The Film:

The Movie

A peculiar hybrid of elegant character study, domestic drama, drug comedy and gritty action thriller, writer-director Tim Blake Nelson's Leaves of Grass is one strange high. Leave it to Nelson, whose filmography is riddled with fascinating projects of his own creation (if you've never seen Eye of God or The Grey Zone, seek them out immediately) and of others' (most likely know Nelson from his sharp work in Syriana, The Incredible Hulk, O Brother, Where Art Thou? or Minority Report). He's a smart, audacious filmmaker who infuses his own work with a high-minded literary streak belying his education at Brown.

Leaves of Grass is no different. Its premise -- twin brothers, one a scholar, one a pot-addled layabout, must mend their strained relationship in order to fend off a vicious drug lord -- is the stuff of innumera...Read the entire review

The Movie

Alone, the names David Lynch and Werner Herzog are enough to get cinephiles' tongues wagging. Together? It portends epic oddities, a fantastical collaboration promising to bend the very boundaries of filmmaking -- right? Sadly, not exactly. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is, it should be noted right up front, is an appropriately off-kilter project for the pair to have joined forces on, but nowhere near the blast of peculiarity most would expect from either director on his own. Herzog does most of the heavy lifting -- he's credited as co-writer and director -- while Lynch is one of the executive producers (perhaps he's responsible for the left-field inclusion of a little person about halfway through?).

My Son, My Son has its roots in reality. The screenplay, authored by Herzog and Herbert Golder, is based upon a true crime tale, in which a young thespian...Read the entire review

In an effort to expand their brand, adult entertainment site SuicideGirls moved from the web to the DVD market with titles like SuicideGirls: The First Tour and SuicideGirls: Italian Villa. I haven't seen them, but based on the trailers on this disc (and a healthy dose of general assumption), they seem to be your basic "behind-the-scenes" DVDs. Now, they're offering two slightly less-standard programs: The SuicideGirls Guide to Living and SuicideGirls Must Die!. The former is a collection of Earth-stoppingly important tips, like how to bail on your wedding and how to kill a vampire. I ended up with the latter, which is supposedly a hidden-camera horror film, shot without the girls' knowledge.

The premise is simple: 14 of the SuicideGirls are packed up (Amina, Bailey, Bully, Daven, Evan, Fractal, James, Joleigh, Mary, Quinne, Roach, Roza, Sawa and Soren), assistant (Rigel) ...Read the entire review

The Product:
Welcome back Nicolas Cage, where ya been? Huh? What's that? You've been working steadily in Hollywood for the last two decades? You're kidding? No...I'm serious. The Nicolas Cage I remember was the firebrand thespian who took risks and kicked ass, applying his unusual gifts to such memorable movies as Raising Arizona, Peggy Sue Got Married, Vampire's Kiss, Wild at Heart, and Leaving Las Vegas (you earned an Oscar for that last one, right?). The one you're talking about watered down his demeanor to earn hefty hackwork paychecks in bilge like Ghost Rider, National Treasure (Parts One and Two), Gone in Sixty Seconds, Next, and the upcoming Sorcerer's Apprentice. The Nic I love is on display in Werner Herzog's brilliant, baffling The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans - and it's this arch, over the t...Read the entire review

Tim Blake Nelson's Leaves of Grass is an honest-to-God American original; I've never seen a film quite like it, with the possible exception of some of the Coen Brothers' more far-out pictures. This is not to say that everything in it works--some of the story threads are half-baked, and the tone is all over the place. But have to admire its gumption; they're going for something off-the-wall and unexpected here, and the resulting product more than fills the bill.

Edward Norton pulls double duty, playing twin brothers from Oklahoma whose lives have taken vastly different turns. Bill, long estranged from his family, is a professor in classical language at Brown and up for a lucrative position at Harvard. Back home, his brother Brady is just about the smartest pot grower around, but in debt up to his neck to the powerful Jewish kingpin Pug Rothbaum (Richard Dreyfuss). When Bill gets word th...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans opens with the image of a snake swimming through the flood waters of New Orleans, and you'll have go a long way to find a more apt metaphor to kick off a picture with. What follows is a wholly indescribable mishmash of the slick and the stank, the cool and the campy. It is, at risk of putting too fine a point on it, almost exactly the film you'd expect Herzog and Nicolas Cage to come up with together.

What it is not is a sequel, remake, "reboot," or "re-imagining" of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film Bad Lieutenant. It is a different story, about a different guy, in a different place, and told in a completely different style (Ferrera's film is a stark, gritty, grim character study, and Herzog's picture, while frequ...Read the entire review

The Movie
It's a tough challenge to make me laugh. The comedy section of my DVD collection is tiny, and my friends get frustrated when I don't succumb to their numerous attempts at breaking my stone-faced demeanor. But I'll tell you the secret weapon: humans embarrassing themselves in mascot suits. I can't explain it, but they do the trick every time (as do their smaller brethren, the Muppets). My favorite part of any Nationals game is the Presidents' Race, where big-headed Teddy Roosevelt crashes and burns while swerving around the bases to the finish line (poor Teddy! Will he never win?!). I never met a mascot-themed SportsCenter commercial I didn't like (Read the entire review

THE FILM

Two ninja-centric feature films released in the span of six months? Normally, a cause for celebration. Criminally, the two pictures in question are "Ninja Assassin" and now the bluntly titled "Ninja," a pair of features slicing well below the genre's tradition of trashy entertainment. Made on the cheap, horrendously performed, and executed more as a flashy director's reel than a consistent motion picture, "Ninja" irritates far more than it thrills. Ninja pictures come around with all the regularity of Halley's Comet, making the complete uselessness of the feature all the more excruciating.

Casey (Scott Adkins) is a Caucasian warrior, abandoned in Japan long ago and raised in a dojo, under the watchful eye of Sensei (Togo Igawa). Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara) is a rival student, filled with jealousy and rage issues, unable to handle Casey's presence. When Masazuka l...Read the entire review

THE PROGRAM

One doesn't pop a movie titled simply, "Ninja" in their DVD player expecting high art. Ninjas were a popular b-movie staple in the 80s, becoming synonymous with the leading name in b-movies, The Cannon Group. The most memorable entries in the ninja genre either featured Sho Kosugi or Michael Dudikoff, whose ninja films are remembered for far different reasons than the formers. 2009 was looking to be a very notable year for fans of ninjas; Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were shaping up to be the only good part of the "GI Joe" movie, "V for Vendetta" director James McTeigue was helming a $60million dollar ninja epic titled "Ninja Assassin",...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Triangle must have been a tough movie to market. A story this layered and packed with such surprising potential demands a wide audience and yet to spell out why this is the case would undermine its effectiveness. In order to get around this, the film has been marketed as a horror movie with images of a killer wearing a burlap sack mask splashed across the front and back of the DVD case. While there are horrifying elements to the film, I must say that Triangle is definitely not a horror movie. It is an intricately constructed perpetual motion machine that keeps ticking away powered by a compelling performance from Melissa George under the watchful eye of writer / director Christopher Smith.

The film opens with ominous but beautiful music as we peek in on Jess (Melissa George) and her autistic son Tommy (Joshua McIvor) in their home life. Jess goes about her ...Read the entire review

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Before she so much as steps foot aboard the boat, Jess (Melissa George) looks drained...distant. You'd think she'd appreciate the break. It's supposed to be a breezy Saturday of sa...Read the entire review

The Film:

In early 2009, I got my first glimpse of Infestation in the form of a YouTube trailer, which suggested the movie was destined for theaters. No dice. Seven months later, a commercial popped on the TV announcing the movie's premiere on the SyFy channel, and then yet one more month later the DVD was on the shelf in a Fry's Electronics. Having finally gotten ahold of a copy, the film was more or less worth the wait. Admittedly, I'm biased towards this kind of movie: creatures getting splattered in a mish-mash of comedy and sci-fi or horror (preferrably, if you really want to boil it down, with a schlub in an increasingly battered suit as the hero), so perhaps that affected (or infected) my enjoyment of the film, but even then, this is a perfectly amusing time-waster.

In the case of Infestation, the schlubby suit-wearer is a character named Cooper, played by Chris Marquette. In 2004 a...Read the entire review

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Alice (Brittany Murphy) has a deadline bearing down on her, and what's a budding screenwriter to do...? Sure, she could hole up in her apartment until it's done, but then her fresh-out-...Read the entire review

"Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" is not a sequel to the brutal 1992 Abel Ferrara motion picture. In fact, there's no viable reason to label the film a "Bad Lieutenant" adventure at all. "Port of Call," while duly twisted and tormented, just might confuse cult film fanatics lining up for a second helping. Instead of advancing Ferrara's story in some trivial way, "Port of Call" cooks up an entirely fresh adventure of behavioral disease, turning the spotlight on Nicolas Cage and his boundless capability to personify the melting of a man's soul.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a heroic act has left Lieutenant Terrence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) with severe back pain, requiring a steady stream of prescription drugs to temper. When his attention turns to further chemic...Read the entire review

Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans opens with the image of a snake swimming through the flood waters of New Orleans, and you'll have go a long way to find a more apt metaphor to kick off a picture with. What follows is a wholly indescribable mishmash of the slick and the stank, the cool and the campy. It is, at risk of putting too fine a point on it, almost exactly the film you'd expect Herzog and Nicolas Cage to come up with together.

What it is not is a sequel, remake, "reboot," or "re-imagining" of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film Bad Lieutenant. It is a different story, about a different guy, in a different place, and told in a completely different style (Ferrera's film is a stark, gritty, grim character study, and Herzog's picture, while frequently disturbing, pla...Read the entire review

THE FILM

Sex, sin, and Catholic guilt. If there's a better recipe for cinematic troublemaking, I don't want to know about it. "Into Temptation" dives into the deep end of collar-tightening, rosary-fingering unrest, creating a riveting momentum as it looks to articulate the push and pull between the obligations of religion and the overwhelming sway of sexuality. Sharply constructed with a heavy spray of noirish aroma, "Into Temptation" is a uniquely accomplished indie film, wielding salacious material sensitively, building an intoxicating sense of intrigue and discomfort.

Slightly bored with his daily business as a priest, Father John Buerlien (Jeremy Sisto) finds the arrival of a prostitute named Linda (Kristin Chenoweth) in his confessional captures his curiosity. Asking for absolution before she attempts suicide, Linda takes off into the night, leaving John consumed with findin...Read the entire review

THE FILM

The horror remake train makes another stop with "It's Alive," an update of the 1974 Larry Cohen cult shocker. It almost goes without saying that the 2009 pass at the material doesn't match Cohen's austere initial take, but the absence of suspense or even basic waves of dread deflates this remake upon liftoff. A killer, bloodsucking baby film shouldn't be this passive and tedious.

Expecting her first child, Lenore (Bijou Phillips) has elected to leave grad school, putting her future on hold to raise the infant with her boyfriend, Frank (James Murray), and his disabled son, Chris (Raphael Coleman). When baby Daniel comes calling three months premature, Lenore goes under for a C-section, only to awaken with her baby and an operating room filled with dea...Read the entire review

I'm not going to lie: on the whole, reviewing movies is pretty easy. If there's a challenge, though, it's not so much figuring out what to say about a given movie, but saying something you haven't said before. Whether or not that task is easy is not based on the basic quality of the film, but which elements, from the directing on down to the props, make the film entertaining (or not entertaining). Thus, the most challenging kind of film you can get stuck with is one that's neither here nor there: technically competent but lacking any creative spark or innovation. The Code is one of those films.

Morgan Freeman plays Keith Ripley, a thief looking to score big by stealing a couple of long-lost Faberge eggs from the vaults of Russian diamond merchant Romanov's. To accomplish such a task, Ripley needs a partner, so he enlists the help of Gabriel Martin (Antonio Banderas), a Miami diam...Read the entire review

Don't let the big names fool you: "The Code" is limp enough a thriller to deserve the direct-to-video treatment it's received. The film, starring Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas and directed by Mimi Leder ("Deep Impact"), is a low rent mess, full of stale premises and tiresome character work. It's full of the sorts of flat storytelling you'd expect from a bottom shelf B-picture; it's tough to imagine anyone thinking casting alone would make this a hit.

Banderas plays Gabriel Martin, a rough, inexperienced thief who, in the film's only exciting scene, attempts to swipe a briefcase full of diamonds while riding the New York subway; his failure leads to a tense showdown and a daring escape. This catches the eye of Keith Ripley (Freeman), a veteran burglar known for swiping high end artwork. Ripley has been hired/coerced by the Russian mob to relieve a couple rare Faberge eggs from a Russian jew...Read the entire review

The Movie:

I love a good heist picture, and I'll see Morgan Freeman in just about anything. You might feel the same way. So here's a warning: those predispositions will get you through about the first five minutes of his straight-to-video caper The Code. After that, you're on your own.

An ascot-wearing Freeman plays Keith Ripley, one of those only-in-the-movies "master thief" types, who lives comfortably and classily and has always managed to outwit the oafish police. While casing some Russians for a job, he observes Gabriel Martin (Antonio Banderas) pull a ballsy robbery in plain sight on a moving subway car; he's impressed, so he brings the young (ish?) buck on for a monster score, stealing a pair of Faberge eggs for the Russian mob. On their tail is Lt. Weber (Robert Forster), the NYPD detective who Ripley has outfoxed; Ripley's goddaughter Alexandra (Radha Mitchell), who ...Read the entire review

"We are

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now up against a live, hostile target. So, if Little Red Riding Hood should show up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, I'd expect you to chin the bitch."

...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Ambition is a tricky thing. On one hand, the ambition to be something more than a thug in the streets of New York inspired writer Dito Montiel to leave his home and write a memoir about his youth, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints--thus transferring that ambition to the character Dito Montiel on the printed page. On the other hand, that same ambition has now compelled him to write and direct the film adaptation himself, and it's in this endeavor that Montiel's ambition gets the better of him.

The film opens on the adult Dito (Robert Downey Jr.) giving a reading from his book, setting up the conceit that A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a work of memory, one where Dito Montiel exists on two timelines. He is the nostalgic man who c...Read the entire review

Despite a popular run at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, Vin Diesel's feature debut, "Strays," sat around unreleased for over a decade, even as Diesel's star rose and fell with the action movie tides. When the star first hit the scene, we were told he wasn't just some lug, but a full-on filmmaker, having written and directed both this feature and a short ("Multi-Facial," which dealt with his struggles as a young actor of mixed heritage) that won the attention of those watching the festival scene. And yet it's not until now, in the middle of a notable lull in Diesel's career, that "Strays" finally finds sees the light of day.

But while the film is being marketed as a peek at Early Vin, it's actually more notable as a peek of a certain age of filmmaking. "Strays" has Mid-90s Indie Flick written all over it: the grainy photography, the shot-on-the-fly sidewalk scenes, the emphasis on character ove...Read the entire review

The Film:
There are movies that you watch that you don't see in theaters or buy on DVD, but instead either catch late at night on cable or perhaps rent for a few dollars from your local video store. These aren't the best movies by any stretch of the imagination, but when you can't sleep and there's nothing else on, or when you seem to have rented everything else on the shelves, these are the films that we turn to. Honestly, many of these films are terrible and not worth watching no mater how much you can't sleep. But every now and then one of these films, while not being the greatest achievement in cinematic history, still manages to be effectively entertaining.

Frida Farrell stars as Jane, a loving wife who also happens to be a highly efficient contract killer for the CIA. Having settled down into a normal life with a loving husband, Jane finds that her world quickly falls apart when she ...Read the entire review

The Film:
I'm probably going to get in some sort of trouble for this review, but honestly, I don't care. Ninja Collection is a three disc set of ten ninja movies. I watched four of the films all the way through, two of the films part way through, and with the other four I tried to watch them, but they were so terrible I never made it more than 15 minutes into any of them. So, what you're about to read is an abbreviated review of a ten-film collection that I did not watch in its entirety. If anyone has a problem with that, then I would challenge them to sit through all ten movies in this poorly produced package meant to lure unsuspecting rubes with an appreciation for schlock. Of course, the problem is there is a fine line that separates schlock and shit.

The packaging promises that "the history of the deadly Ninja warriors is presented for the first time in this 10 volume series." I suppos...Read the entire review

UFC 87, with the inane subtitle Seek and Destroy, took place on August 9th, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The prelims began with Ben Saunders Vs. Ryan Thomas- Saunders is a very tall and lanky welterweight and if that wasn't enough of an advantage, Thomas was also a late replacement. A decent scrap with a nice finish by some guys who need some seasoning. Be it conditioning or jitters, both are very tired by only the second round. Chris Wilson Vs Steve Bruno- Again, WW's, with the mix it up striking of Wilson versus the wrestling base of Bruno. Aside from Wilson's unpredictable combos, my biggest impression was wonderment at the dumb local referee (Nick Gamst), who kept telling them to fight or breaking up moments when they were fighting for position or in natural states of catching a needed breath. Jon Jones Vs. Andre Gusmao- It is stated that 21 year old forme...Read the entire review

UFC 85 took place on June 7, 2008 in London England and was troubled form the start. A plague of injuries lead to the main event being changed several times, from Chuck Liddell Vs. "Shogun" Rua, to Liddell Vs. Rashad Evans, to Evans Vs., if memory serves me, James Irvin, to finally Matt Hughes Vs. Thiago Alves. Likewise the co-main event, Chirs Leben Vs. Micheal Bisping was scrapped when Leben had legal troubles so the lesser known Jason Day stepped up. In addition, the preliminary undercard had a few dropped fights and late replacements.

The preliminary card begins with Antoni Hardonk Vs. Eddie Sanchez- Sanchez clocks Hardonk early and follows him to the mat where Hardonk does a good job of tying up. In the second Hardonk mounts a comeback, seemingly aided by the fact that Sanchez has no conditioning, is slowed, and labors to keep his hands up. Jeff Liaudin Vs. Paul Taylor- Commen...Read the entire review

Assuming most anyone clicking on this has some knowledge of mixed martial arts, lets get right to it shall we? Las Vegas, NV. July 5th, 2008. A bunch of men fought on pay per view.

First of all, in the opening prelims, we see in the background evidence of the jaded Vegas audience. Fight fans inexplicably pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in tickets but don't show up for the early fights leaving the bleachers sparsely occupied. This is also true of boxing and for the life of me I'll never understand it. To me its like buying a movie ticket and walking into the theater an hour late.

Corey Hill Vs. Justin Buchholz- Corey Hill is 6'4 and fights as a lightweight. His arms and legs appear to be about the same circumference as a Ultra Fine Point Sharpie and his ribs and spine are so defined under his skin, one imagines he could get Sally Struthers to be one of his fight sponsors. For the m...Read the entire review

The host of this compilation is Anonymous Voice Over Guy. In the past UFC has gone with windbag commentator Mike Goldberg, or fighters like Chuck Liddell and Rich Franklin, but in recent years they have increasingly been taking their cues from NFL Films and HBO 24/7 boxing series by going with Anonymous Voice Over Guy and I think it is an excellent choice. It is that basic combo of a good montage and godlike narration that really imparts an air of seriousness.

The compilation includes the following eleven bouts: Pete Sell Vs. Scott Smith (The Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale)- An excellent way to begin because this fight has gone down in history for its dramatic conclusion. The first round is fairly uneventful with both men cheerily high fiving each other and smiling between bouts of bad kickboxing and squared up slugging. Then, in round two, Sell lands a perfect left hook to the body which wilts Smi...Read the entire review

The Film:
When it comes to prison exploitation movies where the hero is forced to fight to stay alive, slugging it out against other inmates in brutal gladiatorial matches, there are no better films that Jamaa Fanaka's classic Penitentiary trilogy. Between those three films, you pretty much get everything you could ever hope to have in a prison movie--and even things you didn't know you wanted in a prison movie--making the Penitentiary films the stick by which all others must be measured. In fact, Fanaka's films are so brilliant, and cover so much territory, everything that has followed in their wake seems like a rip-off. Undisputed and Undisputed 2? Total rip offs of Penitentiary. And while it may not be a total rip-off, director Ringo Lam's In Hell, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, really should have a special thanks to Fanaka in the credits, because nearly...Read the entire review

Directors: Olivier Assayas, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron, Gerard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydes, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, and Gus Van Sant

Actors: Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, Gerard Depardieu, Ben Gazzara, Nick Nolte, Natalie Portman, Gena Rowlands, Elijah Wood, et. al.

The Film

Paris, Je T'Aime provides eighteen love stories, set in eighteen Paris boroughs, by twenty directors, in two hours. It's a harmless romp around one of the world's great cities by good actors guided by competent directors. Although assigned an R (restricted) rating by the MPAA for language and brief drug use, Paris, Je T'Aime is an inoffensive film as suitabl...Read the entire review

Wasn't this supposed to be fun? Shouldn't a comic romp with the gorgeous and the filthy rich at a French resort be just the sort of lighter-than-air cinematic soufflé they don't seem to make anymore, the sort that whisks us away to lush escapist romance?

But here we have "Priceless," which dresses the lovely, pocket-sized starlet Audrey Tautou in the finest fashions, then lets her loose on the Riviera. The whole thing, which opens with a snappy, winking rendition of "It's Cheaper to Keep Her," is meant to stir up fond memories of Audrey Hepburn's frothiest screen efforts, yet everything's gone sour, with characters too wicked to love yet not wicked enough to love to hate; it's a drippy romance between two schemers whose schemes never thrill us.

Tautou is Irène, a gold digger who prowls for the wealthiest men, each one all too eager to provide her with the finest clothes and jewelry, and...Read the entire review