Haiku Tunnel film review
Josh Kornbluth is a funny guy. He has a nervous, jittery way about him, delivering his views on the world with gusto, while giving off a unique combination of being both obsessed and lazy. He looks odd, a pudgy schlump with glasses, a balding head, long messy hair on the sides and back, and an ….
Halloween film review
Considered by many to be a modern horror classic, Halloween succeeds through simplicity. This thriller a veritable kickoff for 25plus years of slasher films works because director John Carpenter keeps the story neat and the presentation basic. It’s an approach that gives Halloween an easy, nofrills realism, and a likable indie style that shines through ….
Hannibal film review
10 years ago to this day, Hannibal Lecter burned himself into our memory, our catchphrases, and our popular culture, and now, he sits at the head of the table once again, packing movie theatres, dominating dinner conversations, and prompting people to try fava beans. With the release of Hannibal, one of the most anticipated films ….
High Anxiety film review
Mel Brooks does the best of his second-tier works (outside the holy canon of The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein) in this send-up of Hitchcock flicks. The story tries to ride closely to Spellbound and Vertigo, but ventures into virtually all of Hitch’s major works, including the most notable scenes from Psycho, The Birds ….
Higher Learning film review
I first saw John Singleton’s Higher Learning when I was 17. Back in 1995, my friend and I left the theater feeling like we had seen an important commentary on American society. We felt informed. It just goes to show you how clueless teenagers are. At 23, I rented the movie again and realized that ….
Kinsey film review
In 1948, Alfred Kinsey, a goofy-looking professor from Indiana University previously known (if at all) for his long and laborious study of gull wasps, published Sexual Behavior in the American Male, and the country was never the same. For years, Kinsey had been trekking across the country with his team of researchers, interviewing and studying ….
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film review
You think Harry Potter had expectations? It’s a beloved book, sure, but it was published in 1997. In 10 years it will be as forgotten as The Bridges of Madison County. But J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series dates all the way back to 1937 (when The Hobbit was published), and it’s taken ….
Mad Max film review
"They say people don’t believe in heroes anymore. Well, damn them! You and me, Max, we’re gonna give ’em back their heroes!" Those empty words come from the chief of police (Roger Ward) to his top dog on the force. Mad Max, read as a fairy tale horror film, follows the logic of a Jacobean ….
The Manchurian Candidate film review
Year: 2004 I’m a huge fan of the original Manchurian Candidate, so naturally I approached Jonathan Demme’s redo with some amount of trepidation. In this, the year of the shoddy remake, we’ve already seen such hack jobs as The Stepford Wives, The Big Bounce and The Punisher, among a half-dozen or so updates. The catch ….
The Man Who Knew Too Much film review
If Alfred Hitchcock ever got the chance to make a Bond film, it would have probably turned out something like this (or Topaz). A road trip with James Stewart and Doris Day traipsing from Morocco to London, it’s two hours of red herrings and intense scenes, one of the least apologetic adventures he ever made. ….
House of Flying Daggers film review
A poet of the small gesture, Zhang Yimou moves on from his slice-of-life dramas Not One Less and Happy Times to the more broad, operatic strokes of Hero and The House of Flying Daggers. The resulting House is an astonishing work of cinematic beauty; filled with strong primary colors and evocative storybook forests of green ….
North By Northwest film review
It was with slight disappointment and definite surprise that I found, after years of intending to see it, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest coming in just under the top tier of his films. Watching Cary Grant hustle through a cross-country wrongly-accused thriller isn’t a bore, of course, but I felt the curious sensation of reacting to ….
Minority Report film review
Per Minority Report, in only 52 years we’ll have a new privacy nightmare on our hands: A police unit in Washington D.C. will genetically engineer three people, float them in a Jacuzzi, and hook wires up to their heads so the cops can see murders occurring in the future. And thus, they can arrest the ….
I Drink Your Blood film review
Quick: Name your favorite movie about Satanist hippies on acid with rabies. If, somehow, your answer was anything other than I Drink Your Blood, we ask that you contact our offices right away. Then again, we may want those of you who managed the correct answer to call as well. Made by writer/director David Durston ….
Mission: Impossible II film review
Two reviews of the film. James Brundage, the exuberant fan: John Woo is back in the saddle again. After turning out useless Hollywood drivel from emigration up until Face/Off, enjoyable Hollywood drivel with Face/Off, and intelligent and enjoyable Canadian drivel in Once a Thief, John Woo has finally reestablished himself as a grandmaster of the ….