The The Edge of Heaven 08.31.08
When a character in a film asks, "to what shall we drink" and is answered "death," I worry that Išve stumbled into an Ingmar Bergman revival. I had intended to see...more
The X-Files: I Want to Believe 07.26.08
I don't want to believe the target audience for this film is real. I want to believe that the enigmatic Chris Carter and his writing buddy Frank Spotnitz weren't writing to a specific demographic. The bad guys in this film include a...more
Wall-E 07.23.08
Of the two stories told in Pixar's latest, one is interesting and one is silly. Wall-E opens with a long shot from outer space tracking to the surface of Earth. On the way in we see a haze surrounding the planet that turns out to be reams of space junk, discarded satellites, little bits of metal. On the surface all that moves is a...more
The Dark Knight 07.19.08
A few years back a friend asked me to install some sort of ranking system for films. I'm not sure if that was because she didn't want to waste time reading about bad films or if when she read some reviews she couldn't tell if I liked the film or not. As I am often conflicted... more
Hellboy II: The Golden Army 07.14.08
During the summer of my sixth year I awoke half a dozen times in the middle of the night with a fever of 104 or so. The doctor, also awakened in the middle of the night, had my parents pull out all the stops to get the fever down. Pneumonia would be preferable, they were told, so I was dipped into an ice bath. Twenty years later I read a Time Magazine article associating earlier than actuarial death from natural causes with high fevers... more
Hancock 07.07.08
Almost impossible these days to avoid film characters from comic books, graphic novels, even toys. Ken and Barbie are supposedly in negotiations with Jerry Bruckheimer for a Christmas release of their honeymoon extravaganza. Imagine my surprise... more
Mister Lonely 07.07.08
What is it about film that makes us demand clarity and narrative cohesion? We make no such demands of painting. Or poetry, or music. Goya's The Third of May stands as a masterpiece without the accompanying narrative detailing Marshall Murat's directive to round up and shoot all those guilty of protesting the French occupation of Spain. Or the awful irony of the slaughter... more
Wanted 07.05.08
As I told the friend who accompanied me, these films have a built in defense. The moment you start picking apart any of the huge number of inconsistencies in the story, like why did we get a close-up of the evidence of his best friend cuckolding him, or does any variety of loom produce coded versions of fate... more
The Children of Huang Shi 06.20.08
What the Japanese did at Nanking in 1939 defies belief. I read an account of the ordeal a few months back and was depressed for weeks. Using it as a backdrop for a story of heroism and sacrifice reminded me of Vonnegut's use of Dresden as the backdrop for Slaughterhouse Five. Certainly we all somehow benefit from knowing the depth of depravity to which we are... more
The Happening 06.13.08
Sadly, M. Night Shyamalan's latest scary movie will likely suffer from its pro environment theme. His first R rated film, it is filled with graphic images of people succumbing to some mysterious pathogen that appears to cause self-destructive impulses... more
Films On DVD
Smart People 04.11.08
Everyone but Thomas Haden Church appeared to be playing against type. Ellen Page was a buttoned-up Republican, Dennis Quaid a pot-bellied elitist, and... more
Doomsday 03.15.08
I hope no one I know saw me seeing this one. When I read it borrowed heavily from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome I almost didn't go. But I did. Almost walked out when the car chase started but I didn't. Note please the other titles penned by writer/director Neil Marshall - The Descent, Dog Soldiers, Combat,... more
The Bank Job 03.18.08
When Martine (Saffron Burrows) approaches Terry Leather (Jason Statham) with a plan to rob a major London bank, Terry is taken aback. We may be known for the occasional skullduggery, he says, but rob a bank? Skullduggery?... more
Stop-Loss 04.05.08
Only about one in five American soldiers would fire their weapons directly at Axis soldiers during World War II. That percentage rose little during Korea and Vietnam. The military needed to come to grips with their charge's profound reluctance to take life. They did. Something close to ninety percent of our soldiers will now pull the trigger. It takes some pretty intense training to overcome this primal... more
In Bruges 04.29.08
If you've been to the theater in the past two months or watch a lot of TV you've seen ads for In Bruges. Ralph Feinnes (Harry) smashing a phone to bits, Colin Farrell (Ray) remarking on how boring Bruges is or telling some overweights they can't make it up the windy stairs, or a cute hotel proprietor telling the boys they must be crazy. Looks like one madcap movie, packed with laughs. You may not have seen the scene where Ray accidentally puts a bullet... more
Under the Same Moon 03.28.08
For reasons I don't fully understand we have become a nation of immigrants fearful of immigrants. more