Movie Reviews
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (French)
Among the many perverse pleasures in "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" is that the central character, an obsessive, dangerous stalker, is played by Amelie.
Yes, it is Audrey Tautou, that wide-eyed French pixie who made the whole world fall in love in...
Shanghai Knights
The last thing on the agenda for "Shanghai Knights" is to do anything its predecessor, "Shanghai Noon" (2000), didn't already do. More scenes of Owen Wilson being anachronistically sardonic while Jackie Chan has entertaining fights with bad guys -- t...
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Two good-looking New Yorkers meet under false pretenses, fall in love, discover one another's lies in a public setting, break up, realize they are miserable apart (in a montage set to music), then reunite again in a public place.
I have just desc...
Deliver Us from Eva
The average person, you see, isn't going to watch "Maid in Manhattan" AND "Two Weeks Notice" AND "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" AND "Deliver Us from Eva." The average person, when faced with four romantic comedies being released within six weeks of e...
The R.M.
This time, HaleStorm Entertainment won't have to make up quotes from movie critics to use in its advertising.
"The R.M.," HaleStorm's follow-up to the amateurish "Singles Ward," is an altogether amusing, nongrating, nonstupid comedy. It benefits f...
Biker Boyz
There are many reasons not to take "Biker Boyz" seriously as a film, not the least of which is its title, what with its cutesy alliteration and the inappropriate "z."
Also, we cannot discount the fact that this film contains both Lisa Bonet and Ki...
The Recruit
"The Recruit" is, thankfully, a rare thing. It is a movie that inspires almost no feelings whatsoever in some scenes, mild interest in others. The overall impact is that of having watched something benign and inoffensive, of having spent two hours wi...
Final Destination 2
I believe "Final Destination" (2000) was a widely misunderstood film. On its face, it seems to be a generic, unbelievable horror film about teens who get killed, with thin characters and wooden dialogue. Upon further examination, though, it becomes c...
Chaos (French)
While driving to some fancy dinner or gala event one evening, Paris couple Paul (Vincent Lindon) and Helene (Catherine Frot) see a frantic woman running toward them, fleeing a trio of Three Stooge-looking roughians. Paul locks the doors. After the gi...
Darkness Falls
In "Darkness Falls," Darkness Falls is the name of the town, like Bedford Falls in "It's a Wonderful Life" or Kingston Falls in "Gremlins." You can see how clever they are, because not only is the film about darkness falling, it's also about a town c...
Kangaroo Jack
"Kangaroo Jack" is the sort of useless movie where two guys put $50,000 in a jacket pocket, then put the jacket on a kangaroo they think is dead so they can pose it for photos, and then it turns out to be still alive and it hops away, leaving the two...
National Security
Sadly, many Americans are still under a spell that causes them to believe Martin Lawrence is funny, despite his not having been funny since 1995. "National Security" may be the magic kiss that finally breaks the spell, though I have learned never to ...
City of God (Portuguese)
Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles tells the true stories in "City of God" with the urgency of a man possessed. The film has a mad energy about it, the sort of sweaty fervor we associate with the legendary parties of Rio de Janeiro, except these...
Divine Intervention (Hebrew/Arabic)
To understand "Divine Intervention," you must know that there is a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem, a dividing point between the Palestinians and the Israelis. (I will assume you already knew those two groups hate each other.)
Even with ...
The Baroness and the Pig
It would be difficult for a film called "The Baroness and the Pig" to be any more interesting than its title, and this film isn't. It is an unusually low-key affair that remains frustratingly calm even when the events depicted are stressful or emotio...
Bookies
"Bookies" has an interesting premise that it allows to languish from underuse. Rather than mining comedy or drama from it, the film throws its idea onto the screen and then shuffles away.
The idea is that three college guys -- smart, handsome Toby...
Detective Fiction
Everyone talks a lot in "Detective Fiction," but darned if they say anything.
Patrick Coyle is, in this case, a quadruple threat: He wrote, directed, produced and stars in this film, a low-key drama that is so underplayed, it forgets to have a po...
Rhythm of the Saints
Ah, yes. Yet another Sundance film that takes itself far too seriously, dealing with heavy themes like adolescence, and how much it sucks. Is there no end to the innovative??????
"Rhythm of the Saints" is a standard urban melodrama, given even les...
The Thirteen Steps (Japanese)
"The Thirteen Steps" is only a pretty good murder mystery, but it's an excellent portrait of life and death, of the choices that lead to one or the other.
It is also that rare film that values human life and dares to promote such old-fashioned id...
Rolling Kansas
You worry about a film with a narcoleptic character. Probably the only condition more often exploited in movies for easy laughs is Tourette's Syndrome.
"Rolling Kansas," a not unenjoyable little outing, has its share of easy laughs and too-familia...
Song for a Raggy Boy
Talk about your dangerous lives of altar boys! "Song for a Raggy Boy" is a gray, overcast film about nefarious goings-on at a Catholic reform school in Ireland, circa 1939. It is a sort of "Dead Poets Society" for wayward boys, but not nearly as rewa...
Just Married
I'm not a proponent of the philosophy that movies with good messages are therefore good movies. Too many films with upstanding morals are very dull, and plenty of gray-area films are, let's face it, highly entertaining.
But "Just Married," while ...
The Son (French)
You must pay attention during the first 30 minutes of "The Son," even though it seems like there's nothing to pay attention to. You'll see a slight, bespectacled woodshop teacher offered a new student, and you'll see him decline because he has hands ...
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Many actors have turned into directors, but few have had such auspicious first outings as George Clooney does with "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," the loopy, absurdly entertaining biography of "Gong Show" creator Chuck Barris.
The story -- whi...
Love Liza
"Love Liza" is a slow, mournful film about a guy who deals with the death of his wife by getting high on gasoline fumes. Such a story probably needs to be funnier than this well-acted but lugubrious work is, because I don't know how seriously I can t...
Chicago
If "Moulin Rouge" brought the movie musical back into vogue, "Chicago" should do a lot to keep it there.
The demise of the movie musical has been lamented much in the past several years. Before "Moulin Rouge" (2001), it had been 22 years ("All Th...
The Pianist
The source of our discontent with "The Pianist" does not become apparent until the final seconds, when title cards inform us that what we have seen -- a Polish man fleeing the Nazis during World War II -- is a true story.
Ah, that's it! The filmm...
Nicholas Nickleby
In 1996, Douglas McGrath adapted and directed a film version of Jane Austen's "Emma," giving it sumptuous new life and helping introduce a whole new generation to Ms. Austen's work.
He has now done the same with Charles Dickens' "Nicholas Nickleby...
Max
The trouble with "Max" is that it's difficult to take a movie seriously that has a pre-Reich Adolf Hitler as one of its principal characters. In fact, it's difficult sometimes to tell whether the movie even WANTS to be taken seriously, though I ultim...
Catch Me If You Can
"An honest man has nothing to fear," Frank Abagnale Jr. tells his father in a letter. "So I'm trying my best not to be afraid."
The problem is that Frank is not an honest man and therefore has every reason to be afraid. The FBI is on his tail, an...
The Hours
"The Hours" is a parade of sad, beautiful performances, a sort of gorgeous funeral procession of acting. Its structure allows each actor the opportunity to emote with Oscar-worthy fervor at least once, and in the case of some of them, several times. ...
Pinocchio
"Pinocchio" is an excuse for Roberto Benigni to gambol around like a ninny, acting merry and whimsical and annoying the hell out of everyone. It's the way he behaved at the Oscars in 1999, when "Life Is Beautiful" was winning awards and he was Americ...
Two Weeks Notice
"Two Weeks Notice" is a perfectly likeable romantic comedy, containing not a single unforeseeable plot twist but featuring a good deal of witty dialogue and amusing interaction between the lead characters. In fact, when Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock ...
Narc
There is a grittiness in Joe Carnahan's "Narc" that seems forced. In the film's opening moments, a man is stabbed in the neck, causing him to choke on his own blood; and then a pregnant woman is shot. All of this is accompanied by realistic screaming...
Gangs of New York
The film begins with an epic, bloody battle, fought entirely without explosives or firearms, between two factions whose motives are not elaborately explained. We gather some are "natives" while others are interlopers; there is also mention of Catholi...
Antwone Fisher
Movies like "Antwone Fisher" serve a noble purpose in that they tell true stories of strong-willed people who have overcome obstacles. They are inspiring, and they tend to make you cry at the end.
The downside is that they tend to seem the same a...
25th Hour
Spike Lee's "25th Hour" is in some ways a thrilling departure for the director, and in other ways a predictable, tired adherence to the quirks that have marked his previous work.
It is only the second time, after "Clockers" (1995), that Lee has d...
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" suffers slightly from being the second story in a trilogy, where the imaginative exposition is behind you and the thrilling conclusion is yet to come.
But the second film is, in many ways, imaginative and t...
Intacto (Spanish)
A big part of the fun in "Intact" -- and it is a very fun movie -- is figuring out the rules.
I won't spoil them for you, then, but I will give this outline. The movie is based on the premise that luck is a transferrable commodity, and certain peo...
Star Trek: Nemesis
"Star Trek: Nemesis" should be the final nail in the coffin of this franchise. It boldly breaks the trend of even-numbered films in the series being good, daring to fill its running time with unexciting peril and forced homages to previous entries.
...
Maid in Manhattan
From its first focus-group-prescribed moment to its last prefabricated images of cuteness and love, "Maid in Manhattan" is a 100-percent unoriginal, factory-made romantic comedy without an ounce of creativity or a shred of unpredictability.
Its u...
The Hot Chick
I always hoped I would live my entire life without hearing someone utter the words "Rob Schneider IS the hot chick." Once again, life proves to be one crushing disappointment after another.
The premise of this insipid, worthless comedy is that a h...
About Schmidt
In "About Schmidt," we finally see the mythical figure we have long suspected existed but never had proof of: Jack Nicholson as an Old Man.
After years (decades?) of cavorting with far-younger women, both on screen and off, Nicholson is given a w...
Russian Ark (Russian)
The amazing gimmick behind "Russian Ark" is this: It is shot in one unbroken 90-minute take. Shooting on digital video made it technically possible, because DV cameras don't have to be reloaded every 10 minutes the way film cameras do. Persuading the...
Empire
"Empire" is in the tradition of films like "Scarface," where crime pays for a while but then finally doesn't, and a lot of people wind up with bulletholes.
John Leguizamo is typecast as a mouthy, obnoxious guy, this time a South Bronx drug distri...
Analyze That
It is time for Robert De Niro to stop doing self-parody and to start doing legitimate work again.
I don't mean his unintentional self-parody, like "15 Minutes" (2001) and "City by the Sea" (2002), where he plays wan variations of the characters h...
Adaptation
The only confusing thing about "Adaptation" is trying to explain it. Watching it, it's never unclear what's going on. But look how bizarre things get as I try to give a plot summary:
In 1998, Susan Orlean wrote "The Orchid Thief," about a Florida...
Rabbit-Proof Fence
I have often criticized fact-based films for seeming to believe that because they sprang from true stories, that relieved them of all responsibility to tell the stories in an interesting, engaging manner. Too often, filmmakers fall into that trap: It...
Solaris
Steven Soderbergh may not create a masterpiece every time he directs, but give him credit for trying a variety of styles.
In the past four years alone, we've had amusingly twisty ("Out of Sight"), dark revenge ("The Limey"), peppy determinism ("E...
Extreme Ops
"Extreme Ops" is about snowboarders who run afoul of an evil Serbian terrorist and subsequently use their extreme-sporting skills to save the day. Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds.
The only interesting thing about the film is the misleading way i...
They
The full title of this film is "Wes Craven Presents: They." However, Wes Craven, creator of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series and director of the "Scream" films, did not write, produce or direct "They." He merely "presents" it, whatever that means...
Eight Crazy Nights
Film comedies are subjective, perhaps the most subjective of any genre. What one person finds funny may be entirely different from what someone else finds funny. Your background, personal experiences, education -- basically your entire life up to the...
Treasure Planet
"Treasure Planet" is the Disney animation department at its palest imitation of itself. It uses nearly every element of every animated Disney film since "The Little Mermaid," but still comes up short. It's a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.
...
Personal Velocity
Rebecca Miller is the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller, and she inherited some of her dad's gift for narrative. She can turn a phrase and evoke an image like nobody's business -- in her writing. When it comes to adapting her own book and directin...
Die Another Day
"Die Another Day" comes at a time when the marketplace is already full of action-heavy spy movies, some of which out-Bond James Bond.
"XXX" was worthless popcorn entertainment, but it was HONEST worthless popcorn entertainment, fully embracing it...
Friday After Next
The danger of being rich and powerful is that you are able to do huge, stupid things, and no one can stop you. If you want to build the world's largest airplane and call it the Spruce Goose, fine, Howard Hughes. If you want to let E! follow you aroun...
The Emperor’s Club
Here is what I said to "The Emperor's Club" while I watched it: "OK, movie, that's fine. What you're doing here is very nice. But I hope you don't think we haven't seen this before!"
Is a club for an emperor all that different from a society for ...
Talk to Her (Spanish)
Pedro Almodovar has directed a couple dozen films in his native Spain, but the two most familiar to American viewers are "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" (1990) and "All About My Mother" (1999). The latter won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, but i...
The Quiet American
As a title, "The Quiet American" becomes more ironic as the film progresses. It is about America's involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s, involvement that ultimately led to our fighting the Vietnam War, which I don't have to tell you was an extremely u...
Half Past Dead
No, I don't know why Steven Seagal is considered a star, nor why he keeps being cast in action films when none of them are ever any good or make any money. But like it or not, here he is, and we've got to deal with him.
The putty-faced, Baldwin-br...
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The film version of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" has a distinct been-there, done-that feel about it.
The first film vividly depicted the magical world of wizard-in-training Harry Potter, and it was a delight to see the richly detaile...
Standing in the Shadows of Motown (documentary)
Q: Which musicians appeared on more No. 1 hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and the Beatles combined?
A: The Funk Brothers.
Follow-up Q: Who?
"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" is one of those documentaries that...
The Way Home
There are two stars in the South Korean film "The Way Home," neither of whom has acted in movies before but both of whom have screen presence that belies their experience.
First is Seung-ho Yu, who plays 7-year-old Sang-woo, who is possibly the wo...
8 Mile
You approach "8 Mile" apprehensively. This must be a stunt, you think. Here's Eminem, the most popular rap star of the day, starring in a film about a poor kid who wants to become a rap star. This could be self-serving, embarrassing and hackish. This...
Far From Heaven
For his latest project, maverick writer/director Todd Haynes ("Velvet Goldmine") has chosen to create a film in the style of a weepy 1950s melodrama. He has done it elegantly, effectively duplicating a mostly abandoned style of filmmaking while simul...
Femme Fatale
I am assuming Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was so delighted at the prospect of STARRING in a movie -- leading lady, appearing in almost every scene, and so forth -- that she didn't care what the movie was about, or how trashy it was, or whether she would ev...
The Santa Clause 2
Sigh. Halloween is over, so yeah, it must be Christmastime. It's a little hard to get into the spirit when it's barely November, but "The Santa Clause 2" is as cheery and festive as a movie can be, a rather tolerable little jaunt that aims at familie...
Daughter from Danang (documentary)
"Daughter from Danang" asks a difficult question: Is the love between parent and child automatic?
This searing but sensitive documentary follows Heidi Bub, a Southern gal who spent the first seven years of her life as Mai Thi Hiep, daughter of an...
Love in the Time of Money
Perhaps the most entertaining moment in the largely non-entertaining "Love in the Time of Money" is when a character played by Steve Buscemi says, "Do I seem like a desperate psycho?"
The answer, of course, is yes. That's what he's famous for. I ...
I Spy
"I Spy" was a moderately popular, somewhat-fondly remembered series that ran only three seasons in the 1960s. It starred Robert Culp and Bill Cosby and is noteworthy now primarily as a footnote: It was the first non-comedy series to star an African-A...
Ghost Ship
Every Halloween, a bad horror film is released, makes a few dollars from thrill-seeking 20-year-olds, then disappears from our collective consciousness before the Thanksgiving turkeys have even been executed.
This year, it's "Ghost Ship's" turn to...
Jackass: The Movie
"Jackass: The Movie" begins with the title characters barreling down a street in an over-sized shopping cart, punching each other as cannons shoot chunks of cinder blocks over their heads.
Being dragged behind them, oft-abused and finally defeated...
The Truth About Charlie
We could spend hours bemoaning the tragedy of bad films made by talented people, but we'd be doing it just to hear ourselves talk.
It doesn't matter that "The Truth About Charlie" has fine source material (it's a remake of the 1963 Cary Grant/Aud...
Roger Dodger
"Roger Dodger" is about a man who refuses to learn anything about himself because he thinks he already knows it. You could feel sad for him, if the movie weren't so jarringly funny and if he weren't so hilariously oblivious.
He is Roger Swanson (...
All or Nothing
"All or Nothing" is about three lower-middle-class families who live in a slummy row of flats on the outskirts of London. Among their professions are taxi driver, supermarket checkout clerk and lazy teenage boy. There is a lot of yelling within the f...
Derrida (documentary)
Jacques Derrida is a well-known French philosopher -- well-known as philosophers go, anyway, meaning your average guy on the street probably doesn't know anything about him. Which is fine, because the documentary "Derrida" summarizes his thoughts for...
Children on Their Birthdays
The actors in "Children on Their Birthdays" seem to have been given one instruction: Be genteel.
And so every genteel bit of dialogue from Douglas Sloan's genteel script (based on Truman Capote's genteel short story) is pronounced with massive, s...
The Ring
Within five minutes of "The Ring" beginning, one teen-age girls say to another, "Have you heard about this videotape that kills you when you watch it?" I admire a film that gets right to the point, and efficiency is just one of "The Ring's" many virt...
Auto Focus
What can be said of "Auto Focus" is what can be said of many film biographies: There are some great performances here, but why is this story being told?
Biopics are often labors of love for their writers and directors, and too often, because of t...
Real Women Have Curves
The best scene in "Real Women Have Curves" -- the one most likely to uplift its female audience and get some respect from its male audience, if it exists -- comes in the third act, when four Mexican-American women of varying sizes strip down to their...
Bowling for Columbine (documentary)
Michael Moore's approach in his new documentary "Bowling for Columbine" is that of an investigative journalist, right down to being snarky and badly dressed.
His subject matter is guns in America, but he doesn't start out with a particular point ...
Punch-Drunk Love
Adam Sandler gives a performance in "Punch-Drunk Love" that is nearly Oscar-worthy. That sound you hear is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping through Hollywood.
What writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson -- of "Boogie Nights" and "Magno...
Handcart
"Handcart" is the seventh entry in the 2 1/2-year-old Mormon cinema genre that began with "God's Army," and it is the most ambitious in terms of scope and subject matter.
It is also, sadly, one of the worst.
I can think of few films that were...
Swept Away
It's a shame what a bad woman can do to a good man.
Guy Ritchie showed such promise with "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch," with an exciting visual style and wicked sense of humor. At some point in all that, he married Madonna, w...
The Transporter
The title character in "The Transporter" is an unflappable, endlessly resourceful mercenary whose persona is somewhere between James Bond and Jackie Chan. He can maneuver out of any difficult situation, even those involving speeding cars and explodin...
Brown Sugar
"Brown Sugar" is one of those romantic comedies where two people who obviously belong together are kept apart for most of the running time before they finally realize what has been obvious to the rest of us from the beginning.
It is unfair to cri...
White Oleander
"White Oleander" subscribes to the philosophy that if your central character suffers a lot and lives to tell about it, it is therefore an inspiring movie. "See how she didn't kill herself?" we're supposed to say. "Wow, that gives me a reason to live,...
The Rules of Attraction
If it is possible, "The Rules of Attraction" actually isn't trashy enough to do justice to its source material.
That would be Bret Easton Ellis' 1986 novel, a scathing satire of debauchery among college students in the mid-80s. The book is fueled...
Below
Much of "Below" is spent keeping the characters in the dark, often literally, about what's going on. This is an admirable manifestation of the law in movies that the less we see of the monster/ghost/maniac, the scarier it is.
Eventually, however, ...
Knockaround Guys
After being pushed back for 2 1/2 years, this ridiculous little gangster film is finally being released by New Line. If you're going to see it, you've probably got about a week to do so.
The release is most likely to cash in on the current popula...
Tuck Everlasting
"Tuck Everlasting" is uncommon for a live-action Disney film. It has no flatulence jokes, for one thing, and it ruminates elegantly on matters of mortality and death far more than is typical of any family film.
It is directed by Jay Russell, whos...
Comedian (documentary)
Though his onstage demeanor suggests a casual, nonchalant attitude toward life, Jerry Seinfeld actually has an amazingly strong work ethic.
This is the man who took his eponymous sitcom off the air in 1998, at the height of its popularity, to kee...
Moonlight Mile
You need only observe the brief moment when a dog vomits during a wake to understand that "Moonlight Mile," while preoccupied with the aftermath of a tragic death, is not going to be unreasonably melancholy.
This is especially reassuring when one...
Red Dragon
1986's "Manhunter" was a competent but unremarkable adaptation of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel "Red Dragon" -- itself a competent but unremarkable psychological thriller that introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter.
Lecter had a small part in the bo...
24 Hour Party People
"24 Hour Party People" is the true story of Factory Records, the label at the front of the '70s and '80s New Wave movement in pop music. If you remember Joy Division, you know what the movie is talking about. If you LOVED Joy Division, the movie is y...
Bloody Sunday
I hoped "Bloody Sunday" would end with the U2 song of that name playing over the closing credits. I was not disappointed in that regard, nor, for the most part, with the film itself. A dreadful day in Irish history is given passionate, if somewhat fl...
The Man from Elysian Fields
Where "The Man from Elysian Fields" rises from the level of ordinary to excellent is in the details -- specifically, in what director George Hickenlooper smartly chooses not to show us.
There is an old man in it, a gregarious old coot of a noveli...
Charly
Though it is probably the most popular Latter-day Saint teen romance novel of all time, Jack Weyland's "Charly" is nonetheless a very bad book. It attempts to compress a lengthy story spanning several years into 100 pages, rushing through every confl...
The Tuxedo
Jackie Chan is egregiously misused in "The Tuxedo," a confused film that aspires to be a superhero flick, screwball comedy and martial arts movie all at once.
Chan's charms are in his remarkable fighting skills, of course, not in his acting or el...
Sweet Home Alabama
The message behind "Sweet Home Alabama" is that Reese Witherspoon is cute. It has no other point; in the hands of almost any other actress I can think of, it would have been nearly unwatchable. Even with her, it is only tolerable, the affable sort of...
