While watching “A Bug’s Life,” I kept marveling at how far computer animation has come since “Toy Story.” I remember being impressed by the 64-bit graphics on my computer games, wondering how they could ever improve on the technology. Now computers are capable of making believable dinosaurs, awesome acts of nature, not to mention whole movies like “Toy Story” and “Antz.” Read the rest of this entry »
As inevitable as a Lance Bass VH1 Where Are They Now special, Man of the House pits hound dog-faced Tommy Lee Jones against a gaggle of perky Texas cheerleaders. It was only a matter of time before Jones joined the fish out of water club, and his gruff, no-nonsense attitude is the perfect counterbalance to the pom-pom mentality of a quintet of sequined sirens. Read the rest of this entry »
Oh, the horror! The inhumanity! The drudgery of having to sit through another neo-noir thriller that barely has time to get on its feet before it stumbles under the weight of a top-heavy performance by Nicolas Cage, seamy direction by Joel Schumacher, and a patchwork script by that guy who wrote “Seven.” “8mm” is a nifty title for a film that’s not nearly as clever. Read the rest of this entry »
Two movies opened recently with the 1970’s as their backdrop. First there was Tamara Jenkins’ darkly comic "Slums of Beverly Hills," and then Mark Christopher’s "54," which despite it’s glitz and glamour, is just in the dark. Read the rest of this entry »
The James Bond franchise has become so enormous and established (19 official entries and counting) that one no longer reviews them in comparison to other films. You review each new entry in context with those that came before it. Where does it fit into the James Bond scheme of things? Read the rest of this entry »
BAD COMPANY (PG-13)
Sir Anthony Hopkins should be more discrete choosing which movies to make. If he keeps making donkey droppings like “Bad Company,” the Queen may not only ask for his title back, but ask him to give up his citizenship. Read the rest of this entry »
The Grotowski home is not the house that love built. Three generations of Grotowski men live under the same roof, but they’re not really a family. There’s patriarch Buck (Peter Boyle), who laments he’s so old he “can’t even remember what a woman smells like.” His son Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) has been raised to follow in his father’s loveless and prejudiced footsteps. Read the rest of this entry »
ALCHEMIST, THE (PG-13)
Serviceable thriller stars Grant Show (Melrose Place) and Ruth Gemmell as two employees of a top secret pharmaceutical company whose latest fertility drug is causing some horrific side effects. Unaware of what their company is up to, Show and Gemmell are shocked when a local reporter clues them in. Read the rest of this entry »
Most milestones are marked with a party, and even though the champagne loses its fizz before the final reel, “Die Another Day,” is still cause for celebration. The twentieth film in the James Bond franchise, “Die Another Day” arrives forty years after the release of “Dr. No.” Read the rest of this entry »
How could spending two hours on a deserted beach with Harrison Ford turn out to be a bad thing? That’s the question I kept asking myself after sitting through the intolerable “6 Days, 7 Nights,” a film so derivative and cloying you wonder why the box office giant would even agree to tackle such drivel. “6 Days, 7 Nights” wastes much more than a decent performance by Ford as a grizzled South Seas cargo pilot who winds up playing Robinson Crusoe to Anne Heche’s “Girl Friday.” Michael Browning’s screenplay, a blender mix of several other better films, becomes one clunky moment after another, directed with sledgehammer precision by Ivan Reitman, who should know better. Read the rest of this entry »
