Jim Carrey may well be the Jerry Lewis of the Nineties. Which would mean, in addition to masturbation jokes and such, that where Lewis had directors who were also stylists (himself, Tashlin), Carrey, here on the trail of the sacred white bat of mythical Nibia in Darkest Africa, has someone …
A modern-day vampire tale with a rock-song soundtrack ("You're my sanctuary./ Baby, let me in./ You're my addiction"). Always a flexible metaphor, the blood-thirst in this instance is not just a synonym for drugs, as the title might imply, and as the hypodermic syringe bears out, but an all-purpose synonym …
A Hal Hartley film, which description will mean something to the eighteen fans worldwide of his peculiar brand of frivolous eccentricity. It revolves around a self-professed nymphomaniac virgin ex-nun author of pornography, an amnesiac porn-film producer, a blackmailing former porn actress, an unfulfilled publisher of pornographic magazines ("My aspiration was …
A cub, a Cub Scout, a couple of poachers. Amazing indeed in its dullness, despite cuddly animal footage and authentic China locations. With Ryan Slater, Yi Ding, Stephen Lang; directed by Christopher Cain.
Smooth, smug, half-smart. That description doesn't just fit Michael Douglas in the title role, but the movie as a whole, a retro romantic comedy that engineers a meet-cute (and a continuing date-cute) between the Democratic widower in the Oval Office and a married-to-career hatchet woman for an environmental lobby. ("I …
On the day she determines to be her last, the aged heroine, with much help from a third-person narrator (her great-granddaughter, it turns out), looks back on several decades of life in a quaint Dutch village, peopled almost exclusively by extraordinary, strong, self-sufficient women and ordinary, subnormal, and brutish, beastly, …
Animator Richard Williams simply took too long at the drawing board. Peter Cowie's annual International Film Guide reported in its 1977 edition — repeat, 1977 — that "The Thief and the Cobbler [as it was then known] is especially dear to Williams's heart. Although it has been in active preparation …
The world's No. 1 hitman, contemplating retirement, going soft, refusing to kill innocent bystanders, developing an amorous attachment to his latest "mark," has been targeted for elimination by the ambitious, amoral No. 2. (Where are these rankings published? Soldier of Fortune magazine?) Something so silly ought to be more fun. …
An awfully oversized title for the adventure of a starry-eyed innocent in the jaded world of British repertory theater, post-WWII. Between the accents, the argot, and the circumlocutions, it's a bit tough to penetrate. And even for theater people, the performances are unbearably theatrical. Georgina Cates, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, …
Quaint animal tale, freshly, ripely illustrated by prior documentarian Chris Noonan, about an orphaned porker who, taken in tow by a sheepdog, revolutionizes the business of herding when he introduces reason and politeness into it. Sometimes the cuteness gets overaggressive, but the absence of any obligatory child actor minimizes the …
Wholesome, otherwise known as insipid, comedy about a septet of barely or nearly pubescent girls who, between school years, expand their baby-sitting service into a full-scale day-care center. Conflict is padded-gloved: one of the girls needs to pass a make-up exam in order to continue her membership in the club; …
Another big idea -- or "high concept," as it's known in the trade -- from the producers, most pertinently, of Beverly Hills Cop (Simpson and Bruckheimer). In fact, an even bigger idea. Exactly twice the size. Two black comedians (Will Smith, Martin Lawrence), not just one, in the roles of …
You can see why the Disney company didn't bother to promote this project, but not why it agreed to produce it in the first place. No flash. No dash. No one (the kiss of death in the American marketplace) to identify with and to root for. The "fault," if such …
To hell and back with a teenage heroin hero: an uncomfortable contemporary transplant of the Jim Carroll autobiographical cult novel. (Can we look at shared needles in the Nineties without thoughts of AIDS?) It does not avoid the danger of so many junkie war stories, of sounding as much like …