-
Sideways
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) Paul Giamatti, the pudgy, balding, slightly despondent character actor of Man on the Moon and American Splendor, gives a performance of such pent-up desperation and heartbreaking moroseness in Sideways that he single-handedly cements Alexander Payne’s film as one of the year’s finest. As Miles Raymond, a struggling novelist, high…
-
Blind Devotion
Don’t believe the hype – Ray is hardly one of this year’s finest films. I take director Taylor Hackford to task for this sloppy, sappy, insincere biopic over at Slant magazine. Ray (Slant magazine) Below, I’ve also got new reviews of Saw, Primer, The Machinist and George Lucas’ first film, THX 1138.
-
Saw
(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn) Cinematic serial killers are a lot like James Bond villains – they claim to be nefarious evildoers and frequently commit dastardly crimes, but always wind up unnecessarily complicating their dirty deeds. That’s definitely the case with the baddie of James Wan’s grisly Saw, a fiend known as the Jigsaw…
-
Primer (2004): C-
Eager to hit the entrepreneurial jackpot, two ambitious yuppie engineers (Shane Carruth and David Sullivan) accidentally create a functional time travel machine – and numerous time-space paradoxes – in Shane Carruth’s wearisome Primer. Substituting the giddy fantasy of Back to the Future for grave technological authenticity, the film (written and directed by star Carruth) has…
-
The Machinist (2004): C
Christian Bale dropped a shockingly immense amount of weight for Brad Anderson’s The Machinist, but like the film itself, Bale’s drastic pound-shedding is a gimmick with no real payoff. Sure, Bale – as Trevor Reznik, an industrial machine operator whose sanity begins to unravel due to a year-long bout of sleeplessness – is a frightening…
-
THX 1138 (1971): C+
Before the world-conquering Star Wars made him a popcorn movie mega-mogul, George Lucas crafted a modest, somber vision of the future with THX 1138. In place of lightsabers, Death Stars and furry 7-foot tall animals, Lucas’ filmmaking debut takes place in an Orwellian world in which people are identified by letter and number designations, spied…
-
Christmas Grudge
For moviegoers interested in seeing a new release this weekend, the question is: are you in the mood for Halloween horror or Christmas cheer? My two latest reviews over at Slant magazine provide the low-down on a surprisingly decent horror movie – actually, a surprisingly decent horror movie remake, which is even rarer – and…
-
The Lewd and the Lyrical
The funniest – and shrewdest – politically-minded film of the year has arrived, and its name is Team America: World Police. Profane, offensive, and hilarious, it’s hands-down the best puppet movie ever made. On the other end of the spectrum, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s latest – the poetic Café Lumière, screening at this year’s New…
-
Millennium Mambo (2001): B
As the new millennium dawns, Vicky (Qi Shu) balances separate love affairs with abusive, drug-smoking Hao-Hao (Chun-hao Tuan) and paternal petty gangster Jack (Jack Kao) in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s exquisite Millennium Mambo. Narrated (in hindsight) by Vicky from the year 2011, the film’s splintered, flashback-heavy narrative nominally concerns Vicky’s tumultuous two romances, though the storyline is…
-
Flowers of Shanghai (1998): B+
A story of insularity, slavery and sexual politics, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s straightforward period piece Flowers of Shanghai tells the story of four brothel houses (“flower houses”) and the relationships shared between its wealthy patrons and attractive, cunning employees (“flower girls”). In 1880s Shanghai, wealthy men spend their days and nights gambling, playing drinking games, feasting and…
