I was somewhat taken aback when, in a short speech after the opening performance of her production of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson," director Saret Scott opined that the middle-aged Wilson is already one of the great American playwrights. But after seeing "The Piano Lesson" I can find little grounds on which to disagree with her.
In his book, "Crimes Against Nature," Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. demonstrates that he is the definition of a true patriot. While the Bush administration attempts to evoke patriotism by fighting terrorists, which evidently includes donning flight-suits to announce the end of Middle Eastern "conflicts" and alerting the public about frightening terror-alert colors, Kennedy focuses on a fundamental issue that citizens could actually exert control over: the environment.
"Boogeyman"
Every friendship is full of stories, sentiments and unforgettable moments shared together. "Sideways," the latest triumph by director and writer Alexander Payne ("About Schmidt"), deals with the complex subject of relationships in a way that is moving, intelligent and hilarious all at once.
The best journalism is undoubtedly that which does not read like typical journalism. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, for instance, wrote in the third person primarily to suck the journalistic tedium out of their Watergate saga "All the President's Men." The result was a modern nonfiction classic. Upton Sinclair is today revered as one of history's most important muckraker journalists. It is both ironic and fitting that his most significant work of journalism was a novel, "The Jungle."
Fact: "In Good Company" is indeed another romantic comedy fitting all the criteria of cutesy, sugary, warm and fuzzy elements. Myth: "In Good Company" is just another boring comic misfire from Hollywood.
A movie completely devoid of redeeming qualities is tolerable in the sense that nothing seems wasted. However, "The Woodsman," is even more disappointing than such a film because it wastes a remarkably powerful and chilling performance from Kevin Bacon by not offering a worthy backdrop.
Idiosyncratic filmmaker Wes Anderson is constantly devoted to evoking new worlds for his audience to venture into, from the confused mind of a precocious 15-year-old in Rushmore to the off-the-wall dysfunction of The Royal Tenenbaums. In his latest and arguably most ambitious endeavor, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Anderson plumbs the depths of imagination to create an entire undersea kingdom.
Filmmaker Wes Anderson has set sail into new waters. His latest film, "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," is a goofball comedy that's chiefly concerned with bringing laughs.
Take James Bond, turn him into a conniving diamond thief, grow him a bit of stubble, add an awkward archenemy, throw in a few curvy divas, put them all in the Bahamas and you get After the Sunset, a mediocre flick that is at times entertaining, and at others, stone cold dreadful.
Bridget Jones
Documentaries are usually for informing only, but "Tarnation" goes beyond the simple genre to create an incredible work of true-life-cinema. Jonathon Caouette's innovative filmmaking debut, "Tarnation" makes sorrowful tales of family and life as entrancing as they are poignant.
Last season, "Arrested Development" proved to be one of the best comedies to grace network television in a long time. The show kept getting better and won an Emmy for best comedy thanks to its over-the-top humor and excellently written episodes. Based on the latest episode, it looks as though the second season of "Arrested Development" is going to be just as great as the first.
Rock stars: something about their extravagant lifestyles and rebellious attitudes makes them fascinating to many. However, in the documentary "DIG!", there is another side of rock musicians shown, a human side, including their relationships and the highs and lows of their careers.
The only words that can describe Team America: World Police are too offensive to be printed. Never has a movie with such an ingenious satirical element been so ruined by extreme vulgarity.
Of all the institutions in this pop culture of ours, there is nonemore insidious than the sequel. It constantly amazes and puzzles methat some of the finest directors and producers we've ever had are so eager to sacrifice their very souls at the altar of the sequel. They so eager to betray their original artisticvisions in order to score fat checks and box office buzz. From George Lucasthe world received the cinematic atrocities known as the Star Warssequels; from Francis Ford Coppola the laughingstock that was GodfatherPart III; from Steven Spielberg, a convoluted second visit to the world ofJurassic Park. But selling out is good business; Jurassic Park 2:The Lost World had what was at the time the highest grossing openingweekend in movie history.
Aerial gymnasts contorting fifty feet above the stage on a set composed of nothing more substantial than ropes and tenuous golden poles. A harlequin dancer spinning across the floor in a languid ballet performed on, of all things, crutches. Spangled, spiky-headed acrobats vaulting through the air from one swinging plank to another. As incongruous as they seem, all fit perfectly under one blue-and-yellow big top tent in Varekai, the latest offering from French-Canadian circus company Cirque du Soleil.
It's halftime at the Texas state football championship game and the Permian-Odessa Panthers are down by a lot. As their coach (Billy-Bob Thornton) gives a fiery locker room speech, the camera cuts between the battle-scarred faces of the game-battered gridiron warriors, capturing the blood, the sweat, the tears of high schoolfootball at its highest level.
In his book Worse than Watergate, former Nixon legal aid John Dean expresses surprise at George W. Bush's ability to run a secretive and dishonest administration. After all, Nixon had the sort of ruthless intellect that made him truly Nixonian, whereas Bush seems a little too preoccupied with basic pronunciation to control a political machine anywhere near as frightening as his predecessor's.
Silver City is like the unholy lovechild of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Erin Brokovich, some outlandish, ineffectual combination of thinly veiled satire and underdeveloped champion-of-justice drama that begs the question, did writer/director John Sayles (Sunshine State, Passion Fish) watch his latest endeavor all the way through before unleashing it on us?
I suppose I like Festival Express because it is something of a throwback. It's a throwback to the wonderful pre-Fahrenheit 9/11 days of documentary filmmaking when documentaries, as the name suggests, documented. Popular documentaries are today so mired in political rhetoric that I briefly feared for the survival of the genre, what with audiences appearing to favor the malicious (Michael Moore accosting senators on the street) over the meaningful (when was the last time you watched Frontline, PBS's Oscar-nominated documentary program?). For a glorious hour and a half my fears were almost totally allayed, as the film simply documents the six-day drinking binge that was The Band, The Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin's
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