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 ….
King Arthur film review
Bruckheimer is back with the costumes, swordplay, sexy Keira Knightley and another talented albeit mildly-experienced director for King Arthur. The formula still works here, but not quite as very as the fun Pirates of the Caribbean. It works for about an hour or so. King Arthur, a historical version of the British myth, strips away ….
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 ….
High Tension film review
Year: 2005 This French-to-English, fast-paced gore-fest that will have your heart pounding, your head spinning, and your stomach squeamish, all to which the blood lovers out there will find very appealing. Marie and Alex, two college friends, spend a weekend at Alex’s parents’ farm before studying for college exams. One problem. Death rings the doorbell ….
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. ….
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Ehe Der Maria Braun, Die) film review
Fassbinder’ s masterpiece The Marriage of Maria Braun follows the life of a young German woman named Maria Braun (Hanna Schygulla), married to a former soldier (Klaus Lowitsch) in the waning days of WWII. The film details the sad lives of German citizens dealing with a lost war, and a lost spirit and trying to ….
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 ….
Howl’s Moving Castle film review
Miyazaki (Academy Award winner for Spirited Away) has delivered us another sophisticated and pleasantly whimsical animation. Although it is visually stunning, this is Miyazaki’s most complex fantasy to date, with straightforward narrative, and a multilayered approach that reflects the contradictions of real life. Here the master Japanese animator exerts a strong command over the story ….
Melinda and Melinda film review
Year: 2005 I miss the original Woody Allen. The What’s Up, Tiger Lily, Annie Hall and Sleeper Woody Allen. To me, Allen was at his best when he was making comments about the world, without any effort. When he was so busy trying to make us laugh, that we didn’t feel the sting of social ….
Phat Girlz film review
Year: 2006 Give it up one time for the thickness, y’all, because the Plus-sizers need love, too! Ya heard?! Phat Girlz is about a woman who has always had trouble taking the weight off and dealing with the issues, the glares, and the ridicule that goes along with being a big woman in today’s society, ….
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 ….