The good news about "Quantum of Solace" is that Craig's
"blunt-instrument" Bond still works like a charm: The movie is a
relentlessly enjoyable star vehicle and a hard-charging action-o-rama
full of the usual Bondian elements, for the most part well done. It's
one of the year's better action films.
November 13, 2008
In its fall movie preview issue, Entertainment Weekly sees the Kafkaesque action epic, "Eagle Eye," as the first test of Shia LaBeouf's power as an A-list movie star, in the wake of his breakout in 2007's "Disturbia" and last summer's "Indy IV." As it turns out, the movie is so engrossing as an intellectual puzzle and such a solid thriller in every other department that it's probably actor-proof. You could cast Gary Coleman in the lead and the story likely would work almost as well.
September 26, 2008
The chief emotion "Brideshead Revisited" gave me was nostalgia -- but less for the vanished British ruling class than the vanished age of TV miniseries, when adaptations of novels such as "Roots," "Shogun" and "Brideshead Revisited" were allowed some room to breathe.
July 25, 2008
In "Boffo," his examination of entertainment blockbusters, Variety editor Peter Bart names the stage production of "Mamma Mia!" as one of the all-time great show business phenomena, on the short list next to "Casablanca," "Psycho" and "I Love Lucy."
July 18, 2008
At first glance, famed guerrilla journalist Hunter S. Thompson seems an odd subject for Alex Gibney, whose previous documentaries -- "Enron," "No End in Sight," "Taxi to the Dark Side" -- have mostly dealt with American moral decline in the New Millennium. But Gibney says "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson" fits right in with his other films because the man embodied "just the kind of enterprise, eloquence and inspired disrespect for authority" that seems to have vanished from American journalism.
July 4, 2008
When Canadian filmmaker Jeremy Podeswa -- the director of "Eclipse" (1994) and "The Five Senses" (1999) -- was honored as an Emerging Master at the recent Seattle International Film Festival, it seemed an odd choice to some critics. After all, this encouragement award usually goes to a promising newcomer, and Podeswa is a 20-year directing veteran better known for cranking out episodes of cable television -- "Queer as Folk," "Six Feet Under," "The L Word," "Nip/Tuck" and "The Tudors." But his new feature, "Fugitive Pieces" -- which was showcased in the festival and goes into its regular run today -- is so assured and accomplished that it's easy to see why it inspired the SIFF directors to break tradition and get behind him.
June 27, 2008
After several false starts, a half-dozen aborted script ideas and
nearly two decades of talking about it, George Lucas and Steven
Spielberg's fourth Indiana Jones adventure finally rolls into theaters
late Wednesday night -- and it's quite good.
May 21, 2008
Is the Seattle International Film Festival finally bowing to critics
who suggest Seattle's annual deluge of celluloid has simply become too
large for human consumption and needs a cutback? "Maybe," artistic director Carl Spence said, smiling, last month.
"To a small degree. We know that some of you feel it's become too much."
May 16, 2008
This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and
one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as
a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other
scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.
May 9, 2008
After Hollywood's long glut of comic-book superhero movies -- and the agonizing, diminishing returns of their endless sequels -- is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.
May 2, 2008
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