Now that the "ride" -- as in "wild ride," "thrill ride," "rollercoaster ride" -- seems to be an accepted film category, if not quite a genre, it makes sense that a film would be modelled after, or at least named after, an actual amusement-park ride. But Pirates -- not the …
Now that the "ride" -- as in "wild ride," "thrill ride," "rollercoaster ride" -- seems to be an accepted film category, if not quite a genre, it makes sense that a film would be modelled after, or at least named after, an actual amusement-park ride. But Pirates -- not the …
Two combative cousins take off for Acapulco in Grandpa's car with Grandpa's ashes. Mexican dark comedy, groping, fumbling, as if night-blind. With Osvaldo Benavides, Rodrigo Cachero, and Ana de la Reguera; directed by Juan Carlos de Llaca.
Sanitary human-interest story of a high-school football coach in mid-Seventies South Carolina (Ed Harris in a Bear Bryant hat) who takes a retarded black man under his wing as an assistant, sending the team on an immediate losing streak and raising the question of "Why on earth are you doing …
Lower East Side Story. Seventeen-year-old Victor puts the moves on "Juicy" Judy to repair his reputation after he's caught, pants down, with Fat Donna. A sort of ethnic sitcom (a Dominican household, cramped as a sardine tin, ruled with tottery tyranny by the septuagenarian granny), but done in a foul-mouthed, …
A nothing-is-what-it-seems spy game from director Roger Donaldson, who gave us (most relevantly) No Way Out. That grouping of words even crops up in a climactic line of dialogue: "You've got no way out but me." Is this just a coincidence or is it an encryption? In that same vein, …
Johnny is a successful banker who lives happily in a San Francisco townhouse with his fiancée, Lisa. One day, inexplicably, she gets bored of him and decides to seduce Johnny's best friend, Mark. From there, nothing will be the same again. Written, produced, and directed by Tommy Wiseau, who also …
A successful banker's (Tommy Wiseau) fiancee (Juliette Danielle) tempts and manipulates his best friend (Greg Sestero).
Yet another illuminated cranny of Nazi Germany: the Aryan wives of incarcerated Jews, standing vigil outside the collection center in Berlin. Uneven photography and unwieldy flashbacks (omniscient in point of view, despite the first-person reminiscer in the present day), but the material is strong enough to survive. With Katja Riemann …
Courtroom hokum to do with the high-tech tactics to rig the jury in a civil suit against a gun manufacturer. The plot just keeps digging a deeper hole for itself, and the busy, frantic directorial manner of Gary Fleder cannot cover it up. From a John Grisham novel; with Gene …
The Rock, erstwhile professional wrestler, here plays a "retrieval expert," a mob free-lancer who declines to work with a gun and looks forward to a future as a restaurateur. In the opening scene, in order to collect a little collateral on the gambling debts of a pro quarterback, he takes …
Patchy, raggedy "indie," based on short stories of A.M. Homes: back and forth between four neighboring middle-class families, your proverbial lives of quiet desperation. Despite the juicing-up (roadway tragedy, the threat of pedophilia, a young boy's intimate conversational relationship with a Barbie doll), it remains flat and drab. With Glenn …
What is a spoof of 8 Mile doing in the middle of a horror spoof? (Well, not in the middle exactly, but in the first fifteen minutes.) The Ring and Signs are the primary targets of leechery, but director David Zucker (BASEketball, Naked Gun, Top Secret, Airplane), rather than infuse …