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Rivers and Tides (2001): B+
Overlook Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy’s occasional dips into vague New Age abstraction, and Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time is an absorbing portrait of a unique artist’s professional and personal communion with nature. Goldsworthy’s medium is the earth itself, and Riedelsheimer’s documentary follows the gray-bearded 46-year-old husband and father as he produces circuitous,…
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The Skeleton Key (2005): C
“Who do you hoodoo?” would have been a fitting tagline for The Skeleton Key, a blundering New Orleans-set thriller under the spell of archaic stereotypes about Southern Bayou blacks. Disgusted by the medical establishment’s impersonal treatment of the elderly, Caroline (Kate Hudson, with straight hair impervious to humidity frizz) takes a job working as an…
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The Dukes of Hazzard (2005): C+
A Southern-fried surprise that’s as stupid as Enis but as goofy-cool as the General Lee, The Dukes of Hazzard proves that every big-screen remake of a ‘70s-era TV show need not be a disgrace to both its source material and the art of moviemaking. Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar (a member of the Broken Lizard comedy…
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2046 (2005): B
Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love was an erotic masterpiece of desperately suppressed romantic longing, making his schizoid-remix-follow-up 2046 – an often chilly, remote and repetitive rumination on similar themes – such a letdown. Wai’s bifurcated tone poem charts playboy writer Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) – seemingly a doppelganger of In the Mood…
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Red Eye (2005): B+
An efficient thriller that alludes to both the war on terror and female abuse without allowing either issue to interfere with its consistently taut action, Wes Craven’s Red Eye takes its place alongside last year’s Cellular as that all-too-rare Hollywood creation: a tightly wound, intelligent, and gimmick-free suspense film. Upscale hotel manager Lisa Reisert (Rachel…
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Broken Flowers (2005): B+
In criticism, as in life itself, sometimes a slightly detached perspective is preferable to an immediate knee-jerk reaction. That’s certainly the case with regards to Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, a road-trippin’ saga charting an aging lothario’s reunion with past lovers that initially struck me as a wee bit lethargic but which – after spending time…
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The Island (2005): D+
Though the wretched Star Wars prequels are thankfully over, Michael Bay makes sure that the attack of the clones continues with The Island, a loud, odious sci-fi spectacular that employs the director’s trademark incomprehensible action for a paranoia-drenched story condemning stem cell research. In the foreseeable future, pretty Ewan McGregor (with a pretty awful American…
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Zombie (1979): B+
Originally titled Zombie 2 as a craven attempt to piggyback on the success of Dawn of the Dead, Lucio Fulci’s Zombie has nothing to do with George A. Romero’s undead classic, though that doesn’t mean it’s not without its gruesome charms. The Italian goremeister’s breakthrough film features not a single believable character or plot point,…
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Audrey Rose (1977): C-
Vishnu sits in for Satan in Audrey Rose, a possession thriller in The Exorcist mold that replaces Christian claptrap for Hindu hokum. Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins) is convinced that prepubescent Ivy (Susan Swift) – the daughter of Manhattan ad exec Bill Templeton (John Beck) and wife Janice (Marsha Mason) – is filled with the spirit…
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Wonderland (2003): D+
John “Johnny Wadd” Holmes was solely noteworthy because of his prodigious member, and director James Cox’s foolish decision to only perfunctorily mention the porn legend’s elephantine organ in Wonderland is indicative of this ludicrous, pointless Rashomon-meets-Boogie Nights saga. Detailing Holmes’ alleged participation in a 1981 murder case involving his scuzzy drug-pushing associates, Cox’s film proves…
