Check Out the Trailer

This ingenious mockumentary plays things straight up to a certain point. Where truth and fiction mix is uncertain and who is in on the joke is uncertain as well. All the characters in the film play themselves or exaggerated/mocking versions of themselves.

The premise is that famed German director Werner Herzog, who deals with grand characters in both his fiction and documentary films, is setting out to make a new documentary about the myth of the Loch Ness monster. Zak Penn, the writer of X2 and LAST ACTION HERO, is the producer on the doc. He hires big time feature cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, who worked on films like BLADE II and THE RING TWO. As this film is being made, cinematographer John Bailey, whose credits include AS GOOD AS IT GETS and GROUNDHOG DAY, is making a documentary about Herzog.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Director Atom Egoyan has never been shy to deal with sexual issues in his films such as EXOTICA, THE SWEET HEREAFTER and FELICIA’S JOURNEY and he has not changed here. WHERE THE TRUTH LIES plays on a low simmer for its whole running time borrowing tones from film noir.

Set in the 1970s, eager reporter Karen O’Connor (Alison Lohman, MATCHSTICK MEN) has landed a book deal to write the biography of famed comedian Vince Collins (Colin Firth, BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY). Collins was the straight man in a two-man team that featured Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon, THE WOODSMAN). The two men were notorious party animals involving multiple women and drugs. However, one scandal has plagued their careers for decades. Maureen O’Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard, TV’s CLUELESS) was a waitress at one of their hotels who asked to interview the duo for her college newspaper. The next day she is found dead in a hotel bathtub in the performer’s next town.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This dark comedy on the plight of modern success is gutsy enough to follow a main character who has no clue how to attain his goals.

David Spritz (Nicolas Cage, MATCHSTICK MEN) is a well-known weather man on the local news in Chicago. His father Robert (Michael Caine, QUILLS) is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. The shadow David lives under is huge. David is estranged from his wife Noreen (Hope Davis, AMERICAN SPLENDOR), who he has a very hostel relationship with. His young daughter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena, ERIN BROCKOVICH) is quite over-weight and is being called names at school because of it. His son Mike (Nicholas Hoult, ABOUT A BOY) is just getting out of rehab and is developing an eerie relationship with his older counselor Don (TV’s ALLY MCBEAL). David’s attitude toward Noreen’s new boyfriend Russ (Michael Rispoli, TWO FAMILY HOUSE) doesn’t help his efforts to clean up his act either.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

After watching this anthology of three short horror films from Asian masters, I realized that current American horror is dumb and wussy.

China’s Fruit Chan (FINALE IN BLOOD), Korea’s Chan-wook Park (OLDBOY) and Japan’s Takashi Miike (ICHI THE KILLER) direct one of the three segments of the film. Fruit Chan’s “Dumplings” follows aging TV star Ching (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah) as she goes to Mei (Ling Bai, THE CROW), whose dumplings are rumored to make the eater look years younger. Once we find out what the secret ingredient of the dumplings is we are appalled. But how far will Ching be able to go to look younger?

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Arriving in theaters the same year as John Landis’ AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE HOWLING starts interestingly and ends strong, but lacks a compelling middle to raise it to the next level.

Karen White (Dee Wallace, E.T.) is a TV news reporter who has been contacted by a serial killer prowling the streets of her city. While wired, she agrees to meet with the killer thus leading police to him. But the set-up goes a bit wrong and she is traumatized by visions she can’t quite remember. Famed therapist Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee, THIS IS SPINAL TAP) advises Karen to go to his retreat in the woods to “recharge her batteries.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

I’m happy to report that the SAW films are getting better, but they’re not good enough to outright recommend. By episode V, we might have a four-star horror film.

The set-up is nice — Jigsaw (Tobin Bell, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD) is a killer who kidnaps people and sets them about gory challenges in an effort to make them realize their sins. Eric Mathews (Donnie Wahlberg, DIAMOND MEN) is a hot-tempered cop who will do anything to get his man. His relationship with his son Daniel (Erik Knudsen, THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO), who gets in trouble with the law from time to time, is strained. Then his worst nightmare comes true — Jigsaw kidnaps his son and places him in a sealed off house with a group of people given tasks to carry out in search of an antidote to the poison gas that is filling the rooms.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

If you’ve read any of my other reviews of other Marx Brothers films then you’ll know that I’m not the biggest fan, but DUCK SOUP fulfills the promise of greatness that is only hinted at in the comedians’ other work. Anarchy is the norm in Marx Brothers pictures and here it is used to brilliance. It’s all about the context.

Freedonia is a bankrupt country that will go under unless it receives $20 million from Mrs. Gloria Teasdale (Margaret Dumont, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA), whose only stipulation to the donation is that her political guru Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) is made the leader of the country. However, Firefly is a shyster and has no idea how to run the country. In the country of Sylvania, Ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern, BLACKBOARD JUNGLE) hires Pinky (Harpo Marx) and Chicolini (Chico Marx) to spy on Firefly, ending up with Chicolini hiding out as a peanut vendor and rising to the post of Freedonia’s Secretary of War.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Based on the stage play by David Auburn, this film deals with a daughter’s fear that she may have inherited her father’s mathematical brilliance as well as his insanity.

Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) has been taking care of her father Robert (Anthony Hopkins, HOWARDS END), a renowned mathematician, for years. She has put her own studies in Math on hold to care for her father. Now Robert has died and her sister Claire (Hope Davis, AMERICAN SPLENDOR) has come for a memorial and to set his affairs in order. Claire worries that Catherine is becoming more and more unstable. Into the mix comes Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal, DONNIE DARKO), an assistant of Robert’s who is searching his many notebooks for a proof that could revolutionize the field. Catherine shows him one, but the authorship is brought into question.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Director Ben Younger follows up his wonderful feature debut, BOILER ROOM, with a romantic comedy that owes a lot to Woody Allen, but bites off a bit more than it can chew.

Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman, KILL BILL) has just gotten divorced at 37. Her therapist Dr. Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep, ADAPTATION) encourages her to get out and see other people. Through some mutual friends, Rafi meets David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg, THE PERFECT SCORE), a 23-year-old struggling artist. At first Rafi is weirded out by the age difference, but Dr. Metzger encourages her to keep it up because both are in their sexual primes and it will be good for her. This is until Dr. Metzger finds out that Rafi is dating her son.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

In the tradition of films like NORMA RAE and ERIN BROCKOVICH, this film follows one courageous woman as she stands up to injustice. Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron, MONSTER) has just left her abusive husband. She has taken her two kids Karen (Elle Peterson, film debut) and Sammy (Thomas Curtis, THE CHUMSCRUBBER) and moved back in with her parents — Hank (Richard Jenkins, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER) and Alice (Sissy Spacek, THREE WOMEN). She works at a low-paying job at a hair salon until her old friend Glory (Frances McDormand, FARGO) suggests that she get a job up at the mine where she works.

With the prospect of making enough to get a house for her kids, she takes the job, despite the anger of her mine veteran father, who refuses to speak to her there after. For the meantime, Josey and her kids move in with Glory and her husband Kyle (Sean Bean, FLIGHTPLAN), who try to set her up with local sports hero turned lawyer Bill White (Woody Harrelson, NATURAL BORN KILLERS). From day one, Josey experiences mild to overt sexual harassment from many of the male workers, especially Bobby Sharp (Jeremy Renner, DAHMER), who was Josey’s boyfriend in high school and is rumored to be the father of Sammy.

Read the rest of this entry »