The Movie

While the late great Orson Wells was filming the soon-to-be-butchered The Magnificent Ambersons and preparing to direct a segment of Journey Into Fear, he was asked by the RKO studio heads to grab a camera and head down to Brazil to shoot some Carnival footage. This act was all part-and-parcel of America's "Good Neighbor Policy" of the 1940s, which in essence was really more of a "Keep Nazi Influence The Hell Out Of Hemisphere" initiative (Brazil's government, in particular, was chock full of Nazi sympathizers, and do I even need to get started o...Read the entire review

The Program

You know, when it comes to my Disney history, anything remotely Chip and Dale-related is strangely residing in absentia. Come to think of it, these two rascally chipmunks sort of exist in the metaphorical Third Circle of DisneyHell (coming in 2008 to an afterlife near you). Consider the first circle to be the Big Five (Micky and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto), and the second to be the "name" Feature characters (Cinderella, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle, Aladdin, etc.). Our poor little chipmunks are stuck nudged between Bullwhip Griffin and the little Asian ...Read the entire review

The Movie

Long before Ringo Starr was a Fab Four fixture, or before Love Me Do became their first hit single... before the John Lennon proclaimed that the band was more popular than Jesus, or before they were hanging out with the Maharishi... before their Magical Mystery Tour debacle of a film and the eclectic genius of the "White Album"... the Beatles shined with Stu Sutcliffe, the band's original bass player and art-school buddy of John Lennon. Stu traveled with the Beatles to Hamburg as the scrappy young quintet (featuring Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, each on vocals/guitar, Sutclife on bass, and Pete Best on drums) cut their rock-and-roll teeth in the legendary Cavern club, opening for burlesque shows, popping uppers like pez, and...Read the entire review

The Movie

Made it, Ma! Top of the world!!

Raoul Walsh's 1949 crime-noir classic White Heat marked the return of James Cagney to the role of which audiences had known him best: the tough, squinty-eyed, uncompromising gangster. Although Cagney had received a well-deserved Academy Award for charismatic performance as the sweet yet doggedly determined George M. Cohan in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy, his return to his gangster "roots", as it were, resulted in a film that remains one of the most memorable in its genre. From start to finish, White Heat is a ...Read the entire review

The Movie

You know, there was once a time in which we as a culture hadn't become utterly desensitized to the site of Disney anally violating its heritage with a gaffe stick. There was a time, long long ago, in which the company retained a health sense of legacy about their timeless masterpieces. I mean, when Walt was alive do you think there ever would have been a Bullwhip Griffin 2: March of the Nostril Brigade? I. Think. Not.

But enough of my mindless recollections. Flash forward to 2005, and we have Disney whoring itself at Wal-Mart display stands roughly every 37 minutes, h...Read the entire review

The Movie

After the critical and commercial success of The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann found himself with some serious clout in theHollywood establishment. As an unabashed, drooling and hyperventilating fan of that 1992 film, I can only remain in awe of how Mann made such a fantastic movie out of one thoroughly coma-inducing snorer of a book. Heck, if I could only go back in time just once, I'd head back to the 19th-Century and congratulate Twain on his list of James Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses... but that's guano for another cave. After the succ...Read the entire review

The Program

In the period between the Mariel Boat Lifts of 1980 and the ascension of South ...Read the entire review

The Movie

Picture this: an action-adventure film using state-of-the-art technology to produce some of the most striking visuals ever committed to film. Utilizing powerful computers, blue screens, and minimalist stages and sets, an entire virtual world is created in which live-action actors perform, having to rely on their intrinsic acting talents to imagine a universe available only within the digital realm. There is a story here, but it's certainly dominated by striking visuals and dazzling special effects which bring a wholly imaginative and brightly detailed universe to life. The film is shot but the visuals...Read the entire review

The Program

Il Belpaese - The Beautiful Country. Your humble reviewer will never forget his first (and, as of this writing, his only) visit to Italy in the summer of 2003. I had just spent two weeks in the Czech Republic (an absolutely stellar place to visit, but that's another conversation entirely) and with a few days to kill, decided to zip over to Florence as fulfillment of a l...Read the entire review

The Movie

Seijun Suzuki's Youth of the Beast is a vicious little bastard of a movie, a two-fisted tale of Technicolor testosterone that swings to a mad vibe of jazz, violence, and revenge. Set in the seedy underworld of Yakuza gang wars, Suzuki's 1963 film is a testament to style and excess; the movie is a striking kaleidoscope of music, color, and attitude. There is a story here, and a compelling one at that, but it is more than a little bit obfuscated by its explosive sense of prese...Read the entire review

The Movie

Set in 14th Century China , Korean director Kim Sung-su's Musa: The Warrior spins a rousing and engaging adventure tale, the like of which seems to have been lost to filmmakers of late. Equal parts fast-moving action extravaganza, big-budget spectacle (the film was shot with a reported ...Read the entire review

The Movie

At this point in the game, being such an unwavering DC Comics geek plays against me while watching Catwoman, the latest round of ammunition proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that, up to Christopher Nolan's involvement in the Batman franchise and Bryan Singer's in Superman, Warner Brothers had absolutely no idea what to do with the rich pantheon of comics characters they own. While rival Marvel has been reaping copious amounts of box-office and critical kudos with their adaptations of Spider-Man, X-Men, and Blade (although faltering a bit with Hulk, whi...Read the entire review

The Movie

When she was a little girl, a gypsy fortune-teller told Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavaliere that she would live to be 96 years old. Cut to 1995, the year in which the Sicilian-American matriarch of her ganse mishpuche reached her 96th birthday. Grandson and filmmaker Alex Halpern decided to grab a camera and document the life of his colorful grandmother, whom he affectionately refers to as "Nana", during the year of her prophesized demise.

And what a life! Filmed in 1995, Nine Good Teeth is a ...Read the entire review

The Movie

Those who are looking for raucous, aggressive, and stylized Samurai adventure and swordplay will be sorely disappointed in Yoji Yamada's exquisite The Twilight Samurai, a haunting and beautiful film set in the transition period between the Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. Although there are two critical duels within the film, it is a drama first and foremost, a meditation about role, happiness, and the assertion of the individual over cultural realizations and class expectations. In the lead...Read the entire review

The Program

In the current socio-political climate, is it even safe to say that Playboy, as an entity, is a safe and generally tame endeavor? Especially in an American society so deathly afraid of anything remotely sexual that the sight of a single areola sends Red-State Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads into screaming fits of dizzying hysteria, the likes of which would make Jonathan Edwards (the fire-and-brimstone preacher, not that other nutsucker) seem cool and rational in comparison? What's that?... What are you supposed to tell your children? Maybe that it's a boob?! Heavens forbid. Read the entire review

The Movie

I first saw Wu jian dao (Infernal Affairs) about a year ago on an all-region DVD, after having been inundated with mountains of hype. The word on this 2002 Hong Kong film was nothing short of miraculous: that it was the crime drama of the new millennium, a modern classic, that the new film from directors Wai Keung Lai and Siu Fai Mak represented the new face of cinema emerging from Hong Kong, etc. I sat down to watch the film and was singularly unimpressed; that is to say, I thought it was a good film -- often a really good film -- but far from great. Granted, much of that had to do with the fact the night befor...Read the entire review

The Movie

There are good movies, there are great movies, and there are movies that defy conventional description. Unfortunately for the latter, that could swing in either direction. As in, some movies are so unbelievably awful that you are left wondering just what in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin' on here. Such is the case with Vidas Privadas (Private Lives), a woefully misguided and generally terrible Argentine film from director/musician Fito PĂ...Read the entire review

The Movie

Paparazzi. Well, I'm not going to waste too much time reviewing this movie, as the promos and trailers not only deliver pretty much the entire plot of the film, but also contain just as much depth, subtlety, and nuance in 30 seconds as this movie delivers in 90 minutes or so. And the beautiful thing about the trailers is that they're over really quickly, and you're free to move on to more endearing or insightful pursuits. Like cross-country yodeling, for instance, or full-contact Parcheesi or Strip Yahtzee.

...Read the entire review

The Movie

I should probably preface this review by admitting that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a golf aficionado. I grew up living across the street from a golf course, and played a lot when I was younger, but I grew out of the sport upon reaching the Age of Reason. That's not a slight against you golf fans out there; it's just not my thing. Plus I royally, royally sucked at it, and had a lot more fun smirking at funny white people in funny clothes while smoking cigars and downing Green Lizards.

So I really didn't know much about the titular hero of Bobby Jones: Stroke of GeniusRead the entire review