Movie Reviews
What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
"What's the Worst That Could Happen?" is a dishonest comedy in which far too many of the jokes are based on faulty premises -- a case of setting up straw men just so you can knock them down.
The film's alleged highlight is a scene in which swarth...
The Animal
When he was on "Saturday Night Live," Rob Schneider was never anyone's favorite performer. He did his parts, served his purpose, and stayed out of the way.
This works to his advantage, because everyone who WAS someone's favorite performer lets it...
Pearl Harbor
A three-hour movie featuring a fictional love triangle set against a historic tragedy in which the action scenes are far better than the romance scenes. Yes, "Titanic" was a good movie. But we're talking about "Pearl Harbor," which is a great deal be...
The Road Home (Chinese)
"The Road Home" begins its story in a dull, frozen black-and-white. Yusheng (Honglei Sun) is driving to the small Chinese village in which he was raised. He must see to the funeral arrangements for his father, who has died suddenly.
Soon we are wh...
Shrek
A diminutive wannabe king tortures the Gingerbread Man of storybook fame, trying to get information from him. The Gingerbread Man's taunting reply? "Eat me!"
The Brothers Grimm this isn't. What it is, is "Shrek," a new computer-animated film that...
Angel Eyes
What does the title have to do with the film "Angel Eyes"? Why, nothing! While I admit most of the characters have eyes, not one of them is an angel.
Already I have spoiled something the film's distributors wanted you to believe. The marketing ca...
The Trumpet of the Swan
Animation, storytelling and acting all combine in their worst forms to make the extremely dull "Trumpet of the Swan." This is a movie that is aimed at kids, but you should protect them from it, as it will turn their minds to mush.
It's based on t...
A Knight’s Tale
"A Knight's Tale" does waste time later, but not in its exposition. Within the first 20 minutes, a Middle Ages squire named William (Heath Ledger) has taken his dead master's place on horseback to win a jousting tournament, then, after a flukish vict...
Startup.com (documentary)
"Startup.com" is an extraordinarily insightful documentary, chronicling not just the rise and fall of dot-com companies in the late 20th century, but also the perils of mixing business and personal relationships in any era.
At the center is a gra...
Blessed Art Thou
If you're the head of a California monastery and one of your priests suddenly turns into not just a woman, but an inexplicably pregnant woman, you're bound to do a little soul-searching.
That's what "Blessed Art Thou" -- also released as "A Quest...
The Mummy Returns
The first scene of "The Mummy Returns" typifies the movies as a whole. In it, the Scorpion King (professional wrestler The Rock) is leading his forces to battle in 3000-something B.C. There is a terrifically loud clanging of swords, lots of stabbing,...
Under the Sand (French)
We all know the human psyche has defense mechanisms set up to prevent overwhelming pain and grief. But just how much reality will those defenses ignore in the name of protecting us?
In "Under the Sand," a literature professor named Marie Drillon ...
Driven
One of a movie critic's favorite things is when a film reviews itself. Sylvester Stallone's new racecar flick "Driven" does that when a character instructs one of the drivers, "Talk less and drive more."
Amen, brother.
The action scenes in "D...
The Forsaken
The vampires in "The Forsaken" can't fly and they don't have fangs. Instead, they drive a beat-up car and smush their faces against the window as menacingly as possible under the circumstances.
Hopefully, this gives you an idea of how scary the f...
One Night at McCool’s
"One Night at McCool's" is a lot of things, but clever and funny are not two of them.
By all accounts, this is apparently a black comedy, telling of a hot woman named Jewel (Liv Tyler) and three men's different experiences with her, and how they ...
Town & Country
Much has been written of the fact that "Town & County" began filming in 1998 and was not released until April 2001. Watching the movie, you realize someone didn't go to all that work because they believed in the project, for surely it became clea...
The Center of the World
Were it not for the controversy surrounding the explicit sexuality of Wayne Wang's "Center of the World," the film would merit little attention, turgid and dim as it is.
Some excellent themes are introduced, dealing with sex and loneliness and ho...
With a Friend Like Harry (French)
"With a Friend Like Harry" is a low-boiling suspense film that is made all the more creepy by masquerading as an "unwelcome guest" comedy for an hour or so.
The disguise works. If we believed right up front what Harry was capable of, his actions ...
Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
Mick "Crocodile" Dundee is an Australian roughneck who is a total fish out of water when he gets to the United States. He literally doesn't even know it's the 21st century. Who could ever be so utterly clueless and out of touch with modern society?
...
Freddy Got Fingered
Is "Freddy Got Fingered" the worst movie ever made? I don't know; I haven't seen every movie ever made. But of the couple thousand or so I have seen, there's no contest. This is the worst.
The film has a clear contempt for its audience. One can ad...
The Luzhin Defence
Chess players become champions by noticing patterns that emerge in the way people play. The moves may be different, but the patterns remain the same.
"The Luzhin Defence" is about a chess champion who notices the patterns of the game while fallin...
Bridget Jones’s Diary
What a difference a script makes!
"Bridget Jones's Diary" has essentially the same plot as Ashley Judd's recent "Someone Like You" -- and, for that matter, as dozens of other movies. Women's boyfriend turns out to be a louse, she starts to love a...
The Circle (Farsi)
Over the opening credits of the Iranian film "The Circle," a woman is heard screaming bloody murder. Turns out she's just giving birth, not being attacked, but in Iran, we're soon to learn, it's almost the same thing. Being a woman in Iran means endu...
Chopper
Andrew Dominik's not-a-biography of legendary Australian criminal Mark "Chopper" Read is an unnecessarily violent film about a man who makes an interesting footnote in Down Under history, but who can hardly command attention for an entire film.
"C...
Joe Dirt
Up to now, whether on TV or in movies, David Spade has always played approximately the same character: a smug little punk. We would give him points for doing something different as a white-trash mullett-wearer in "Joe Dirt," except for one thing: It'...
Josie and the Pussycats
To the people who keep making movies based on cheesy old TV shows: If you're going to persist in this, despite the fact that 95 percent of them are box-office failures, could you at least come up with a good script? Is that too much to ask?
Someon...
Kingdom Come
Shouldn't a film about the funeral for someone no one liked be a lot funnier?
"Kingdom Come" lobs amiably at such gallows humor, but focuses most of its energy on the ranklings of the tightly knit -- but not terribly friendly -- family left behin...
Beautiful Creatures
The nihilistic influence of Quentin Tarantino, whose "Reservoir Dogs" was a Sundance hit almost a decade ago, still pops up from time to time, even though Tarantino himself has scampered back into the oblivion whence he came.
The latest film to r...
Along Came a Spider
"Along Came a Spider" is based on the first book in James Patterson's Alex Cross series. "Kiss the Girls," which came out four years ago, was based on the second book. I don't know why the second book was made into a movie first, except that it's a b...
Blow
For a gritty film about the drug trade to succeed in this post-"Traffic" world, it will need what "Traffic" lacked: heart and humanity.
"Blow" has it, taking us through the dizzying life of real-life trafficker George Jung and telling the drug st...
Brigham City
Richard Dutcher's much-anticipated follow-up to "God's Army" is two things: a very bad murder mystery and a wonderfully moving spiritual drama.
"Brigham City" is set in the fictional Utah town of Brigham (not Brigham City, which is a real place), ...
Pokemon 3 The Movie
The third installment in the once-popular "Pokemon" series of movies is better than the last two. This is faint praise, of course, since the last two were insipid piles of trash built only to bilk more money out of undiscriminating kids. The third mo...
Just Visiting
In 1993, there was a French movie called "Les Visiteurs" in which a 12th-century knight and his servant get transported to modern times. It did reasonably well, grossing $100 million world-wide.
Less than $1 million of that was in the United Stat...
Shadow Magic (Chinese)
"Shadow Magic" takes an interesting subject -- the introduction of motion-picture technology into a reluctant China at the turn of the 20th century -- and makes it into a good-enough movie with good-enough acting and good-enough characters. It's not ...
Someone Like You
The message of "Someone Like You" is that all men are pigs, except for the few who aren't.
That's the overt message. The more subtle message is that this is a "date movie." It doesn't have too much sex or profanity or violence, so it's tame enoug...
Spy Kids
"Spy Kids" is a wildly inventive kids' movie that doesn't pander to its audience, isn't full of potty humor, and teaches a good message. In other words, it's a freak of nature.
Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, whose previous work includes...
Tomcats
In "Tomcats," a man has a cancerous testicle removed and wants to keep it as a souvenir. He sends his buddy into the hospital lab to retrieve it, but the thing is slippery, and after a series of mishaps it winds up in an open box of chocolates, at wh...
The Tailor of Panama
"The Tailor of Panama" is the first film to be shot on location in that country, and what a grand portrait it paints! Lush landscapes, charming locals, and corruption as far as the eye can see.
The post-Noriega Panama is, in this droll spy film, ...
Amores Perros (Spanish)
The first moments of "Amores Perros" are frantic and chaotic as two men drive wildly through heavy traffic with a bleeding dog in their backseat and a pickup truck carrying a man with a gun pursuing them.
The scene ends with a bone-crunching car ...
Heartbreakers
The characters in "Heartbreakers," like the movie itself, are broadly farcical for a while, then supposedly sympathetic, then somewhere in the middle. Actually, they're always somewhere in the middle as far as viewers are concerned, because they're n...
Say It Isn’t So
Have we reached the point in civilization where jokes about incest, handicaps and bodily fluids not just aren't shocking anymore, but also aren't even funny? Yes. Yes, we have.
"Say It Isn't So," which was produced by the notorious Farrelly Broth...
The Brothers
"The Brothers" is a movie about sex. It deals some with relationships and the overall experience of being black in America. But it's mostly about sex. And it has little new to say on the subject.
Similar to "The Best Man" both in style (ensemble ...
Memento
Mark my words, one of the coolest, most original and all-out best movies of 2001 will be "Memento."
Wrap your mind around this concept: A man named Leonard (Guy Pearce) saw his wife murdered, and he was hurt by the killer, too. As a result of the...
Enemy at the Gates
As "Enemy at the Gates" worked toward its finale, I jotted "A-" -- the grade I intended to give it -- on my notepad. It had its flaws, but was overall a riveting, meticulous war story that gripped its audience and wouldn't let go.
Then, after the...
Exit Wounds
"Exit Wounds" stars Steven Seagal as a rogue cop who gets sent to a tough Detroit precinct as punishment for his unorthodox crime-fighting methods. If you do not like Steven Seagal movies, there is no reason why you'd like this one.
But for the s...
The Dish
Unknown to most people, the tiny Australian hamlet of Parkes played a significant role in the 1969 moon landing. Parkes, you see, was home to the largest radio telescope in the southern hemisphere, and one of the most powerful in the world. NASA coul...
15 Minutes
"15 Minutes" is an ugly, depraved movie that is not so much an indictment of American celebrity culture as it is a worthless pile of trash.
It is not without irony that the film starts out like a joke, since that's what it turns into: A Russian a...
Get Over It
While it clings too tightly to the now-standard gross-out mentality of teen films, "Get Over It" manages some originality and wit, too, in its story of a boy who gets dumped and the girl he falls for instead.
Berke (Ben Foster) is the average, sl...
Blow Dry
"Blow Dry" makes me sigh wearily. Movies about quirky small-village folks in the British Isles have already reached their zenith of effectiveness -- "Waking Ned Devine" and "Saving Grace" being two fine examples -- and are now on the downturn. "You-c...
Me You Them (Portuguese)
“Me You Them� is a light-hearted Brazilian drama that’s rarely very serious and hardly dramatic, about a free-thinking woman named Darlene (Regina Case) who marries one man but carries on romantic relationships with two others. Director Andrucha Waddington keeps it out of sex-farce territory, focusing instead on how Darlene’s men each fill different needs, with a “sisters are doin’ it for themselves� kind of vibe. That said, the film is rather slow-paced, and as likable as the characters are, it’s not always interesting to watch them do nothing.
See Spot Run
From 1-800-CALL-ATT commercials to feature films, dunder-headed monkey boy David Arquette has been annoying in everything he's appeared in. The only exception is the "Scream" trilogy. What can we learn from that? David Arquette is a moderately talent...
The Mexican
¡"El Mexicano," con Julia Roberts y Brad Pitt, es muy bueno!
That's all the Spanish I know, and I'm not sure on some of it. But "The Mexican" is a delightfully original film whose tone lies somewhere between "Pulp Fiction" and "The Three Amigos....
Series 7
"Series 7" is one of the most devastating satires of American pop culture ever conceived, a vicious and dark look at "reality TV" -- and, by extension, our society's obsession with everyone getting their 15 minutes of fame.
The film is set up as a...
The Caveman’s Valentine
Though many films that debut at the Sundance Film Festival are unusual, unique or in some other way "independent" (and not just in a corporate sense), others are just plain entertaining.
"The Caveman's Valentine," while possessed of some interest...
Monkeybone
"Monkeybone" is a fairly bad movie in a good movie's clothing.
It was directed by Henry Selick, who also helmed "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and the look and feel are the same: dark, visually entertaining, and sometimes just flat-out weird. ...
3000 Miles to Graceland
While the idea of a crew of Elvis impersonators shooting up a casino and stealing $3.2 million is appealing, the movie it happens in, "3000 Miles to Graceland," is such a horrid, directionless mess that it's hard to revel in it.
Ex-cons Michael (...
Southern Comfort (documentary)
Robert Eads seems like a fairly ordinary man of the Deep South. He drives a big pickup truck, cooks "country bacon," and smokes a lot. His friends, Cas and Max, seem the same as they gather at Robert's rural trailer for an Easter cookout.
Then we ...
Down to Earth
Give Chris Rock credit for rising above his meager "Saturday Night Live" bit-player status, becoming a top-notch comedian and having a highly rated HBO series. We like him now, and we want to see him succeed.
"Down to Earth," however, is not going...
Sweet November
"Sweet November" has a few moments in which Keanu Reeves's character, Nelson Moss, is asleep. At these times, we can see plainly that what we've always suspected is literally true: Keanu's facial expression when he's asleep is the same as when he's a...
Recess: School’s Out
There's nothing particularly wrong with "Recess: School's Out," the latest animated feature from Disney. You should know that it's based on a TV series, and has approximately the same quality. This is no "classic" (although, knowing Disney, it will p...
Cowboys & Angels
Writer/director Gregory C. Haynes, a Utah resident, has made a feature film written and produced entirely in the Beehive State -- and it's not about Mormons. Why, many of these people even drink beer.
"Cowboys & Angels" is about a mopey man n...
Hannibal
"Hannibal" is an unnecessarily gruesome thriller that pales in comparison to its predecessor, "The Silence of the Lambs."
"Silence" was a horror film whose goriness was justified by the gritty nature of the psychological drama at hand. On-screen ...
Saving Silverman
When I tell you that "Saving Silverman" is very funny and entertaining, please don't think I'm saying it's not stupid, because it is. The people who made it would surely be first to admit that fact.
They'd be proud, too, and rightfully so. "Savin...
Left Behind: The Movie
"Left Behind: The Movie," based on the best-selling novel about the Bible-predicted end times, is first and foremost a missionary tract for evangelicial Christianity.
Sure, it starts out being more than that. Millions of people -- children, mostl...
Valentine
Can a film being released in 2001 really expect to be taken seriously when its killer wears a mask? After the "Friday the 13th" movies overdid them and the "Scream" movies mocked them, you'd think a filmmaker with any kind of savvy would know better....
In the Mood for Love (Chinese)
Kar-wai Wong's "In the Mood for Love" is an evocative love story that collapses at the end but remains pretty well focused up to that point.
The setting is Hong Kong, 1962, at a boarding house. Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) and her husband move in to...
Head over Heels
How ironic that a film about not judging a book by its cover should star Freddie Prinze Jr., a man who is utterly without acting talent, but who continues to get roles because he looks good.
That, in fact, is the one thing "Head over Heels" has g...
The Wedding Planner
Perhaps I was just in a bad mood. Or maybe I had been forced into that mood by the bland lameness that had already permeated "The Wedding Planner." But there was a point in this film when I actually began talking to the screen, which I never do. (The...
Sugar & Spice
Since last year's "Bring It On" was such a pleasant surprise, a genuinely witty and fun look at high-school cheerleaders and their world, it seems logical there'd be a rip-off sooner or later.
And here it is: "Sugar & Spice," a film whose plo...
The Pledge
"The Pledge" is not lemon-fresh, though I suspect Jack Nicholson is being held together by space-age polymers.
Sean Penn directed this atmospheric thriller, and it has the makings of a fine piece of work. Nicholson is as good as ever (it's one of...
Snatch
Writer/director Guy Ritchie's follow-up to the 1999 heist comedy "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" is "Snatch," a film that runs out of steam long before it ends yet still compels you to like it.
How can you not like a movie with character n...
Panic
Most promotional posters for "Panic" have a gun on them, and the film opens with that dread-filled suspense music we're accustomed to. Then a voice says, "You ever get the feeling you're dead?"
So begins "Panic," a noirish drama from writer/direc...
The Bleep Brothers (Japanese)
Did you hear the one about the strip-club comedians who became national sensations when they filthied up their act?
"The Bleep Brothers" tells us that story, while half-heartedly mocking popular culture and TV, and also presenting an old-fashione...
Diary of a City Priest
"Diary of a City Priest" is a quiet, slow-paced film about a Catholic priest in an inner-city church. More a portrait than a story, it paints a picture of Father John McNamee (David Morse), who has preached sermons and ministered to the poor at St. M...
Julie Johnson
Following your dreams can be more of a burden than anything.
This message is brought to us by "Julie Johnson," a subdued, amusing film with a hopeful tone and a heart that almost soars despite having some rather heavy weights at the bottom of it.
...
MacArthur Park
The unfortunate thing about setting your gritty urban drama in L.A.'s MacArthur Park is that you're almost obligated to include Richard Harris's absurdly melodramatic pop song "MacArthur Park" on the soundtrack.
Having Macy Gray remake it might h...
National 7 (French)
How often have you remarked, possibly out loud to strangers you passed in the street, "I wish someone would make a movie about the sexual desires of handicapped people"? If you're like me, you remark this at least twice a day. Leave it to the Sundanc...
Angels of the Universe (Icelandic)
The most interesting thing I learned about life in Iceland in the Icelandic film "Angels of the Universe" is that the president of that country lives in what appears to be a regular house, where you can just walk up and ring the doorball.
OK, I l...
Perfume
It's always nice when a film's press notes, along with blowing smoke up our skirts about how great the movie is, also tell us why it's so flawed.
Witness the notes on "Perfume," the new film from director Michael Rymer:
"All the dialog in 'Pe...
Double Whammy
The problem with a film's writer and director being the same person is that if the script is full of holes, the director can't point them out. Also, if the direction is bland and unoriginal, the writer can't object to his screenplay being mistreated....
Roof to Roof (Armenian)
What were they thinking?
Some directors have had good luck casting non-actors in roles similar to who they really are; Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou ("Not One Less") has done quite well with it. It often lends a film realism, and is particularly help...
After Image
I have seen hundreds upon hundreds of movies in my day, but I don't think I've ever seen a film in which so little happens as in "After Image." It contains not one coherent thought: It's an alleged thriller that is not only devoid of thrills, but tha...
Invisible Revolution (documentary)
Beverly Peterson's documentary "Invisible Revolution" presents an objective, "60 Minutes"-style report on racist and anti-racist factions in America. There is little of the director's own personality or opinions -- her voice-over narration even sound...
Lift
Co-directed by DeMane Davis and Khari Streeter, "Lift" is a gritty family drama based on the creators' own experiences as professional shoplifters.
Niecy (Kerry Washington, recently the best reason to see "Save the Last Dance") is a young African...
Raw Deal: A Question of Consent (documentary)
On the night of Feb. 26, 1999, the University of Florida Delta Chi fraternity held a party at which a hired exotic dancer drank enough and became friendly enough to become part of the festivities herself. The next morning, she ran from the frat house...
The Natural History of the Chicken (documentary)
Americans spend $40 billion a year on chicken products, and each person eats an average of 80 pounds of chicken annually.
Those are two of the less-entertaining facts presented in Mark Lewis's "The Natural History of the Chicken," a highly amusin...
AntiTrust
I saw two movies on Jan. 10, and both had characters named Teddy. The first Teddy was in a good movie called "Memento." The second was in a mediocre movie called "AntiTrust." It is the latter, unfortunately, that we have to talk about now.
It's a...
Double Take
Many comedies are based on the personalities of the performers: If you think the guys are funny in general, you'll like the movie. Mike Myers, Martin Lawrence and Adam Sandler all work in this genre.
Well, "Double Take" is proof that we've taken ...
Save the Last Dance
As one might expect from a film credited as an "MTV production," "Save the Last Dance" is one-half realistic portrayal of youth, and one-half pure cinematic pablum. It is the former half that earns the film some degree of respect, but the latter half...
Shadow of the Vampire
"Shadow of the Vampire," about the filming of an old movie, itself has several qualities we associate with old movies: a too-long opening credit sequence, a simple premise without a lot of depth, and over-the-top acting, for example. You may have not...
The Claim
"The Claim" is a gripping, 90-minute emotional drama packed into two hours. Director Michael Winterbottom apparently is not one to rush things, though in many instances here, it would have been better if he had.
The setting is Kingdom Come, a gol...
Traffic
Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic" is a searing indictment of the so-called "War on Drugs" -- a war which, the film says, cannot be won. It's not a very cheerful prospect, to be sure, and the film's insistence on keeping us at arm's length from the charac...
All the Pretty Horses
Billy Bob Thornton's deliberately paced film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel "All the Pretty Horses" at first seems like the sort of movie that was probably a very good book but isn't transferring well to the big screen. It seems too introspect...
Thirteen Days
An Australian-born director (Roger Donaldson) and a Canadian-born actor (Bruce Greenwood) are the driving forces behind a taut, enthralling film depiction ("Thirteen Days") of a tense moment in American history (the Cuban blockade of 1962).
It's ...
Malena (Italian)
Giuseppe Tornatore, whose "Cinema Paradiso" was everyone's favorite Italian film before "Life Is Beautiful" came along, returns to his nostalgia roots with "Malena," a charming and vulgar story about a woman whose beauty enraptures an entire town.
...
Finding Forrester
Director Gus Van Sant, apparently still reeling over the misguided disaster that was his 1998 "Psycho" remake, has decided to play it safe with "Finding Forrester."
What could be more sure-fire? It has a feel-good, seize-the-day story, solid perf...
The Gift
When I settled in to watch "The Gift," the new thriller from director Sam Raimi, I was told it was 140 minutes long. Thus, when we reached the 105-minute mark and the film seemed not just to be ending, but to be ending in an extremely disappointing a...
The House of Mirth
"The House of Mirth" begins with Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson) walking through a train station in New York. She has missed her train and will have to wait another two hours. Yet she is not distressed. She has money, social status and time on her hands...
The Family Man
Don't be misled by the title or the wacky-looking advertisements: "The Family Man" is not a family film. The language and sexual content are too strong for children, and the movie is more drama than comedy anyway.
Aside from that, the poky little...
State & Main
Movies that make fun of the movie-making process are not particularly rare, but ones that are funny without being farcical are as precious as diamonds. David Mamet's "State & Main" is exactly that, hitting the Hollywood mentality with deadly accu...
