Trash, art, and the movies.
“Tuscan Sunset,” says actor Rob Brydon as he’s describing the color of the make-up being applied to Steve Coogan’s prosthetic nose. This is the story of Tristram Shandy (sort of) based on the nine-volume novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. Actually, it’s the (apparently fictional) back-story of how Michael Winterbottom and company attempted to…
Tripp always dates but never holds down a relationship — always jettisoned when the girl realizes, inevitably, that he still lives with his parents. His parents, Sue (Kathy Bates) and Al (Terry Bradshaw), want more than anything to see him get out on his own. Their motives aren’t entirely altruistic, of course. They’ve spent enough time being parents and would like to finally have some time to themselves again. Their neighbor’s son finally moved out, which motivates them to…
Disney proves yet again that they’ve completely run dry of fresh ideas. Here, for the umpteenth time (I’ve lost count), they recycle yet another movie from their vaults. While their animated movies follow one formula–underdog overcoming adversity in coming-of-age journey and/or to be reunited with friends and family–the live-action films have etched out another trite formula: The family member who must undergo a metaphysical transformation to realize they don’t spend…
“Gentlemen, do not despair,” Rochester reassures us before we have reason to care for a reassurance delivered by him. Blah blah… something something… “I do not want you to like me.” No, really, I couldn’t quite follow what he was saying because he was mumbling, like a poorly mimeographed page of script, an affectation of Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I can follow garbled dialogue when it’s in…
Is there something that was not addressed in Wes Craven’s 1977 original that is in this remake, also produced by Craven and directed by Alexandre Aja? I have not watched the original but, if it is even remotely like the movie I have just seen, I’m certain I can go an entire lifetime without having viewed it. “The Hills Have Eyes” is touted as a horror film but I think it belongs in a narrower subgenre populated mostly by directors who seem preoccupied with the need to outdo each other’s…
The cranking of an alternator as a car engine’s turning over, failing to start. A man checks the engine to see if he can get the car going. It doesn’t seem at all like the beginning of a Dave Chappelle movie, does it? That’s what I thought. Chappelle shows up, lightly amused by the…
Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) is the sort of disheveled lush of a detective who gets assigned to escort a two-bit criminal, Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), to the District Attorney awaiting his testimony before a Grand Jury. Mosley’s the kind of detective who would rather avoid being noticed if he could. But he’s not your conventional stereotype of the lifer who took refuge behind a desk only to have his shot at the big…
The beginning of this film reminds me somewhat of the opening of “Arlington Road,” based on the screenplay that won Ehren Kruger the Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Like “Arlington Road,” however, this film has some elements that work well, and others that don’t. Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) leaves a building with Oleg Yugorsky (Cameron Bright)…