Syndicate content

Inception: A Film for People Who Aren't Intellectuals, but Think They Are

Add Comment

There’re a few different questions people ask each other when first meeting: Where are you from, what kind of music do you listen to and what kind of movies do you like. There’s obviously a pompous answer for each as well as one designed to make the speaker sound as intelligent or well informed as possible. In the realm of film, saying something like “I watch movies that keep me on the edge of my seat,” not only fails to denote what kind of movies you like, but unwittingly makes the speaker sound like a lame advertisement.

Either way, Inception, directed by the omni-obtuse Christopher Nolan, seems to be made for just that sort of person.

Read more >

Kids See Dead People

Add Comment

What if the whole Bruce Willis scenario in The Sixth Sense were much more than M. Night Shyamalan’s greatest hit film? Caron Goode is playing a true life, though living, role of Wills’s character, investigating the minds of children who might possibly see ghosts.

The psychologist says that her efforts stem from her own childhood experiences, and she’s out to discover whether or not the imaginary friends that so many kids have are actually the spirits of the dead instead. She’s even written a book, Kids Who See Ghosts: How to Guide Them Through Fear, about it.

Read more >

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Add Comment

I don't go to McDonald's for delicious, nutritious food. If I ever go there, it's because I want something fast, inconsequential and horrible in all those ways we tell ourselves we don't like, even if we do. In the same sense, I don't go to Disney movies for inventive, artistically meaningful cinema. Just like everyone who ever complained that McDonald's isn't healthy, everyone who knocks Disney for making empty, pandering spectacles is really missing the point. That's why The Sorcerer's Apprentice isn't exactly deserving of all its lukewarm reviews. It never makes any pretensions to being anything but an amusement park ride, so it's not exactly worthwhile to compare it to the better movies of the summer.



Read more >

Mo Better Blues: A Jazzbo's Life (Part Two)

Add Comment

If there was any sort of specific cultural commentary being levied on a portion of the American population by Mo Better Blues, it probably dealt with black musicians. With that, though, came the almost unavoidable clichés that trail behind commenting on the life of an artist.

Denzel Washington’s Bleek Gilliam leads a successful band – one indebted to the bop sounds of the forties and fifties. Accompanied by Shadow, as played by Wesley Snipes, Gilliam’s band is in the middle of a long engagement at the aforementioned club managed by the Flatbush brothers. So far, nothing seems trite.

Read more >

Futurama: "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela"

Add Comment

So after Futurama got off to a good second start with "Rebirth", how would things shape up with the first "regular" episode of the revival? A mysterious planet-destroying spaceship (with a suspiciously familiar name) forces Leela and Zapp Brannigan into a very cramped stealth craft to neutralize the offensive vessel. But their mission goes awry, and strange things are afoot "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", the second episode of the sixth season of Futurama.

Read more >

Death Proof: Q: Is Tarantino Sexist? A: Probably Not. (Part Two)

Add Comment

There isn’t a single woman on the face of the earth who should be put in a situation where she feels threatened and vulnerable to some type of sexual aggression. Simple as that. What gets glossed over pretty frequently amidst the uproar that is equality and female empowerment is that there are more instances of not getting assaulted on a daily basis that acts of violence towards women.

Read more >

From Dusk Till Dawn: Too Many Characters and One of 'ems a Pervert (Part One)

Add Comment

While From Dusk Till Dawn isn’t a proper Quentin Tarantino film, he wrote and acted in the thing as opposed to directing it, the effort still figures into the man’s public persona. But while most folks who’ve written on the topic of this movie, it seems that most of those lines were reserved for plot summary. That endeavor really shouldn’t have taken too much. While there’s action and occurrences in this flick, the narrative can be summed up pretty quickly.

Read more >

Kill Bill, Vol. 2: More Average Cinema (Part Two)

Add Comment

The visual element is amped up here during the second installment of the Kill Bill films – and its not just about finally getting to see the man named in the title of the film either. There’s a wider color palette utilized here as the action moves from underground, literally, in Texas to somewhere atop a mountain in China. Simply by dearth of location, this second film looks different. But the Bride is transformed as well – no longer is she a Bruce Lee reference, but a stylish, if not casual, woman on a mission.

Read more >

Kill Bill, Vol. 1: Appropriating Shakespeare and Kurosawa (Part Two)

Add Comment

With such a broad historical underpinning, it would make sense that the dialogue, something for which Tarantino was already known, would come off rather easy being cribbed, borrowed and appropriated from any number of sources. And maybe it would have if not for some of the wooden performances turned in.

As the Bride, Uma Thurman was extending her Hollywood cache to unforeseen places – being the focal point of about four hours of footage. Her performance in this first film, though, isn’t too remarkable. Certainly the physicality required for this role was daunting, but even in the Bride’s first fight scene where she’s pitted against Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), finds the actress trading nonsensical lines that could have come off if not for the delivery.

Read more >

Death Proof: Q: Is Tarantino Sexist? A: Probably Not. (Part One)

Add Comment

Grindhouse was a flop. Even splitting the multi-film aggregate into two parts, separating the Robert Rodriguez effort, Planet Terror, from Tarantino’s Death Proof didn’t help at all. Inserting the in-between film mock advertisements didn’t ingratiate the film to aficionados, who were assumed to have been hip to such throw backs. Even the inclusion of Eli Roth, director of the Saw franchise, couldn’t add a bit of cool cache to the entire thing. It was a flop. And there was nothing to do about it – even turn it over to Cannes and hope that a longer version caught some critic’s eye.

Read more >

Syndicate content