The Pixar people, director John Lasseter in particular, envision a world of cars without people (Mommy, where do cars come from?), but of course anthropomorphized cars, such that the windshields are eyes and the hoods, grilles, and front bumpers form noses and mouths. The vision focusses chiefly on a hot-shot …
Michael Schultz's infectious, lowbrow, proletarian comedy, encompassing a single workday and the motley mass of laborers, customers, and hangers-on at the Dee-Luxe Car Wash, is full of bustle, empty of laughs. Its main appeal is the merry-go-round cast of characters: the lecherous Jewish proprietor, his Maoist son, a sulky hooker, …
The City of Intrigue is converted into a large Camp ground, as Bogart feigns broken-heartedness and moral rehabilitation in this feminized thriller. Directed by Michael Curtiz, lushly.
The City of Intrigue is converted into a large Camp ground, as Bogart feigns broken-heartedness and moral rehabilitation in this feminized thriller. Directed by Michael Curtiz, lushly, and presents in 4K restoration.
The name of the movie is the name of a Mexican resort hotel-cum-hospital where half a dozen gringas await their turn to adopt native newborns; more bluntly, where the haves take from the have-nots. Or still more bluntly, where the Left-leaning John Sayles can show off some of his right …
Undisclosed chapter in the career of the 18th-century rake: his courtship of a protofeminist ghostwriter and swordswoman, the Ms. Right who can tie him down for keeps. The sort of romantic fantasy, in other words, that ruins real lives. A tiresome rompish costume party in antiquing golden light, under a …
When all else deserts him -- all purpose, all commitment, all vitality -- Fellini likely will still engineer projects with unstinting multimillion-dollar budgets, with eerie, enclosed, otherworldly sets, and with unsurpassed color work by his faithful cameraman Giuseppe Rotunno. He appears to be closing in on that goal in Casanova. …
Scorsese, doffing the ill-fitting penguin suit of The Age of Innocence, goes back to gangsters and to the scriptwriter of Good Fellas, Nicholas Pileggi. One major drawback here is the same drawback as there, only bigger (or rather, at three hours, longer): the brunt of the storytelling is entrusted to …
The story of the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff — “the number one lobbyist in Washington” — ranges far and wide (the Republican Revolution, the Mariana Islands, Angola, Hollywood, Indian casinos, Tom DeLay, John McCain), but the message stays single-track: the sellout of democracy, with clips of James Stewart …
Taking the title from Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel, the 007 franchise approaches the opportunity of a new James Bond as the opportunity of a new beginning. The new Bond, Daniel Craig, is not just another pretty face, in fact is a pretty craggy face (Craiggy face, perhaps that …
Ersatz Spielberg. (Meaning that the Great Man himself -- the Great Overgrown Boy -- the Great Escaped Inner Child -- was only a co-executive producer and was wise enough to leave the directing to an apprentice called Brad Silberling.) The titular "Friendly Ghost" resembles a fattened-up, but see-through, version of …
With this, Woody Allen looks like he has overextended his stay in England. The refreshment is gone. Less engrossing than Match Point, less engaging than Scoop, it spins a yarn of working-class brothers (Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, working their thespian tails off) who, in exchange for financial favors from a …
The presence of a woman director (Genevieve Robert) and two women scriptwriters (Wendy Goldman, Judy Toll) promises half of the audience a chance to learn what the other half thinks on the subject, and promises that other half an uncommon cinematic mouthpiece. That's too much to promise, of course, and …