The film opens in Germany, at a train station in Alexanderplatz. The scene intercuts between Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) at the train station, and flashbacks to a morgue and then her husband’s coffin. Ominously rumbling piano notes and a cutaway to birds suggest that this isn’t an ordinary…
The film is replete with its share of bodily fluid jokes, flatulence jokes, physical humor and, uh, an act involving fish you don’t want to know about. While McCarthy does well with some of the physical humor (she could be hilarious in stand-up), the slapstick is sporadic and the funnier moments are so sparse. The story itself is…
Space exploration is a dream that spans many centuries and cultures, and continues to persuade today. As Hanks points out, the very unattainability of the goal may be the root cause of our curiosity toward it. According to NASA’s Solar System Exploration web page, Earth’s moon is…
In June 1973, the Nixon appointee-loaded Supreme Court reorganized the obscenity laws. Law enforcement began cracking down. At the same time, the Mafia, the film argues, got involved in adult film distribution. By the mid-1970’s, the feds decided to prosecute Harry Reems. The prosecutor? Larry Parrish, a former preacher. Parrish implemented, as Alan Dershowitz called it, “a very creative use” of the…
Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) is part of a machinery without a conscience: The arms industry. To illustrate, I think, the soullessness of this machinery, the film opens with a vignette about the birth, life and death of a bullet. You see, from the bullet’s point of view, how it is manufactured, packaged, distributed, and ultimately, used. As with Andrew Niccol’s films, “Gattaca” and “The Truman Show,” Niccol personalizes…
Dr. Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon) is in a beautiful garden, only to wake up and realize she’s been up for 23 hours straight in the ER/Trauma center of St. Matthews General Hospital in San Fransisco. My initial inclination was that this would be another hokey romantic comedy, and, well, to a certain extent, it is. But it’s…
In the documentary interviews on this DVD, Gregory Peck reveals that his mannerism of clutching the pocketwatch is taken directly from observing the way Harper Lee’s father fiddled with his pocketwatch. During filming, Lee befriended Peck and believed…
Was Emily Rose possessed or afflicted by a medical disorder that required clinical treatment and therapy? If that question sounds perfunctory, it is—intentionally. The way in which the subject of Emily Rose’s death is approached is with equal parts mysticism and fact. I’m pointing this out because generally, in real life, I tend to err on the side of…