An ungodly mess created around a dualistic theology: the next scheduled showdown, early in the 23rd Century, between the forces of Good and Evil. The earthly representative of the former is a carrot-haired, grass-rooted anorexic (Milla Jovovich), known familiarly as The Supreme Being, and assisted by a smirky mercenary (Bruce …
An ungodly mess created around a dualistic theology: the next scheduled showdown, early in the 23rd Century, between the forces of Good and Evil. The earthly representative of the former is a carrot-haired, grass-rooted anorexic (Milla Jovovich), known familiarly as The Supreme Being, and assisted by a smirky mercenary (Bruce …
The simple-mindedness of the enterprise is pretty well symbolized by its taking of its title from a 1957 Robert Parrish masterpiece, without taking the double meaning at the same time. Steven Seagal, as an ecology cop on the trail of a toxic polluter, plops down his famous scowl, his famous …
The Absent-Minded Professor remade to catch up with the decline of Western civilization: computer-cartoon special effects; a Star Wars-type sentimental robot; two Home Alone-type bungling goons; Robin Williams; etc. With Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher McDonald, Clancy Brown, Ted Levine; directed by Les Mayfield.
The boys' sacred Friday-night poker game gets rocked as never before by the opposite sex: one of the regulars announces his engagement, another develops a hankering for the pizza delivery girl, and a cool blonde on a hot streak crashes the party. A smoothly operating joke machine, in spite of …
Manhattan yuppie meets (cute, of course, in the queue outside a restaurant restroom in Vegas) a mystical Mexican católica. And the Hollywood highway crew grades and paves the rocky road of romance. Television star Matthew Perry (Friends) seizes his big-screen big chance without letting go of his sitcommy unsubtlety. With …
Largely lifeless re-creation of a microscopic piece of recent history, the abduction of the American ambassador by a group of Brazilian radicals in Rio in 1969; a bit like a de-energized Costa-Gavras film of that period. Various factions and individuals are represented fairly, noninflammatorily, but flatly. The average viewer is …
Adequate biographical data (narrated by Ron Howard), generous film clips (of uneven print quality), and perhaps overgenerous eulogies (from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, John Milius, and Robert Altman), in celebration of the centennial of Capra's birth. Written and directed by Kenneth Bowser.
Willy's about to become a father, if, that is, he and his mate can evade the whaling boat on their collective tail. His human buddy (Jason James Richter) is now seventeen, and gainfully employed as a research assistant on a whale-tagging project. But there's a new, younger buddy as well, …
A glimpse into the new capitalist Ukraine, where there's plenty of work for members of the mafia and for free-lance hitmen, though none for the linguistic scholar whose wife (gainfully employed in advertising) is cheating on him. Pithy expression of the hero's reduced circumstances: fishing through his pockets, he can …
Half a dozen individuals from the legions of out-of-work Brits come up with a novel short-term solution: a Chippendale's-style strip show, despite a lack of Chippendale's-style bodies. It's a solution that focusses usefully on the issue of Manhood: its loss, its restoration, its definition. Some of the high spirits get …
Tony Gatlif, the maker of the musical documentary Latcho Drom, pursues the subject of gypsies into the world of fiction, in the company of an extrovert Frenchman who treks to Romania in search of a legendary folk singer named Nora Luca. The quest and the movie soon stagnate in a …
Thoroughly dishonest thriller centered around a forty-eighth-birthday gift certificate (brother to brother, Sean Penn to Michael Douglas, dimpled chin to jutted jaw) redeemable at a low-profile outfit called Consumer Recreation Services. The particular service offered therefrom is spelled out cryptically as "a profound life experience" and "an experiential Book-of-the-Month Club," …
Cold, dry, serious, even somber piece of science fiction, though all of those attributes may seem somewhat exaggerated as a result of the musical score by Michael (Monotonyman) Nyman, who repeats a cluster of half a dozen notes, very slowly, with slight variations, over and over, until you want to …