Hollywood’s a sucker for cross-dressing. When the American Film Institute chose the 100 greatest comedies of all time, a pair of drag films–Some Like It Hot and Tootsie–earned the top two slots. From Operation Petticoat to White Chicks, slapping falsies on a dude is the fast road to Chuckletown. Women…
The Boys of Baraka, a fine documentary about a group of inner-city, at-risk boys who travel to Kenya to attend a special school, comes very close to greatness. For over an hour, the film is a sharp and blazing account of how boys with multiple challenges and little hope for…
So wait. It’s a movie about the longest criminal trial in U.S. history, it’s directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, and it stars…Vin Diesel in a wig? In a role originally intended for Joe Pesci? Can Lumet be serious? Actually, no. The characters may be based on real people, with…
Who knows? Maybe he developed writer’s block. Or joined Up With People. Or dropped dead from shock the day Bush got re-elected. In any event, the notorious Northern California serial killer who called himself, rather grandiosely, the Zodiac, hasn’t fired off a single letter to the editor since April 1978…
Through the Fire (Disney) He’s averaging just nine points in his second season for the Portland Trail Blazers, but considering where he came from and what he’s overcome, Sebastian Telfair is doing just fine, thank you. Jonathan Hock’s fascinating documentary takes us back to the young New York basketball legend’s…
The Tenants (Sony) Fifteen seconds into the video for “Nuthin but a G Thang,” it was obvious that Snoop Dogg had charisma to spare. More than a decade later, with his performance as ’70s-era radical author Willie Spearmint, it’s official: The man can act. Snoop’s shambling, searing performance is just…
A star who turned into a black hole somewhere between the release of, oh, The Wedding Planner and Sahara (or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Two for the Money–really, where to draw the line?), Matthew McConaughey is better-known of late for shooting tequila with Oprah and…
From the stars of Elf, here’s a new drama about depression and family baggage! Might not want to bring the kids to this one, lest they wonder why Buddy the Elf’s girlfriend is drowning a kitten and deliberately slamming her fingers in cabinet drawers. On the other hand, the two…
If you plan to see The Libertine, an artful and brooding period piece about a scandalously debauched earl of the English Restoration, a few words of advice before you leave: Take a peek at the sun. Drink in some fresh air. Consider bidding goodbye to the majority of the color…
If the Confederacy had won the Civil War, would blacks still be enslaved? Would women vote? Would the United States have colluded with Hitler–or at least pledged non-interference? If the Emancipation Proclamation had been merely a rhetorical gesture from a President who would soon be exiled to Canada (after being…
Here’s the first thing that’s audacious about What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole, the second installment in what has become a franchise of oversimplified science, outlandish speculation and woo-woo spirituality: It’s not a sequel. It’s a revision. Shamelessly, Rabbit Hole uses extensive footage from the first film, including the…
Anyone who remembers the 1977 Wes Craven film The Hills Have Eyes, which was and remains a piece of Milwaukee-beer shit, remembers it because A) they had a memorable fuck-or-puke night at the aging neighborhood drive-in; B) Michael Berryman’s uniquely hairless mug, which glared from the video store horror sections…
The world premiere of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party at the Toronto International Film Festival last September had the vibe of a sold-out concert–all those spotlights beaming to and fro in front of a venerable old theater, all that pushing and shoving for the best seats, all those celebs in the…
Didn’t Richard Donner retire? A 1980s star-director name, among many, that should now send bolts of discouraging dread down your spine, Richard Donner may well be seeing his filmmaking skills peak with 16 Blocks–even if saying it’s his best, least flatulent, most efficient film is tantamount to saying that the…
The thing that’s so difficult about Cowboy del Amor–a richly layered documentary by Israeli filmmaker Michèle Ohayon–is the same thing that makes it an accomplished work: It refuses to take sides. Ohayon presents Ivan Thompson, a.k.a. “Cowboy Cupid,” an aging Texan who has made it his business to fix up…
The press notes for Pulse would have you believe that it predates many of the recent Japanese horror films that have been remade for American audiences, but that doesn’t seem to be true. It predates the U.S. remakes, yes; but according to the Internet Movie Database, Pulse came out in…
If you’re a parent trying to teach your sullen teenage kids that movies with subtitles aren’t all bad, try taking them to see Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor). Like Christophe Gans’ The Brotherhood of the Wolf or Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this is a foreign-language film that proves that…
What do little girls want? If we are to follow the emotional heart of Aquamarine, a new film about two 13-year-olds who help a runaway mermaid fall in love, the answer is…bling. Hailey (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, pretty much a Lindsay Lohan ringer) and Claire (Emma Roberts) are best friends in…
Walk the Line (Fox) No matter what a junkie does with his spare time — say, redefine country music, or forge one of history’s most enduring personas — movies about junkies are a drag to watch. So it’s too bad this Johnny Cash biopic is a by-the-numbers fall-and-redemption tale. A…
It should be too early in the year to expect a good movie, let alone a great one; anything released prior to the Oscars is bound to be forgotten by spring. Yet here it is, the first–dare we use the term that’s all but been stripped of meaning by journalistic…
If you have any awareness at all of the existence of Running Scared–no, not the Gregory Hines/Billy Crystal cop buddy comedy, but the new film written and directed by Wayne Kramer–chances are you have but one question: How in God’s name does anyone expect us to believe that Paul Walker…
All the President’s Men (Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command…
