Harry Potter and the Horns of Dilemma. Soon after the mysterious death of his girlfriend, Ig Perrish wakes to find two horns growing out of his forehead. He realizes people are revealing their innermost secrets to him, and Ig figures it must be due to the horns, which no one gives any undue notice. He realizes he can use this … Read More
WORLD WAR Z
World War ZGI. The first interesting zombie movie ever made in the history of cinema! I hate zombie movies. Tedious, repetitive, unimaginative. Shuffle, grab, shoot, run, shuffle, grab, shoot, run, block doorway with hands grabbing through gap. Repeat. Okay okay, I get it! Discounting well-made black comedies (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, WARM BODIES, ZOMBIELAND), zombie movies that take themselves seriously … Read More
12 MONKEYS
BACK TO THE FUTURE by way of BRAZIL. Like BACK TO THE FUTURE II with Biff in charge forever. Another Terry Gilliam dystopian vision, 12 MONKEYS (inspired by French short film LA JETÉE and modeled after Gilliam’s own inimitable BRAZIL), is a claustrophobic, strangling, time-paradox action stunner; like all Gilliam’s films, it’s also completely off the rails. A subterranean Orwellian … Read More
THE NEGOTIATOR
Two Wrongs making Two Rights. THE NEGOTIATOR would have scored higher Cukee ratings had it not opted for melodramatic Hollywood-speak and Samuel L. Jackson‘s penchant for delivering didactic lines as if he was Jules in PULP FICTION explaining stuff to Vincent Vega. Jackson is police hostage negotiator Danny Roman – the best at what he does – who is framed … Read More
THE CROSSING GUARD
Redemption: always in the last place you look. What a brilliant little gem of a movie! An emotional wallop to the weeping nerve. And no wonder – written and directed by Sean Penn, the King Of Weeping (and I say that in all respect to his talent of doing it on cue), who shows a directorial hand in THE CROSSING … Read More
THE HURT LOCKER
Heroic Movie about a Non-Heroic War. Baghdad, 2004. THE HURT LOCKER opens with a quote from journalist Chris Hedges: “…war is a drug.” Apparently, a drug not only to its combatants, but on the populace fooled by its “glamour” and on directors who fuel that glamour. Kathryn Bigelow directs this one-note movie – supposedly a horrifying closeup of a bomb … Read More
DANCER IN THE DARK
A Director Dancing With Himself… Don’t know about you, but I always cringed when Dean Martin would start singing in those old Martin and Lewis comedies; and my flesh would crawl whenever Bing Crosby opened his puling puss during a hilarious Bob Hope movie. Nothing’s changed. It’s not that I don’t like musicals, or even musical numbers – hell, JESUS … Read More
DISTURBIA
Rear End Window. Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW for Teen Models. Shia LeBeouf spends the first half of DISTURBIA stuttering his way into the panties of the girl next door; the second half, stuttering his way out of the clutches of a serial killer. Doing time on house arrest, Kale (LeBeouf) eventually turns his bored, binocular perving on the suburban neighborhood … Read More
16 BLOCKS
With Intent to Act… Has Bruce Willis been taking acting lessons? Rather than Just Another Tough Guy Infurio role, in 16 BLOCKS, Willis has put some nuanced daylight between himself and The John McClane. His detective Jack Mosley is haggard, worn-out, somber, morose, sporting a paunch (which looks suspiciously like a pillow), washing down meds with cheap whiskey, and so … Read More
CONTACT
Buried within The Message from Vega – The Message from Sagan. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND needed updating. CONTACT is that update. Though it may never attain the lofty heights of commercialism that CLOSE ENCOUNTERS enjoyed, CONTACT is, in fact, a more intelligent vision of extra-terrestrial communication with our outer-spiral-arm planet. Jodie Foster is SETI maverick, Ellie Arroway, who … Read More