] [click here for the funniest bad snippets of dialogue from 2004] “Only people from the Bronx care about the Oscars.” –Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth), Beyond the Sea “I’ve never seen a … more…
Of course, most respected anthropologists and biologists recognize that the New World Vampire, or *vampirus americanus*, differs greatly from the European species, or *vampirus continentalus*, but few films have recognized that the wide-open spaces of the U.S. produce a vastly altered creature than Europe’s dense urban spaces or intimate, if remote, medieval villages. But years before John Carpenter and the team of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez documented the vampires that dwell in the lonely stretches of the Americas, the criminally underappreciated ethnographer Kathryn Bigelow did it — spookily, grimly, hilariously, gloriously — with 1987’s *Near Dark,* in which a coven of nasty bloodsuckers roam the deserted American Southwest.
Toss a coin: Which do you prefer: A Heartwarming(TM) tale of one man’s triumph over mental illness? Or one director’s biting off more than he can chew and falling rather flat on his face? Or one more mostly terrific performance from Crowe? No need to look for a three-sided coin — you get all three in A Beautiful Mind.
But those who insist on misconstruing the Grinch will certainly be delighted with Ron Howard’s new live-action adaptation, because it subverts Dr. Seuss’s point in exactly the same way. And the result is a bizarre and uncomfortable film.
Is The Truman Show haunting you like it’s haunting me? Do you find yourself digging through the layers of metaphors, finding new subtleties as you go? Are you in awe over Jim Carrey’s performance like I am?
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