A recasting of The Prisoner of Zenda or The Prince and the Pauper or State Secret (or others) as a post-Perot piece of sentimental populism about a Presidential look-alike who's installed in the Oval Office by Machiavellian wire-pullers when the real President is laid low by a stroke. (Overexertion with …
The titular comedian hosts a hip-hop concert on a rainy September day in Brooklyn (Kanye West, Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, the Fugees), and beforehand rounds up extra partygoers in his stamping ground of Dayton, Ohio, including the entire marching band of Central State U., to be bused to …
Nonsensical retelling of the Dan Brown best-seller, premised on "the greatest cover-up in human history," namely the murderously guarded secret that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene married and multiplied. (The additional premise that the disclosure of the secret would have the immediate effect of liberating the oppressed worldwide and bringing …
Shorter, straighter-faced, altogether squarer remake of the George Romero zombie bash. The "commentary" on American consumerism, or anyway the locality of a Middle American shopping mall, remains as pertinent today as in 1979, if scarcely as fresh. And the cannibalism now seems to pertain not so much to the society …
George A. Romero's companion piece to his Night of the Living Dead, set largely (and inspirationally) in a suburban Pittsburgh shopping center, less a sequel than a remake, a new and improved version with slicker technique and gaudier special effects, and positively guaranteed not to disappoint even the most hysterical …
George A. Romero's companion piece to his Night of the Living Dead, set largely (and inspirationally) in a suburban Pittsburgh shopping center, less a sequel than a remake, a new and improved version with slicker technique and gaudier special effects, and positively guaranteed not to disappoint even the most hysterical …
George A. Romero's companion piece to his Night of the Living Dead, set largely (and inspirationally) in a suburban Pittsburgh shopping center, less a sequel than a remake, a new and improved version with slicker technique and gaudier special effects, and positively guaranteed not to disappoint even the most hysterical …
Doomsday science fiction -- emphasis, as is only fit and proper, on fiction at the expense of science -- about how global warming brings on a new Ice Age in the northern hemisphere, and in consequence a southward migration that reverses the flow of illegals across the Mexican border. (That …
Yellow-eyed, blue-lit vampires dominate the world of the future, to such extent that the blood supply is running out. Some bumptious social comment amid repulsive special effects: fire-hose projectile vomit, exploding head, decapitation, etc. With Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, and Sam Neill; directed by the Spierig …
Truffaut's effusive and somewhat bullying attempt to propose a toast, with which all film lovers are expected to concur, to the charming and intrepid and fallible folks who join together temporarily, strive for the heights, slip and slide somewhat, and ultimately create a little magic for the millions (what is …
Three-part omnibus on the youth, maturity, and dotage of the Iranian woman, all parts scripted by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (director of Gabbeh, The Silence, et al.), and directed by his wife, Marzieh Meshkini, a graduate, together with their daughter Samira Makhmalbaf (The Apple), of the private filmmaking school, since disbanded, known …
The inspirations for Jean Renoir's thirty-some-minute featurette sit in high places: first, the bleak and cold naturalism of Maupassant, and second, the dappled lighting effects of the Impressionist painters. In Renoir's hands, however, a Maupassant gem, whose outstanding trait is hardness, turns into Silly Putty. Renoir likes softness, and he …
Effects-laden urban disaster thriller -- an explosion and cave-in in an underwater commuter tunnel -- with a dreamlike freedom of imagination, freedom from logic, freedom sometimes from comprehensibility. Sylvester Stallone, Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Stan Shaw, and Claire Bloom; directed by Rob Cohen.
A Spanish priest deciphers the exact date of birth of the Antichrist (Christmas, 1995) and sets out on a quixotic quest (this is Spain, remember, where quests are prone to be quixotic) to save the world: "I must sell my soul to the Devil, but I don't know how." His …
Those who thought the indoor shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead was a metaphor for America will perhaps be equally happy with the underground bunker cum missile silo here. Those who thought the shopping mall was a good place to hide out from a plague of zombies, with a …