Children of Men (2006) Movie Review

“Children Of Men,” the latest film from rising Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron (”Y tu mama tambi’n”), asks a very curious question: What would the world be like if we could no longer have children? Pretty crappy, it seems. The film takes place in London in the year 2027,...

December 21st, 2006 | Read More

Apocalypto (2006) Movie Review

Over the past couple of years, few people in Hollywood have gotten as much negative press as Mel Gibson. And not just Britney Spears showing her hoo-ha type press, but true vitriol. Granted, Gibson’s drunken Jews and Sugartits rant didn’t do his public image any good, but nevertheless, it...

December 11th, 2006 | Read More

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Movie Review

The 1930s were a terrible time in Spain. Mired in a vicious civil war that saw both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia use Spain as a practice ground for WWII, the country descended into Fascist repression under Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Against this incendiary backdrop, we have Mexican director Guillermo...

December 7th, 2006 | Read More

Karas: The Prophecy (2006) Movie Review

“Karas: The Prophecy” is, bar none, the most visually spectacular animated feature I have ever seen. It is also the most idiotic, poorly constructed, convoluted, and pointless film I have ever seen. It is a triumph of technical skill, meticulous attention to detail and computing horsepower;...

December 5th, 2006 | Read More

Blood Diamond (2006) Movie Review

The race to exploit the vast mineral wealth of Western and Central Africa over the last 15 years has sparked some of the most violent and brutal conflicts the world has never heard of. In particular, the trade in ivory, gold and now diamonds has fueled a savage civil war in the western corner of Africa...

December 3rd, 2006 | Read More

The Last King of Scotland (2006) Movie Review

The late 1960s through the 1970s were a tumultuous time for central Africa. It was during this span that the European powers gave up and/or lost their colonial possessions on the ‘Dark Continent.’ But what could have been a golden opportunity for progress quickly spiraled into chaos as the...

October 27th, 2006 | Read More

Renaissance (2006) Movie Review

As computer processing power has increased over the years, we’ve seen more and more creative integration of CGI into film. For the most part, the technology has been restricted to rendering ever more convincing F/X for sci-fi and fantasy films. However, over the past few years we’ve seen...

October 18th, 2006 | Read More

The Black Dahlia (2006) Movie Review #2

In 1947, the horrifically mutilated, disemboweled and exsanguinous body of an aspiring actress named Elizabeth Short was found in a field in Los Angeles. So ghastly was the scene that, combined with Short’s penchant for wearing all black, the newspapers dubbed the case “˜The Black Dahlia’...

September 25th, 2006 | Read More

Hard Candy (2005) Movie Review

First time director David Slade’s film “Hard Candy” is an impressive and challenging entry into the revenge thriller genre. The film opens by introducing us to Jeff (Patrick Wilson, “The Phantom Of The Opera”), a 30-something photographer and Hayley (Ellen Page, “X-Men:...

September 24th, 2006 | Read More

Beowulf & Grendel (2005) Movie Review

Retelling old tales filtered through modern sensibility seems to be the thing to do these days. The recent films “Troy” and “King Arthur” are examples of this, where the mystical/supernatural elements that made the original stories so compelling are stripped away in favor of 20th...

August 7th, 2006 | Read More

Tartarus (2004) Movie Review

To fairly review a micro-budget horror film, one must approach it with a different set of standards than those reserved for the typical studio production. Nit picking over production values and special effects quality would be a waste of print, since budgetary constraints preclude such luxuries. Rather,...

July 23rd, 2006 | Read More

The Proposition (2005) Movie Review

“Australia . What fresh hell is this?” So ponders the grizzled Captain Morris Stanley (Ray Winstone, “Sexy Beast”), a British Colonial Marshall, as he casts his gaze over the uncompromising and barren wasteland we now know as the Australian Outback. After a nasty gunfight, Stanley...

June 13th, 2006 | Read More

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) Movie Review

Documentaries should always be approached with a grain of salt already in hand. While they always purport to tell ‘the truth’ about their subjects, they invariably choose a side and rely on generous helpings of embellishment to make their point. The crazy genius has always been an easy target...

April 29th, 2006 | Read More

Silent Hill (2006) Movie Review

Over the years there have been many movies adapted from other media such as cartoons, comic books and TV shows. The latest alternative media format to get the Hollywood treatment is the video game. Popular games like Super Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat, House of the Dead, Resident Evil and Doom have...

April 25th, 2006 | Read More

V for Vendetta (2006) Movie Review

The year is 2020 and the world is in turmoil. The US has collapsed into civil war brought about by plague, while across the pond Great Britain has fallen under the iron grip of a fascist, Christian conservative regime led by the domineering High Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt, “Hellboy”)....

March 20th, 2006 | Read More

Capote (2005) Movie Review

Truman Capote was already a household name in 1959, having written “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” when he boarded a train to Holcomb , Kansas to investigate the brutal massacre of a farm family by two drifters. What began as research for an article for New Yorker magazine turned into...

February 22nd, 2006 | Read More

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) Movie Review

Seeing a movie after you’ve read the book it’s based on is a dangerous proposition for a viewer. Similarly, making a movie based on a popular book is an equally dangerous proposition for a director. Such is the case with reviewing “Memoirs of a Geisha,” based on Arthur Golden’s...

February 1st, 2006 | Read More

Neighbor No. 13 (2005) Movie Review

Bullying is an ugly reality of growing up that most of us can relate to, either as culprits or victims, but we usually grow out of it when we finish elementary school, or for some others, high school. However, in some cases the harassment extends beyond the schoolyard and into a person’s adult...

January 8th, 2006 | Read More

Ashura-jo no Hitomi (2005) Movie Review

There’s something to be said for the power of the imagination, and never is it more necessary to appreciate the visual arts than when watching a stage play, where, when well performed, the action on stage spurs the viewer’s imagination to fill in the details that the props leave out. Now...

December 23rd, 2005 | Read More

Syriana (2005) Movie Review

After a major US oil company loses a lucrative bid for the rights to virgin oil fields in Kazakhstan , an unknown upstart oil exploration firm swoops in to snatch up those same rights at bargain prices. Shortly thereafter, the major oil company buys out the upstart, thus acquiring the oil rights...

December 14th, 2005 | Read More