Or: I Was a Teenage Body Snatcher. Scriptwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream, Scream 2), a dehumanized cine-cannibal in his own right, seems to feel that self-conscious acknowledgment of his pilfered sources constitutes sufficient originality: here, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which in turn was "a blatant rip-off of The Puppet Masters." …
Or: I Was a Teenage Body Snatcher. Scriptwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream, Scream 2), a dehumanized cine-cannibal in his own right, seems to feel that self-conscious acknowledgment of his pilfered sources constitutes sufficient originality: here, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which in turn was "a blatant rip-off of The Puppet Masters." …
A lot of knowledge went into the characterization of the movie-buff hero, beginning with his ritual of going through the coming week's TV Guide and circling the movies not to be missed (99 River Street, The Big Sleep, etc.), and continuing through his wardrobe, his bedroom decor, his job, his …
Something very close to a sex comedy for grownups. John Turturro writes, directs, and stars in the carefully crafted, beautifully shot story of Fioravante, a strong, silent-type florist who agrees to do a favor for an old friend (Woody Allen) whose NYC bookstore has just gone out of business. It …
What Carlos Saura did for the art of flamenco and tango in films called Flamenco and Tango, he now sets out to do for that soulful Portuguese folk song, dating back to the early 19th Century, the fado. A spacious and spare studio, translucent partitions, process screens, backdrops, mirrors, colored …
Michael Moore’s output during the Obama years confirms the obvious: just as a ship needs a rudder, the director is nothing without a Republican commander-in-chief to shepherd his contempt. Still, credit Moore with finding fault in Mrs. Clinton’s pampered approach to politics. (His was the only liberal voice to predict …
Michael Moore's blistering critique of the Bush administration in toto and its War on Terror in particular (just in time for the 2004 presidential campaign, too) is at bottom a pair of devil's horns drawn on the head of Dubya. But if Moore were only making fun, he'd only be …
Failure to protect is a charge aimed at punishing a negligent parent who failed to safeguard a child from serious harm. Years ago I worked for a woman whose ex-husband copped to twice pleasuring himself while their 4-year-old son slept next to him. Looking to remove the boy from a …
This romantic-comic bauble by Tom Dey has a definite situation, namely a mid-thirties stud still living at home with his parents. If the situation were born of any necessity -- financial, psychological, medical, or otherwise -- the film might additionally have had a subject. But since the situation is only …
The Valerie Plame, Joseph Wilson Affair, retold from their side, the covert CIA agent unmasked and defamed in retaliation for her husband’s op‑ed critique of the invasion of Iraq. Quite incoherent in its exposition, although because it’s a true and a well-reported story, we know where we’re headed; and quite …
Another lawyer joke, or litigable libel: casting "supermodel" Cindy Crawford as a Miami civil attorney. (Champion of downtrodden Cubans, she doesn't even know how to pronounce the name Juantorena, though she can pass muster jogging on the beach at sunrise, or during two shower scenes, one sex scene, one on-screen …
We see them for ourselves, these Spirits of the Air, buzzing around the wooded nook like dragonflies, we and two wee girls of eight and twelve; and then we sit back and watch as the benighted grownups of WWI-time England debate their existence. The plodding attention to the historical "facts" …