Movie Reviews
The Prompter (Norwegian)
The titular occupation in the Norwegian film "The Prompter" is the person at an opera who sits in that little box at the front of the stage, cuing the performers on their lines.
Siv (Hege Sch�yen) is a plain, 30-something woman who loves her jo...
Supernova
When a studio releases a film without letting critics see it first, there's only one reason: It sucks, and they know it. If critics see it, they'll only write reviews, and that won't help any.
So I'm happy to oblige those responsible for "Superno...
Next Friday
When the world loves a film so much that the masses clamor for a sequel, Hollywood is quick to oblige! This is also true even if no one was clamoring for a sequel, which was surely the case with "Friday," a sleeper hit taking place in the 'hood from ...
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (documentary)
It's hard to go wrong with a title like "Mr. Death," and director Errol Morris uses the sort of music you'd hear in a Hollywood summer blockbuster, accompanied by opening credits that hide the fact you're watching a documentary, to draw you immediate...
The Third Miracle
Religion, when it is dealt with at all, is usually mocked in movies, and religious characters are generally foolish for having faith.
It's either that, or the movies are shamelessly preachy and overbearing. For some reason, a film that examines f...
The Hurricane
"The Hurricane" is an unbelievable movie, and I don't mean that in a good way. For being based on a true story, it sure comes across at times as remarkably unrealistic.
I don't doubt that the way the events unfold in the innocent-man-goes-to-pris...
Titus
"Titus Andronicus" is infamous in the theater world for being Shakespeare's most horrific play.
It's not that the body count is terribly high -- there are more deaths in "Hamlet," for example -- but that the play is all about cruelty, revenge, mu...
Angela’s Ashes
Turns out Limerick, Ireland, isn't nearly as happy a place as you'd think, what with the merry five-line poems being named after it and all.
In "Angela's Ashes," a film based on Frank McCourt's autobiographical novel, Limerick in the 1930s and '4...
Mansfield Park
When Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor) leaves her dirt-poor home in late-1700s England to live with rich relatives at Mansfield Park, her aunt tells her that her life will be "a quick succession of busy nothings."
That could describe the entire movi...
The Talented Mr. Ripley
In "The Talented Mr. Ripley," the eponymous Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) delineates his talents as follows: "forging signatures, telling lies, impersonating almost anyone."
He tells this to Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), and then proceeds to prove it by ...
Galaxy Quest
With dry, understated wit and an attitude that is giddy without being sophomoric, "Galaxy Quest" succeeds in being one of the more enjoyable comedies of the season.
In the film, "Galaxy Quest" was a popular TV show 20 years ago that is still enjoy...
Snow Falling on Cedars
I'm guessing this is the excuse: Well, see, there was snow falling, and so the movie had to drive reeeeaaaallly slow to avoid skidding out.
"Snow Falling on Cedars" has all the makings of a great film. There's a suspenseful murder trial, an ethic...
Girl, Interrupted
"Girl, Interrupted" is easy enough to like. It has good acting and a frequently compelling storyline. But recognizing it as a good movie is one thing; actually enjoying it is another, and it's hard to see anyone going back a second time to watch this...
Man on the Moon
"Man on the Moon" stumbles awkwardly in some minor areas, but still manages to convey in fascinating terms the oddness of Andy Kaufman's life.
Little attempt is made to show us WHY Andy was so weird. In one telling scene, he says to his girlfriend...
Any Given Sunday
Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday" is the "Saving Private Ryan" of football movies.
Just as World War II films had been done before but would change forever after Spielberg took a turn, the genre of football movies (indeed, the genre of sports mov...
The Emperor and the Assassin (Chinese)
Chen Kaige's "The Emperor and the Assassin" is an epic-length film with some breathtakingly filmed epic-sized battles and palace scenes ... yet it all boils down to a simple, non-epic story of love, loyalty and power.
It is 221 B.C., and Ying Zhen...
Anna and the King
Considering director Andy Tennant's previous efforts include things like "Ever After," "Fools Rush in" and the made-for-TV "Amy Fisher Story," "Anna and the King" is a fantastic achievement.
Not giving any extra credit for rising above his most r...
Bicentennial Man
Robin Williams may be stuck. His wacky improvisational style of comedy -- think "Aladdin" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" -- has grown stale (think "Patch Adams"), but giving him a more focused, less frenetic role, as in the new "Bicentennial Man," is just as d...
Stuart Little
The most brilliant touch in "Stuart Little," the delightful new family comedy based on the story by E.B. White ("Charlotte's Web"), is that when the Little family goes to adopt a child, and they come home with a talking mouse named Stuart, NO ONE CAR...
Magnolia
"Magnolia" begins with a narrator telling us about some amazing coincidences -- like a guy who lived at Greenberry Hill being killed by three guys named Green, Berry and Hill -- and then telling us that "these things just happen. It's just something ...
The Cider House Rules
The cider house doesn't just rule. The cider house ROCKS!!!
Sorry. I've been wanting to say that for a long time. Actually, "rules" in "The Cider House Rules" is used as a noun, not a verb -- as in, "the rules pertaining to the cider house."
...
Topsy-Turvy
Is "Topsy-Turvy" a vivid, realistic, detail-perfect re-creation of the Victorian theater world? Yes. Will anyone other than Gilbert & Sullivan fans enjoy it? That is the question.
At 2 hours and 40 minutes, it stretches the patience of any mo...
Cradle Will Rock
Tim Robbins is a man passionate about his work, both in front of the camera and behind. He has a way of engaging the audience in his cause, rallying them behind him no matter what the subject.
Usually, that is. Unfortunately, his large-scale re-c...
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
The commercials for "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo" do the film a serious injustice, making it look shallow and stupid when it's actually fairly sweet, not awfully crude, and with more of a message than you'd think.
The plot is explained in the ads ...
Sweet and Lowdown
Woody Allen's faux-reality-based story about 1930s jazz guitarist Emmet Ray, complete with "experts" discussing the details of his fictitious life, is an enjoyable, insignificant little comedy with an almost hauntingly dark undertone to it.
"Swee...
Holy Smoke
Jane Campion ("The Piano") fosters Kate Winslet's post-"Titanic" desire to do nothing but weird stuff in her disjointed, humor-so-subtle-it's-not-funny "Holy Smoke."
Winslet plays Ruth Barron, a young Australian woman who, while visiting India, h...
Agnes Browne
First there was "Angela's Ashes," a portrait of working-class Ireland that was dismal and bleak. Now there's "Agnes Browne," which, if anything, suffers from forcing itself to be upbeat. All these Irish-film makers need to get together and figure out...
The End of the Affair
Neil Jordan's screen adaptation (which he wrote and directed) of the novel "The End of the Affair" takes place in the '40s, and has the look and feel of the old weepers made during that time.
Then there's the puzzlingly graphic sex scenes, remind...
Toy Story 2
"Toy Story" was a tough act to follow, but "Toy Story 2" succeeds in every way -- the rare sequel that is just as it good as its predecessor, mainly because it doesn't just rehash what we've already seen, but adds to it.
The first film was innova...
Felicia’s Journey
"Felicia's Journey" is probably the quietest, gentlest movie about a serial killer ever made -- which just makes it all the more unsettling.
If you weren't paying attention, you'd think this was a quaint little Jane Austen movie, with genteel men ...
All About My Mother (Spanish)
Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed "All About My Mother" with apparently one thing in mind: to show the us the minds and feelings of women. Note, as we discuss the story, how ineffectual, useless or altogether absent the male characters are.
The f...
The World Is Not Enough
In this day and age, when movies are often winkingly self-aware, and when the James Bond archetype has already been properly deflated by "Austin Powers" and others, it's nice to see the new Bond film is not unaware of its pop-cultural environment.
...
Anywhere but Here
"Anywhere but Here" is a movie about a teen-age girl who has to help her mom grow up.
Films in which the parent is more irresponsible than the child have been done before, but this one manages to seem fresh and realistic, thanks to earnest and ge...
American Movie (documentary)
"American Movie" is a documentary that proves something we need to be reminded of more often: Real life is funny, touching and interesting. You don't have to manufacture wacky neighbors or kicks in the crotch; the people you see on the street are ent...
The Insider
Director Michael Mann accomplishes a few clever feats in his new film "The Insider," but the most amazing one is taking a subject that could easily be of no interest to most people -- journalistic integrity behind the scenes at "60 Minutes," involvin...
Last Night
The Canadian film "Last Night" asks the question, "What would you do if you knew the world was going to end at midnight tonight?"
We've all wondered about that before, at least casually, especially when we've seen films like "Independence Day" an...
My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski (German; documentary)
German director Werner Herzog's movies are best known for occasionally starring Klaus Kinski. Klaus Kinski, meanwhile, is best known for being an insane maniac with diva tendencies. Together, they made quite a pair, working together on five films tha...
Music of the Heart
Director Wes Craven, best known for creating the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, has moved from one cliche-ridden genre to another.
"Music of the Heart," his "departure" film, tells the true story of Roberta Guaspari (Meryl Streep), an inner-ci...
Bringing out the Dead
Nicolas Cage has made a career out of playing semi-psychotic losers. Whether they're comical ("Raising Arizona," "Honeymoon in Vegas") or serious (everything else), he has a knack for starting out just slightly off-kilter, and winding up completely d...
The Source (documentary)
One of the perks of the Internet is that you can find out embarrassing information about otherwise-respectable people. For example, Chuck Workman, who wrote and directed the thorough and professional Beatnik documentary "The Source," also wrote and d...
Show Me Love (Swedish)
Europe's more liberal attitude toward homosexuality is brought to bear in Swedish writer/director Lukas Moodysson's "Show Me Love," a coming-of-age comedy about two teen-age girls falling in love.
Whether this openness is good or bad depends on y...
Fight Club
The trailer for "Fight Club" was a great example of what a trailer should be. It established an interesting, quirky premise -- two guys start a club where men get together just to hit each other -- and then told us nothing else. We're left to wonder,...
The Story of Us
Failed marriages have been the subject of many films, and while "The Story of Us" doesn't add anything we haven't seen before, it succeeds anyway thanks to Rob Reiner's style of directing that is creative, yet still comfortably familiar.
Much of ...
Boys Don’t Cry
In 1993, a sexually confused 21-year-old Nebraska woman named Teena Brandon reversed her name to Brandon Teena, posed as a man, and became involved in a romantic relationship with another woman. When Teena's secret was discovered the consequences wer...
Three Kings
If World War II movies are about old-fashioned things like courage and valor, it makes sense that a film about the Persian Gulf War would be about '90s values like media coverage and greed.
Such is "Three Kings," a film in which four U.S. Army me...
Happy, Texas
"Happy, Texas" is such a charming, piquant little film that it's no wonder the folks at Sundance loved it this year. Plus, there are gay characters, which practically ensures success at the festival.
While on a prison transfer, small-time crimina...
Drive Me Crazy
Usually, when we speak of movie genres, they're something broad like "action/adventure" or "slapstick comedy." Maybe you could get as specific as "fugitive-on-the-lam thriller" or "gross-out comedy," but that's still pretty general.
But now we se...
American Beauty
In "American Beauty," suburbanite Lester Burnham (brilliantly played by Kevin Spacey) is suffering a midlife crisis. He's a push-over -- by his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) and daughter Jane (Thora Birch); by his unappreciative boss; by life in gene...
The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) needs a new rating. I propose it be NC-5: No one admitted over the age of 5.
"The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland" is rated G, but "suitable for all ages" isn't really accurate. The kids will love...
Mystery, Alaska
OK, if you really want to make yet another sports movie in which an underdog team faces incredible odds against a far superior team, here are two things you should do:
1) Hire actors based on their acting ability, not on their athletic prowess.
...
Double Jeopardy
In "Double Jeopardy," dollars values are doubled, and there are two Daily Doubles on the board.
No, wait, I'm thinking of the second round of the TV show "Jeopardy!," which, by the way, usually has far more suspense and exhibits way more intellig...
Simon Sez
(Reviewed in 2002.)
I have two vivid memories of "Simon Sez." One of them is that I watched it on New Year's Eve 1999, just before Y2K. You'd think that on the night of the biggest party in history, I'd have something better to do than watch a cra...
For Love of the Game
In "For Love of the Game," an aging superstar's career comes down to one last game, one final chance at proving he's still a viable player. That superstar's name: Kevin Costner.
His character, fictitious Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel, is in ...
Mickey Blue Eyes
The commercials for "Mickey Blue Eyes" have already shown one of the most basic -- and funniest -- jokes of the film, the one where Italian mobster James Caan is trying to teach ultra-British Hugh Grant how to talk like a Mafioso.
"Fuhgeddaboudit...
Brokedown Palace
Watching "Brokedown Palace" is like watching several different movies at once, and none of them are very good.
Full of themes and characters that are introduced and then go nowhere, the movie is melancholy, almost dreary, as it tries to make us p...
Mystery Men
As the world becomes more modern and young people get more cynical and world-weary, it's getting kinda hard to take superheroes seriously.
It doesn't help that most of the superhero movies of the last few years have ranged from the dull ("Blade,"...
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (French)
French director Patrice Chereau has crafted a movie that will be loved by foreign-film buffs and cinema snobs, and viewed with mild disinterest by normal people (if it's viewed by them at all).
"Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train" follows a larg...
Twin Falls Idaho
Twin Falls, Idaho, is not a particularly noteworthy city, but "Twin Falls Idaho" is an extraordinarily unusual, powerful film. It's by far the best movie about Siamese twins who fall in love with a prostitute that I've ever seen.
Real-life twins ...
Deep Blue Sea
The opening scene of "Deep Blue Sea" is fantastically representative of the entire film. There are four good-looking teen-agers on a boat in the ocean, drinking beer and fooling around. Then something bumps the boat. We know it's a shark because we k...
Tarzan
It's a tradition: Every summer, Disney releases a new animated film with Broadway-style songs, a main character with missing parent or parents, wacky anthropomorphic sidekicks, and a moral-of-the-story ending that adds up to "Just be yourself and peo...
Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace
"Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," like the three "Star Wars" films before it, has a feeling of child-like wonder and fantasy, grounded in a strong sense of right and wrong, that makes for a fantastic cinematic experience. It's a treat for...
Hideous Kinky
"Hideous Kinky" is neither hideous nor kinky. It's also not terribly interesting.
The film, directed by Gillies MacKinnon and based on Esther Freud's autobiographical novel, takes place in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1972. This was a time when many pe...
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
(Reviewed in 2002, with revisions in 2017.)
The onscreen title of this film is "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later." I assume the "H20" means "Halloween 20," not "water" -- which means the full, unabbreviated title of this movie is: "Halloween Hallowee...
Mafia!
Jim Abrahams, director of "Hot Shots," brings us "Mafia!" (or, as it is properly called, "Jane Austen's Mafia!" which is actually quite a bit funnier). This film, a parody of Mafia movies in general and "The Godfather" and "Casino" specifically, lack...
Armageddon
In "Armageddon," there's a Texas-sized asteroid headed straight for Earth. The surface of this asteroid, where our heroes spend a surprisingly large amount of time, is a metaphor for the whole movie: visually stunning and almost beautiful, yet also l...
X-Files: Fight the Future
The makers of the "X-Files" movie have been insisting for months that the film would have its cake and eat it too.
They said it would answer questions that fans of the TV show have been asking for years, but that it would also be self-contained a...
Mulan
The last Disney animated feature to be a huge success was 1994's "The Lion King." The ones since then, while doing so-so at the box office, have failed to register with audiences for one reasons or another. "Pocahontas" was boring and stupid (pardon ...
Godzilla
I walked into "Godzilla" expecting it to be an exciting, scary, summertime-popcorn-type of movie. While lots of media hype doesn't necessarily guarantee quality, you can usually expect to at least be entertained when something is "The Most Hyped Movi...
Krippendorf’s Tribe
(Written for a 2002 "Reviewer Rumble" tournament among eFilmCritic.com contributors.)
In order to find "Krippendorf's Tribe" funny, you must agree with it on one fundamental principle: Penises are funny.
If you do not hold that truth to be sel...
The Man Who Knew Too Little
Bill Murray's losing streak is over. After a decade or so of lackluster, what-were-they-thinking? movies, he has finally come back to himself with the clever new comedy "The Man Who Knew Too Little."
Murray plays Wallace Ritchie, a Blockbuster vid...
Boogie Nights
(Reviewed in 2002.)
"Boogie Nights" has a lot of sex in it, which does not surprise me, given the film's porn-industry subject matter. What is refreshing is that it does not dwell on the sex in a lurid manner, but neither is it judgmental toward p...
Picture Perfect
"Picture Perfect," the new movie starring Jennifer Aniston, Jay Mohr and Kevin Bacon, suffers from an identity crisis.
It's billed as a romantic comedy, but it hardly even tries to be funny. It focuses more on the romance, but even that aspect of...
Good Burger
ERIC: OK, we'll admit the only reason we wanted to see "Good Burger" was that we thought it would be fun to review a movie we hated. The commercials for this film, from the fine folks at Nickelodeon, make it look SO stupid and SO annoying, we tho...
Contact
It is unusual for a summer blockbuster to inspire much actual debate.
Oh sure, you'll have people comparing the latest sequels to their predecessors, and you'll have psychologists saying that letting your kids see a dozen people getting eaten by ...
Men in Black
KIMBER: Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones fill familiar roles as wise-cracking heroes in the sci-fi comedy "Men in Black." This appears to be the runaway comedy hit of the summer.
ERIC: "Men in Black" is the souffle hit of the summer: light and ...
Hercules
ERIC: For a while there, some people were really worried about the Disney cartoons.
The boring "Pocahontas" and not-for-kids "Hunchback of Notre Dame," while lauded by some, were generally not well received, and many people began to think that...
Batman & Robin
KIMBER: Everything freezes over in Warner Bros.' fourth installment of the Batman series, "Batman & Robin."
The film lets the villains have the most fun. I loved the way Poison Ivy, played by Uma Thurman, seduces everyone from Boy Wonder t...
The Next Step
(From a 2006 DVD review.)
"The Next Step" is about a rare creature known as the Heterosexual Male Broadway Dancer. The HMBD is rarely seen in nature, so if you happen to stumble across one, take a picture!
The HMBD in question in this ridiculou...
My Brother’s War
(From a 2006 DVD review.)
Why anyone considers the name Roger Corman to be a selling point is beyond me, but here it is, plastered at the top of "My Brother's War," a 1997 film directed by actor James Brolin that stumbled around for a while, disap...
The Lost World
(Some of these early reviews were written for my college newspaper with Kimber Kay, in the format seen here. This is the very first one, and the first film review I ever wrote.)
KIMBER: I usually review movies for The Universe myself, but Eric whi...
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
(Reviewed in 2001.)
Sequels are rarely good, and "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" is a reminder that it's even harder to do a good sequel when the original didn't have much to it in the first place.
"Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" benefitted from ...
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
(Reviewed in 2002, with revisions in 2017.)
Ah, blessed competence! How rarely has your light shone upon this series!
Part 6 in the "Halloween" series, given the numberless title "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers," is marked by some genuin...
Mortal Kombat
(Written for a 2002 "Reviewer Rumble" tournament among eFilmCritic.com contributors.)
If the movie "Mortal Kombat" were a character in a "Mortal Kombat" video game, its special maneuver would be to take off its pants, climb onto its opponent's sho...
Richie Rich
(Written for a 2002 "Reviewer Rumble" tournament among eFilmCritic.com contributors.)
What is our fascination with rich people? We ascribe unusual traits to them, and we turn them into celebrities based only on their wealth. But when you get right...
Clerks
(Reviewed in 2001.)
"Clerks" might have been famous just for being the first film without any nudity, sex or violence to be given an NC-17 rating. The rating was appealed and the film was released as an R, without any cuts being made.
I say "mi...
The Thing Called Love
(From a 2006 review of the director's cut on DVD.)
"The Thing Called Love" is a generic title for a fairly generic movie. It's good enough to watch, but not good enough to re-watch. Its story is predictable at nearly every turn, but its performanc...
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
(Reviewed in 2002 as part of a retrospective on the "Friday the 13th" series.)
I got angry with "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan" for suggesting Jason would be in New York and then not putting him there until an hour into the movi...
Cop and a Half
(Written for a 2002 "Reviewer Rumble" tournament among eFilmCritic.com contributors.)
I think my rented VHS copy of "Cop and a Half" may have been faulty, for I thought I saw a scene in which Burt Reynolds and a young child actor were standing at ...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
(Written for a 2002 "Reviewer Rumble" tournament among eFilmCritic.com contributors.)
When the conversation turns to high-quality film adaptations of beloved comic books, certain films will invariably crop up. "Spider-Man" will be mentioned, as wi...
Halloween 5
(Reviewed in 2002, with revisions in 2017.)
The posters for this movie called it "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers," but the onscreen title is simply "Halloween 5," which is good, since Michael doesn't really get revenge on anybody in it....
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
(Reviewed in 2002 as part of a retrospective on the "Friday the 13th" series.)
Of all the "Friday the 13th" movies -- and I think there were 19 or 20 or them -- "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan" probably annoyed me the most. And t...
Child’s Play
(Reviewed in 2002.)
Like many horror films that spawned innumerable sequels (well, four of them), "Child's Play" -- the one about the evil doll named Chucky -- is not especially good, and certainly not worthy of producing sequels, innumerable or o...
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
(Reviewed in 2002, with revisions in 2017.)
It is a small comfort that after the tedious cinematic enema known as "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch," Part 4 in the series brings back the original villain. I say it is a small comfort because while ...
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
(Reviewed in 2002 as part of a retrospective on the "Friday the 13th" series.)
In "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," we get to hear a narrator tell us the backstory. I don't know who the narrator is; the credits don't mention him. It sound...
Lethal Weapon
(Reviewed in 2002.)
"Lethal Weapon" is a big, dumb movie whose salvation is that its main characters are likeable.
It comes to us from 1987, when some of its many, many buddy-cop-action-flick cliches may have been fresher. Look at it now and se...
Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI
(Reviewed in 2002 as part of a retrospective on the "Friday the 13th" series.)
The sixth installment in the thunderingly mediocre "Friday the 13th" series features no nudity whatsoever. Also, no one falls down while running, no one says, "I'll be ...
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
(Reviewed in 2002 as part of a retrospective on the "Friday the 13th" series.)
While it is safe to say none of the "Friday the 13th" movies was particularly worth making, I believe Part 5 -- "A New Beginning" -- is the one that brought the least f...
Gremlins
(Written in 2007 for the "Retro Cinema" feature at Cinematical.)
"Gremlins" was released in 1984, the summer I turned 10. I saw it with my cousin. We loved it. I bought the novelization and read it repeatedly. (It says Gizmo is an extra-terrestria...
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
(Reviewed in 2002 as part of a retrospective on the "Friday the 13th" series.)
Part four in the "Friday the 13th" series is called "The Final Chapter." It should not be confused with part nine in the series, which is called "The Final Friday." It ...
Twilight Zone: The Movie
(Written in 2007 for the "Retro Cinema" feature at Cinematical.)
If you were to ask the 9-year-old version of me what the scariest movie ever made was, he would say it was "Twilight Zone: The Movie" -- a film so terrifying that I was reduced to te...
