WALK THE LINE
Joaquin Phoenix owns the spirit of Johnny Cash for the duration of the well-edited film. He expresses Cash’s tortured emotional…
Film Reviews
HARRY AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE
With the inane promise of making the “darkest” Harry Potter movie yet, Mike Newell (producer on “The Constant Gardener”) takes…
ZATHURA: A SPACE ADVENTURE
“Zathura: A Space Adventure” is a mediocre children’s movie based on the reworking of an already faulty formula (see “Jumanji”)…
CAPOTE
Truman Capote presents himself as a sympathetic opposite to everyone he encounters. His relationships with people are predicated on his…
JARHEAD
The anti-war polemic of “Jarhead” is carried in the subtext of every scene in the movie, but it’s never directly…
SAW II
The “Saw” films are members of an ilk of extreme horror movies like “High Tension” and “Wolf Creek” where victims…
NORTH COUNTRY
New Zealand woman director Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”) makes efficient use of Bob Dylan songs to punctuate a deeply personal…
SHOPGIRL
Steve Martin makes his personal dysfunctional romantic proclivities the subject of a brittle romantic comedy that affords painfully little romance…
DOMINO
Keira Knightly slums her talents as pretty girl bounty hunter Domino Harvey in director Tony Scott’s (“Man On Fire”) cartoonish…
WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT
British Claymation geniuses Nick Park and Steve Box bring to life their best-loved characters Wallace (voiced by veteran actor Peter…
OLIVER TWIST
Polanski’s “Oliver Twist” is a satisfying rendition of Dickens’ classic that’s marred only by its inept musical score. The movie…
THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO
The movie can be looked on for its incidental evidence of everything wrong with American capitalist obsessed ideology. Evelyn is…
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE — CANNES 2005
The double meaning of the film’s title (either as a historic document or, as its intended purpose, a man with…
THE BAXTER
“The Baxter” is a good-hearted romantic comedy that achieves its uncomplicated comic goal of presenting an underdog love story filled…
LORD OF WAR
“Lord Of War” kicks in with a virtuosic CGI credit sequence that follows the manufacture of a bullet in an…
PROOF
“Proof,” based on David Auburn’s wildly popular stage play, is a sensitive take on the same mathematical milieu and emotional…
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Corporate Corruption, Crime Drama, Drama, Film Reviews, FOUR STARS, Literary Adaptation, Political Thriller, Politics, Suspense, True Crime, Women's Cinema
Weisz unites Tessa’s hyper-quick mind with a distinctive enthusiasm for all things corporeal. There’s a specific tempo to her movements…
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
The epithet of “The Exorcist” as the “scariest movie ever made” is secure until some overtly ambitious filmmaker dares to…
THE MAN
Director Les Mayfield (“Blue Streak”) relies on a funky musical score by John Murphy (“28 Days Later”) and a rugged…
THE BROTHERS GRIMM
Monica Bellucci steals the movie as The Mirror Queen a 500-year-old immortal ruler intent on attaining eternal beauty by way…
COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA
