As his new movie, The Hunted, suggests, William Friedkin’s career continues to wander into bizarre areas of subject and character and, not surprisingly, to display a flagrant and really quite inexplicable inconsistency. He has directed some excellent and influential motion pictures, most notably The French Connection and The Exorcist; in addition to some almost equally […]
Movie Reviews
Posted inMovies
Hollywood enlists again
Although the new movie Tears of the Sun describes a fictional incident, its plot resembles some actual events from recent history closely enough to exhibit a certain degree of contemporary relevance. Like Behind Enemy Lines and Black Hawk Down, it deals with a small, discrete military engagement within the context of a larger series of […]
Posted inMovies
Snuffing and huffing
Snuffing and huffing Rocket contemplates his ticket out of the ‘hood in “City of God.” People familiar with the work of Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles, who crafted the offbeat comedy Maids, might be floored by his latest big-screen effort. City of God is every bit as violent as Narc, just as gritty as Amores Perros, […]
Posted inMovies
The ultimate cop flick
Somewhere in its mutation from the mystery story to the cop flick, the familiar movie about the detective’s search for a criminal changed not only its protagonist and his methods, but also its moral focus. The transition probably began three decades ago with the almost simultaneous appearance of some powerfully influential motion pictures: William Friedkin’s […]
Posted inMovies
A neat look at inheriting a mess
Jesse Peretz’s follow-up to the painfully mediocre but wonderfully soundtracked First Love, Last Rites sounds like something George Costanza and his buddy Jerry might pitch to NBC after frantically coming up with the idea during the ride to 30 Rock. While nobody is court-ordered to become somebody else’s butler, The Château (which screens Saturday, March […]
Posted inMovies
Jagger and a dagger
How far would you go to keep a roof over your family’s head and food on their plates? Would you sell a kidney? Would you work at McDonald’s? How about taking experimental medication, or having sex for money? Some of us might resort to extreme measures (just admit it already, Scott Peterson), but not Byron […]
Posted inMovies
As sure as death and Texas
In his new movie, The Life of David Gale, Alan Parker transforms the now trite and artificial situation of the condemned inmate on death row into a complex work that suggests several different cinematic possibilities and provides a number of twists and surprises. Not surprisingly, the film deals at length with the death penalty, […]
Posted inMovies
Vietnam before our war
Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, published in 1955, has probably aroused more controversy than any of his other many works of fiction. In dealing with the first tentative intervention of the United States in Vietnam, at a time when the French fought their hopeless colonial war, the author displayed both uncanny prescience about the […]
Posted inMovies
Generals is a God awful waste of time
Gods and Generals, the prequel to Gettysburg and the first episode in an epic but non-sequential Civil War trilogy, is only slightly shorter than the war itself. Once you factor in the trailers, the commercials, and the intermission, this will be an over-four-hour movie experience. I wouldn’t even want to make out with Jennifer Garner […]
Posted inMovies
Something different from Almodóvar
The career of the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has followed a generally upward path, beginning with his first international success, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, back in 1988 (though made in 1986, his Matador appeared in this country only after the positive reception of Women). He has produced a steady flow of […]
Posted inMovies
I’m hooked on you
If somebody told me Kim Ki-Duk’s The Isle was equal parts Takashi Miike (Audition) and Shohei Imamura (Warm Water Under a Red Bridge), I’d probably either drop dead from laughter (because it sounds so improbable), or immediately head down to the Dryden Theatre to be the first in line for the February 15 screening (because […]
Posted inMovies
The “unintelligence” community
Following a long and often instructive tradition, The Recruit demonstrates that popular film in general — and the thriller, in particular — provide an index to the characteristic tensions and attitudes of a particular time and place. Last year’s retrograde and essentially obsolete thriller, The Bourne Identity, presented a familiar vision inherited from decades of […]
