I saw two films at the Tribeca film festival, and this was the first. It’s a historical epic from China based on a book that’s been popular over there for hundreds of years. There’s lots of action - some of it cool, some of it silly - and it was great to see Sammo Hung […]

This was one of the few films of 2007 that I really wanted to see in the theater but somehow missed. I really don’t know what to write about it. I liked it a lot, but part of it made me want to dislike it right after I started it. Why? It’s your typical indie […]

I knew this was going to be shitty. When I first saw the trailer, I knew I was going to be disappointed. When it was first announced even, I knew I wouldn’t like it. And when I popped it into the DVD player (or blu-ray, I guess) recently, I knew that I wasn’t going to […]

It was a bit of a stretch to see a whole town go along and pretend that Lars’ doll was a real person, but the charm of Lars, his brother and his sister-in-law doesn’t wear off. Lars turns into an asshole after a while, acting as if his doll was offended by certain words or […]

This was such a surprise. It’s a bit sad that good, old-fashioned, character-driven, family-oriented comedies - the ones we used to see in theaters all the time 15-20 years ago - have almost completely disappeared. Instead, we get quirky independent comedy dramas, silly goofball comedies, kids movies, big-budget TV show remakes, or one-note concept films. […]

I love dark, gritty cop dramas, but the genre might have run out of steam. There was a resurgence a few years ago with a number of stylish new films that didn’t shy away from violence and showed both good and bad cops. But after films like Traffic, Narc, Dark Blue and Training Day coming […]

The spaghetti western is one of my favorite sub-genres, and my favorite spaghetti westerns are the ones that have American stars. Back in the 60s and 70s, for James Coburn, Henry Fonda or Charles Bronson to go to Italy to headline a cheap Italian film (western, cop movie, horror film) must have been like Stallone, […]

A snore of a movie. The film consists of three stories. One features Meryl Streep as a journalist interviewing senator Tom Cruise in his office. It takes place almost entirely in the senator’s office. The other story focuses on professor Robert Redford who is meeting with one of his students. That story takes place almost […]

This is a Cannon sci-fi thriller that I had never heard much about… until now. I saw that it was on Universal HD, so I recorded it. It’s Cannon, how can I live a full life without having seen it? I was surprised how good the film looked. The effects must have cost a fortune, […]

Tony Kaye (American History X) goes on a bit too long (2 1/2 hours) in his (mostly) unbiased documentary about abortion. Kaye also puts too much focus on fundamentalist Pro-Life activism, which gave me the feeling that that side of the spectrum wasn’t represented very accurately. The documentary has plenty of disturbing aborted baby film […]

I got a kick out of Richard Shepard’s last flick, The Matador, and I’ve been looking forward to his latest, The Hunting Party, for a while. Sadly, it only had a limited release and went by unnoticed. It played at the Landmark Sunshine in my street, but with all the awards films coming out at […]

What happened to Rod Lurie? He started out with an interesting doomsday thriller in 1999 (Deterrence), followed it up with the terrific political thriller The Contender in 2000, but then struck out with the Robert Redford/James Gandolfini prison flick The Last Castle a year later. He didn’t make any more films until last year’s Resurrecting […]

I saw an amazing film the other day called Half Nelson. It was so amazing that I decided to update my 2006 Top 10 list. I urge everyone to see it. It came out on DVD on the 13th and it is up for an Academy Award for Best Actor Ryan Gosling. While I didn’t […]

There are still a handful of films from last year that I need to see before I finalize my top 10 list. But, I can that out of the 80+ films I saw that were released last year, my absolute favorite was Children of Men. The Alfonso Cuaron film is a bleak mix of action, […]

Nobody can resist writing anything about Borat without giving it a dumb title that uses his broken English. So I will.
I enjoyed the movie a lot. Is it the funniest movie ever? Nope… is it the funniest movie of year? Definitely - probably of the last few years. Like everyone else this past weekend, I […]

Here’s what I’ve been watching recently, starting with what I watched last night. Each is followed by a star rating:
-Nacho Libre. I didn’t care much for Napoleon Dynamite, so it came to no surprise to me that I didn’t dig this second film from Jared Hess, either. There are a few funny moments thanks […]

Well, maybe it’s not a preview if you live in the UK, where each Up entry premieres on public television, but here in the US, the Up documentaries are released theatrically. I’m an enormous fan of the Uppers, as they’re called, so I couldn’t wait and asked someone in the UK to tape it for […]

At this year’s Academy Awards, films tackling very important issues facing our world today got the spotlight: racial tension, homosexuality, corporate scandals, sexual harassment, third world hunger, you name it. Yet, one of the most serious problems facing our country - somewhat of a social taboo - got no attention. You can only talk about […]