I have a twisted fondness for movies that titillate us with pseudo-biblical horror stories (The Omen and many bad examples). The Reaping offers us an Oscar winner plunked in the middle of what is apparently a rerun of the ten plagues of Egypt. Hilary Swank plays a formerly-ordained-minister-now-debunker-skeptic who runs around sucking the […]
Premonition’s previews give you that déjà vu feeling that it’s another Forgotten (did Julianne Moore even have a child) or another Godsend (is that kid really dead/his?) – and clearly no Sixth Sense (if you don’t know, I won’t ruin it). The premise is that each day Sandra Bullock wakes up to a different reality, […]
I fear that August’s release of The Illusionist will do an unexpected harm to The Prestige. The harm is unexpected in that despite being about Belle Epoque magicians, these films are very, very different, despite audience perception. Where the Illusionist is about the rivalry of a lowly magician and a crazed duke, with a […]
The tragic mystery of the death of George Reeves, TV’s first Superman, is a fascinating story in and of itself. Adrian Brody plays a low-rent private detective looking into the matter, not with much faith or gusto, but just to pay the rent. Reeves (a restrained and delightful Ben Affleck) had taken the […]
The Illusionist has defied review since I saw it July 24. It had the good fortune to come out before The Prestige, another 19th century magician movie/mystery, because as a story, it is much more obscure and difficult to pin down. Edward Norton is the titular prestidigitator, whose story is told in a […]
M. Night Shyamalan has made a career of his handful of movies of creating a world according to his rules, with magic and pain and coincidence and purpose. How you have responded to his movies may vary, but there is no denying that his movies demand response. Lady in the Water is a bedtime story […]
For someone who is seemingly so enamored of artists and their craft, director Terry Zwigoff has written a scathing and amusing coming of age movie about a young lad whose greatest desire is to be an artist (to get the girl, perhaps, but perhaps for the art itself as well). Jerome (Max Minghella) comes […]
Hollywood is a complex place, modern Hollywood extremely so. People lie, cheat, steal, wear masks, spy, do whatever they can to achieve their goals. When Robert (Peter Sarsgaard) drops his screenplay into the lap of Jeffrey (Campbell Scott), he receives a response only drunkenly fantasized about by most screenwriters. Of course, there […]
One thing I always find rewarding about M. Night Shyamalan’s films is that they bear up well under analysis. They invite discussion at the depths of an art film, but with the accessibility of a big Hollywood film. While none of his films since have matched The Sixth Sense for pure clarity and […]
As many latter-day Stephen King film adaptations seem to be growing more and more forgettable, it always sparks my interest when a gilded cast such as this decides to (on paper) slum their way through another one. John Turturro, art house favorite and funky man’s thinkin’ man; Maria Bello, recently polishing her new indie […]
