Song Sung Kazoo. CAVEAT LECTOR: This one’s not for everyone: if you’ve ever tried healing your gammy leg or brain cancer by visiting a TV preacher and “believing” that god will heal you – you might want to entreat your invisible, unseen, unheard, unfelt deity to strike me down for this article. Let’s see if I outrage His Imaginary Highness enough… … Read More
STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME
Camping in a Row of Future Tense. I could say this movie was “a whale of a time” but it wasn’t really. Starting with a promising premise, as the story unfolded, it quickly lost its porpoise. (Somebody slap me.) Continuing where STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK left off (sometime in the 23rd century), in STAR TREK IV: THE … Read More
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Slashing Singing Scissorhands. Edward Scissorhands is all grown up! Never more apparent than when Johnny Depp (as the eponymous demon barber, Sweeney Todd) holds aloft a gleaming razor and boldly affirms in song: “At last! My right arm is complete again!” (My Friends.) Violent, gruesome, blackly hilarious, deliriously entertaining, director Tim Burton’s vision of SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF … Read More
SICKO
After years of research (during the past two weeks) and experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs (mainly on other people), I have returned from the edge of time slightly drunk and bearing in my green man-purse a tale of unkempt horror. Michael Moore, free thinker, bids us think freer. Time is ripe for revolution. But – if the actions of the biased, … Read More
SURF’S UP
SURF’S UP, Up and Away. Despite its mundane title, SURF’S UP is a totally tubular surfari of relentless comedy and madboy cuteness. I guess the world having accepted penguins unto its bosom (MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, 2005, MADAGASCAR, 2005, HAPPY FEET, 2006 – to say nothing of BATMAN RETURNS, 1992, or those CROCODILE HUNTER episodes; and then there are those … Read More
STAR WARS: EPISODE V – THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Empirical Satirical. Why is THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, the first of the STAR WARS sequels/prequels, the best of the STAR WARS franchise? Why did it cause such a disturbance in our pants? I considered long and hard and watched it again to assure myself that it was not just our collective imagination. It’s not. Collective imagination, that is. And it … Read More
SPIDER-MAN 3
Really Swingin’. What an adventure! SPIDER-MAN 3 is a swingin’ soiree; a chill-er thriller ladykiller that tops both its previous incarnations with smooth-headed, web-spangling adventure and vibrant, flesh-colored emotion. Heroes tainted by evil, villains infused with poignancy, lovers circling in triangles and Topher Grace as the meanest metrosexual this side of AMERICAN IDOL. Co-writer/director Sam Raimi bats it out of … Read More
STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE
A Legend Begins… from the middle… Even if you don’t read comics, you know Superman; even if you don’t rock and roll all night, you know KISS; even if you’re an atheist, you know Jesus; even if you’ve never watched STAR WARS, you know Darth Vader. These elements of pop culture have so imbibed themselves into the vocabulary of our … Read More
SHOOTER
Shooter is Sharp but Misses the Marky. SHOOTER achieves that balance between action, political skullduggery, pretty orange explosions and Mark Wahlberg’s big guns (and I don’t mean his military sniper rifles), which notches it a cut above most political thrillers of its paranoid ilk – until its pat ending. With his shrapnel-explosive performance in THE DEPARTED, Wahlberg shrugged off the … Read More
SMOKIN’ ACES
It’s a mad mad mad mad assassination. The logic precept Occam’s Razor tells us that “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.” In other words, “Simpler is better.” But SMOKIN’ ACES fell asleep during physics class and won’t go near any logic precepts. A walloping actioner with way too much exposition, there is more unnecessary dialogue here than in the … Read More
SPIDER-MAN 2
Spider Sense-tingling. Grander, faster, slicker than its predecessor, director Sam Raimi‘s SPIDER-MAN 2 is more action-packed, more thrill-rided, more rollercoastered than SPIDER-MAN (2002) – but though its plaudits stretch skyscraper tall, its demerits run Mariana Trench deep. Based loosely on the comicbook episode Spider-man No More, plot finds Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina, in strapping scenery-chewing mien) “tampering in God’s … Read More
SUPERMAN II
It’s a bird. It’s plain. It’s not super, man. “KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!” Could that possibly be the cheesiest line in cinematic history? Yes. Yes, it could; most certainly aided by the level of fruitage employed by Terence Stamp as the imperious General Zod, resplendent in black, pseudo-leather, thigh-high disco boots and heavier eyeliner than Avril Lavigne. Director Richard Donner filmed … Read More
SANDS OF IWO JIMA
Jingo All The Way. John Wayne drawls his way through yet another war movie where thirty-something teenagers with clean shirts and Christian mouths storm battlegrounds where they die operatically from bullets that don’t make exit wounds; powerful enough in its day to be regarded a “classic,” SANDS OF IWO JIMA elevated Wayne from studio standard to worldwide megastar. But it’s … Read More
SNATCH
SNATCH will grab. Released on the heels of his stylish, dangerous LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, SNATCH simultaneously solidified the grit-edged, flamethrower directorial style of Guy Ritchie, even as it launched Jason Statham into his TRANSPORTER leading man roles; heralded an altogether explosive performance from Alan Ford as Brick Top; proved yet again the go-to value of Rade Sherbedgia … Read More
SUPERMAN
One Part Steel, Two Parts Cheese. This movie did for Superman what KING OF KINGS did for Jesus – burned an iconic image of a fictional god into world consciousness. And the Word was made Flesh. And the Flesh was Christopher Reeve. So unknown at the time of his casting that he might as well have been from Krypton, Reeve … Read More
SUPERMAN RETURNS
Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back. So much strength, so little underpant. Superman is back. With his underpants hiked low enough to make George Reeves blush the color of cape. In SUPERMAN RETURNS, the blue-clad avenger sports a decidedly European bikini, giving a low-slung nod to the thong-exposed sluts we call modern teenagers. And the color of cape is no longer … Read More
SURVIVING CHRISTMAS
Surviving Affleck. There is one great moment in SURVIVING CHRISTMAS that almost makes it worth the pain: James Gandolfini cracks a shovel over Ben Affleck‘s stupid head. This movie serves as yet another unfortunate example of James Gandolfini proving what a great actor he is whilst simultaneously besmirching his career by acting in this film. Young, wealthy ad exec, Drew … Read More
THE SOPRANOS – SEASON 3-38: AMOUR FOU
Women Be Crazy. O god, why hast thou made this gleaming snare Woman, to dog us on the happy earth? — Euripides, Hippolytus 428 BC. Amour Fou – love so intense it drives one to madness. Mad love. Gloria Trillo (Annabella Sciorra, filling the TV screen more than lusciously), the latest in a long line of Tony’s mistresses, who would … Read More
THE SENTINEL
Running Fast but Standing Still. Can’t help feeling I’ve seen it all before somewhere: Michael Douglas as a middle-aged man having an affair (FATAL ATTRACTION, DISCLOSURE); a plot to assassinate the President (IN THE LINE OF FIRE and a hundred other weaker films); Kiefer Sutherland playing some kind of government agent trying to prevent a Presidential assassination (24), and Kim … Read More
THE SOPRANOS – SEASON 3-32: UNIVERSITY
Bringing True Violence to the Simulated Screen. Once again, THE SOPRANOS explores the nature of True Violence, impacting our atrophied sensibilities with its directness. But how is the beating to death of a stripper so disturbing to our supposedly hardened psyches? Surely what we have seen over the years on our cathode-ray tubes and in darkened theaters has prepared us … Read More