There was every reason to assume that Angels & Demons would be a better movie than The Da Vinci Code back in 2006, for a simple reason: the novel by Dan Brown that Angels is based on was better than its sequel, which was largely content to repeat it in most important ways, with the only difference being that The Da Vinci Code replaced Angels‘s fairly sedate Illuminati-flavored adventure mystery […]
I have just learned that Jules Dassin, director of such crime/noir masterpieces as Naked City, Thieves’ Highway, and Rififi, among many other films in an exceptionally varied career, has passed away at the age of 96. One can’t really have a moment of silence on a blog very well, but I’m going to ask for one anyway. Anyhow, April’s movies: the last bastion of smallish projects before Popcorn Season hits. […]
The life of a dedicated Woody Allen apologist has gotten harder lately, and this is, ironically enough, because he finally came out with a really great film not that long ago. Back in 2002, when the recent examples of “good” Allen were Deconstructing Harry and Sweet and Lowdown, it was not so very hard to look somebody in the eye, and lie to them without a moment’s hesitation, “Hollywood Ending […]
And so another prestige season comes to a close, making the cinema safe for cheap romantic comedies and cheaper slasher films once more. Just four Fridays of Oscarbait between here and what I’m already taking to calling “RamboMonth.” Out of giddy anticipation, of course. Not really. 7.12.2007New Line is pitching money hand-over-fist to convince us that The Golden Compass and its presumptive sequels are the natural and inevitable heirs to […]
Drumroll…after the glut of Oscarbaiting year-end epics, Hollywood begins its annual three-month dumping of the crappiest of the crappy. Only thing is, with Oscar season producing as many misfires as it did this year, can January actually be any worse? 5.1.2007Apparently, the answer to that question is “yes,” or so I am led to believe by Code Name: The Cleaner, a film involving…oh, why bother with the plot? It’s a […]
