It’s a sign of the unmistakable cinematic power of Lucky You that when I went looking for the poster for this review, I couldn’t remember what it was called. I couldn’t remember what it was about. And I had some sense that Drew Barrymore was in it, and wasn’t all that good. This was a […]

I’ve been trying and trying, but I can’t pretend that Short Cuts doesn’t exist. The reason that I bring this up is Jindabyne, third film in 21 years by director Ray Lawrence (of Bliss, which I haven’t seen, and Lantana, which I haven’t seen either), which is adapted from “So Much Water So Close to […]

There are those who say that the wave of the future in movie-watching is in downloading and DVDs. Perhaps, but I desperately hope not. As a filmgoer, I like that sense of occasion, and of course the feeling of being in a room full of strangers sharing a common experience. As a filmmaker, well, let’s […]

Having signed a new lease this weekend, I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time with a film about the dark side of apartment dwelling: Roman Polanski’s The Tenant, the third film in a loose thematic trilogy about renters going insane. The film about apartment-hunters going insane, a subject with which I am […]

So let’s recap: it’s 1979, and schlock producer Sean S. Cunningham wants to make a psycho killer movie. He does so with a script by soap veteran Victor Miller and the uncredited Ron Kurz, in which seven teenagers go into the woods and die. There’s a bit more to it than that, I suppose, but […]

It is nigh unto objectively true that Spider-Man 3 is not nearly as good as Spider-Man or Spider-Man 2, but that is not quite mean that it is in fact bad. It’s a good comic book movie that suffers only because everyone expected (reasonably) that it was going to be a masterpiece. There are, I […]

The Invisible is quite probably the most dreary film I have seen all year. “What’s that?” you challenge. “A mash-up of Ghost and The O.C. with a point-of-view directed with uncompromising resolve at the protagonist’s navel is bad?” Sadly, yes. Here we have Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin of War of the Worlds, although to me […]

For a long time, I thought Jessica Biel was a terrible actress, but ever since last summer’s The Illusionist I’ve been slowly reconsidering that position. Now I find another argument in her favor: she goes through the film Next with a queer, confused look plastered on her face, admitting no other emotion, suggesting she can’t […]

“[T]he modern French cinema consists of two kinds of movies, ” I suggested in my review of The Page Turner, “awful romantic comedies and fantastic thrillers,” and The Valet is a sterling example of the wrong kind. “Awful” is harsh. But it’s not very good, and compared to the only other film I’ve seen by […]

Talk about your refreshing changes from the ordinary! Jake Kasdan, veteran of Freaks and Geeks, has taken his unique insight into the inner workings of network television decision-making, and turned it into The TV Set, a bold new satire with the daring to tell it like it is: it’s a Hollywood film that, believe it […]