In AD ASTRA, Brad Pitt flexes all his other muscles. Brad Pitt saves the world (like WORLD WAR Z) while pondering the meaning of existence (like Tyler Durden), in transit from the Moon to Neptune (like we didn’t already know Brad Pitt was a heavenly body). AD ASTRA (“To The Stars”) turns an astronaut’s mission to save the Earth into … Read More
THE FAMILY
Familiar Famiglia. An American mobster in the Witness Protection Program is plopped into the midst of a bucolic French village with his wife and two kids. Cue fish out of water tale, where the fish is a piranha. THE FAMILY stars Robert DeNiro as Giovanni Manzoni aka Fred Blake, a mafia don who has ratted on his crime syndicate and … Read More
JFK
Conspiracy Clearly. To sin by silence when we should protest, makes cowards out of men. –Ella Wheeler Wilcox. When it comes to 9-11, or John F. Kennedy, or Jesus Christ, no one cares what you think. They know what they know. And no one’s gonna tell ’em otherwise. Oliver Stone doesn’t care what you think. He directs JFK with the … Read More
LINCOLN
When Republicans bore resemblance to the human species… A bunch of old, out-of-touch white guys babbling about slavery. The Republican Party hasn’t changed much. Well, back then, as the party of LINCOLN, they were trying to free the slaves; nowadays, they’re working to get them all back. My main question about this ambitious film is: With all the camera operators, … Read More
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Red, White and Boob. In World War II, a patriotic American weakling, Steve Rogers, is injected with a top secret military serum to become a super soldier. Yes, it’s Captain America! The red, white and blue avenger, in the best comicbook movie of the decade – and by that I mean, it’s lightweight and predictable and aimed at twelve-year-olds. CAPTAIN … Read More
BATMAN FOREVER
From Dark Knight to Boogie Knight. After Tim Burton gave us the brooding BATMAN (1989) and the dark-yet-kinda-silly BATMAN RETURNS, he relinquished the director’s chair to Joel Schumacher, who promptly made Batman fruitier than Adam West. In BATMAN FOREVER, the third installment of the modern Batman legacy, Val Kilmer is the fruit bat whom we cannot be sure is hero … Read More
VOLCANO
You Maniacs! You blew it up! VOLCANO is nothing but fun fun fun, seeing the city of my residence – Los Angeles, California – the city that has given me nothing but attitude attitude attitude being blown all to hell. Tommy Lee Jones is the head of the Department for Fixin’ Stuff and Anne Heche is a geologist. In the … Read More
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Into the Valley of Death… ‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’ Was there a man dismay’d ? Not tho’ the soldier knew Some one had blunder’d: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. — “The Charge of The Light Brigade,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The … Read More
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
New Killer. Old Hairstyle. Quietude. West Texas veldt. 1980. A lone gunman (Josh Brolin) hunting game comes upon a slaughter scene: a handful of Mexicans dead in their clustered pickup trucks on the barren plain, massive heroin blocks untouched in the bed of one truck. The gunman follows a blood trail to another dead man clutching a leather briefcase stuffed … Read More
SPACE COWBOYS
American Hero Sandwich. There is a rare breed of animal in the world, outside any established morality, divorced from mundane reality, mythically above many of its technically superior kin; that animal is – The Clint Eastwood Movie. Clint Eastwood is an American Hero. And Clint Eastwood Movies deal with the nature of Heroism. SPACE COWBOYS is a Clint Eastwood Movie, … Read More