Tony historical romance centered around the affair of the twenty-three-year-old Alfred de Musset and the six-years-older George Sand, "poetry and prose," perhaps not a perfect match but an ignitable one. Not half, not a quarter, not an eighth the fun of the cooler-headed and farther-distanced Impromptu, navigating the same social …
German-financed video documentary, focussed on five New York cinephiles, four men and one woman, all of them single and unattached, acquaintances if not necessarily friends. "Film," one of them submits, "is a substitute for life." (Clearly, it was a word-choice of Flaubertian care and consideration not to call the film …
True-crime drama, about a New York cop with a father and son on the opposite side of the law, wears its heart on its sleeve and squeezes it like a sponge. Scottish-born director Michael Caton-Jones (best films: Rob Roy, Memphis Belle, old-fashioned stuff) doesn't let things get too messy. Excellent …
A slice of "kinetic" cinema (or what would be called "hyperactive" if it were a child) that grabs you by the shirt collar and shakes the living daylights out of you: an antsy camera, fast-motion, split-screen, yellow flashbacks, a loop-the-loop storyline that keeps circling back on itself, a tangential digression, …
Tom Swiftian science fiction about a clean teen who comes into possession of a wristwatch which essentially can freeze time, or more accurately can transport its wearer into "hypertime," so that everything around him seems to slow to a standstill. Apart from one escapade of youthful pranks, there's little imagination …
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a fearless firefighter ("All right, guys. Heads up. Let's do it") whose wife and son get blown up by a South American terrorist: code name, El Lobo. Conviction -- political, emotional, or otherwise -- is not something you need waste any time looking for. Calculation is everywhere. …
Christian Charles's intimate documentary on the private hells of stand-up comics, focussing on two in particular, one big and one small: Jerry Seinfeld, honing a new act after the end of his TV sitcom, and thirtyish Orny Adams, whose biological clock is noisily ticking. It makes you feel something like …
An adaptation of the "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris, TV game-show producer -- The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, et al. -- and moonlighting CIA hit man. Says him. We meet the protagonist (played with maximum smarm and supreme sleaze by Sam Rockwell) holed up, Manson-haired, naked, close to catatonic, …
Somewhat rushed retelling of the Dumas revenge story. Granted, there's a good deal of story to be gotten through, and the speed might be hoped to counteract the snags: the details of the tunneling in the Chateau d'If are not altogether credible (the dirt is disposed of in the chamber …
Incommunicative, nonverbal avant-gardism from New York artist Matthew Barney, with a madness-inducing "music" track and a great deal of tumid wide-angle imagery. It's actually the fifth of the Cremaster "cycle," numbered unchronologically, and by far the longest at three hours.
Carlos Carrera's modernization, and Mexicanization, of a 19th-century Portuguese novel by Eça de Queiroz, a disciple of Flaubert. The film was a box-office bonanza in its native land, perhaps surprising in view of the sedateness and sobriety with which it looks at its subject. The subject on the other hand …
Entertaining lessons on Australian wildlife, from cable TV personality Steve Irwin ("It's so hot out here the flies are comin' right into my eyes for a drink"), are interrupted with an unentertaining fictional quest for a spy satellite's data recorder: swallowed by a croc, like the alarm clock in Peter …
Dramatic acting debut of Britney Spears, that Pied Piper of Girl Power. It definitely gives the pop star more latitude than her Pepsi commercials, to which homage is paid when she sashays past the vending machine at a gas station. But that's just another way of saying more rope with …
The story of three childhood friends, Lucy (Britney Spears), Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning), who, after eight years apart, rediscover their friendship on a cross-country trip. With barely a plan, practically no money but plenty of dreams, the girls catch a lift with Mimi's handsome friend Ben (Anson …