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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) I never had any interest in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and music video vet Garth Jennings’ cinematic adaptation doesn’t make my indifference seem unjustified. Not that the film – about a schlep named Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, from the BBC’s The Office) who survives the…
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Birth (2004): D+
Ten years after her husband Sean’s death, Anna (Nicole Kidman) – who still hasn’t fully recovered from the loss – is preparing to remarry when a creepy, expressionless ten-year-old (Cameron Bright) appears on her doorstep claiming to be Sean. Anna is initially skeptical, but after mulling the idea over, she concludes that the kid (whose…
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Read My Lips (2001): A-
Despite an annoyingly dispensable subplot involving a parole officer and his missing wife, Jacques Audiard’s Read My Lips may be the finest thriller/romance hybrid of the new century. Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a partially deaf secretary detached – and who (via the removal of her hearing aid) willingly detaches herself from – the cruel social…
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Fingers (1978): A-
James Tobak’s Fingers has an only-in-the-movies premise – a debt collector for his small-time mobster father aspires to be a classical pianist – yet through sheer force of filmmaking will, the director and star Harvey Keitel turn this somewhat ridiculous plot into a penetrating portrait of tortured, impotent masculinity and the foolishness of attempting to…
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Time of the Wolf (2003): B+
In Time of the Wolf, an unspecified apocalyptic catastrophe has plunged rural France (and, presumably, the rest of the world) into chaos and darkness, though Michael Haneke’s film begins not with exposition about this disaster but, rather, with squatters murdering a family man in his vacation cottage. This shocking crime propels his widow Anna (Isabelle…
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East of Eden (1955): B+
Elia Kazan’s East of Eden introduced the world to James Dean, and the young heartthrob’s magnetic brooding – his body, and emotions, veering to and fro like an off-kilter see-saw – is the most arresting facet of this Bible-infused drama (based on John Steinbeck’s novel) about two sons’ strained relationship with their religious lettuce farmer…
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Code 46 (2003): C+
A sci-fi mood piece about memory, passion, and pseudo-Oedipal longing, Michael Winterbottom’s Code 46 – akin to THX 1138-via-Gattaca – is long on atmosphere but short on substance. In the near-future, national and racial differences have melted away in a sea of multicultural sterility, civilization has been divided into desirable urban areas and the barren…
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Vera Drake (2004): B+
Mike Leigh’s films habitually focus on the misery of downtrodden Brits struggling to cope with unfavorable socio-economic situations, and the director’s latest dreary drama, Vera Drake, may be his finest work in years. Vera (Imelda Staunton) is a cheery “domestic” who cleans wealthy homes for a living and, on the side and for no pay,…
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Slacker (1991): C-
Richard Linklater may have made a splash with his 1991 debut Slacker, but fourteen years later, it remains an exercise in meandering self-importance. A series of barely-connected vignettes in which Austin, Texas 20-somethings discuss alternate realities, then-prez George Bush, JFK’s assassination, and the symbolic nature of the Smurfs, Linklater’s film captures the nonchalant lack of…
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Fever Pitch
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) Even considering the insufferable self-absorption of Boston baseball fans, Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s Red Sox-obsessed Fever Pitch proves an amusing and affecting ode to professional sports fandom. Ben Wrightman (Jimmy Fallon) is a math teacher who falls for high-powered corporate exec Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore), and their courtship proceeds…
