"IF I GREW UP ON A FARM and was retarded, Bruges might impress me." That's antsy and immature Irish hitman Ray's (Colin Farrell) impression of the gloomy medieval Belgian town he and his older, wiser partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) have been banished to for unknown reasons by their psychotic boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes). It also [...]
HAS MICHAEL MOORE STARTED AN UNHOLY TREND of inserting personality politics into documentary filmmaking? It's a habit that not only tends to undermine whatever argument he's pushing (if they hate the messenger, they aren't listening to the message) but bastardizes a genre whose tried-and-true tactics work just fine without all the oversized ego obscuring the [...]
THE DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER Alex Gibney opens his Oscar-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room with Tom Waits' scraggly refrain: "What's he building in there?" The singer-songwriter's haunting inquiry plays over shots of the towers of the once-mighty Texas energy colossus and creates a sense of mystery and, even, fear. It's the latter response, in [...]
THE NEW BRAZILIAN IMPORT City of Men, like its 2003 companion City of God, achieves what so many films detailing slum life, no matter their provenance, never quite can -- balance and distance. Either we have Boyz N the Hood, which softens the blows by focusing on do-gooders momentarily caught up in it, thus providing [...]
MICHEL GONDRY NEEDS to get Charlie Kaufman on the phone, pronto. The two collaborations between the French director and American screenwriter have produced films (2001's Human Nature and 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) that journey to the great beyond without getting lost, because their fantastical narratives provide commentaries on human truths cleverly masked [...]
IF YOU'RE AN AMERICAN, A STRANGE FEELING bubbles up inside you when, after getting to know the Japanese soldiers training and digging trenches on the lonely island of Iwo Jima in anticipation of the enemy's arrival, you see the Marines finally land on its volcanized shores, marking the start of the gruesome 1945 battle that [...]
WE CLAMBER THROUGH THE MINUTES of No Country for Old Men, Ethan and Joel Coen's latest neo-noir, the way we clamber through the Cormac McCarthy novel on which it's based, full of furtive energy and basic need. The plot propels us forward through its animalistic focus on the hunt and the chase, and we want [...]
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, the new Will Smith vehicle about a single father's efforts to move from the poorhouse to a penthouse, attempts to reinvigorate -- or reaffirm, depending on your income bracket -- our faith in the American Dream. Set in Reagan-era San Francisco, it's the "true" story of Chris Gardner's (Smith) rise from [...]