Single-handedly, William Hurt damn near ruins the movie. Always a strange, always a mannered, always a tormented actor, he would appear here to be making a concerted effort to find out how close he can get to being the World's Worst Actor without sacrificing the good opinion of his fans …
The titular character's place in the scheme of things is an interesting one: a lead character doomed to live in the shadow of a supporting character; more exactly, an impoverished young pianist selected as accompanist, and "maybe also artistic advisor," to an illustrious Russian diva in Nazi-occupied France. Besides accompanist, …
Elementary Rape Education, based very loosely on erroneous news accounts of an actual incident that reportedly took place in front of cheering onlookers in a public bar. (Is the pinball machine on which the rape here occurs -- about as ugly a scene, in about as many different ways, as …
An odd comic concept: a retriever of missing animals (and a virtual Saint Francis to an illicit menagerie in his Miami apartment). The man himself, Jim Carrey, is still odder: a spastic, rictus-afflicted, ducktailed rejectee from a Grease audition, whose mouth (and sometimes even voice) resembles Dan Aykroyd doing Dick …
Jim Carrey may well be the Jerry Lewis of the Nineties. Which would mean, in addition to masturbation jokes and such, that where Lewis had directors who were also stylists (himself, Tashlin), Carrey, here on the trail of the sacred white bat of mythical Nibia in Darkest Africa, has someone …
Paul McGuigan's unsavory anthology of three short stories by Irvine Welsh (author of Trainspotting), combining sordid naturalism and scabrous whimsy. God Himself plays a major part in the first story ("That cunt Nietzsche was wide of the mark when he said that I was dead"), and puts in cameo appearances …
Two-and-a-quarter-hour promo for the Beatles without ever mentioning them by name. A generous, even overgenerous sampler of their songs (thirty-three of them, by the count in the press notes, leaving aside the numberless others that are quoted from or alluded to) has been re-recorded, or "covered" as they say in …
A Third World groin-kicker, eye-gouger, and gorge-riser about an escalatingly bloody rebellion of salt miners. Strong stuff; sheets of dust blowing relentlessly across the screen, Spanish epithets like puerco, cobarde, and hijo de puta popping up throughout the script, Eisensteinian extras in noble poses, Peckinpahian special-effects gore, a passionate score …
He's a steel-fisted, but gunless, Detroit police sergeant (demoted from lieutenant), with a Harvard law degree and a '66 Chevy Impala. Scriptwriter Robert Reneau -- who has a few cute ideas, such as a hairdresser named Dee who is prone to alliterate with the fourth letter of the alphabet -- …
Maudlin, minibudgeted tale of drug addiction. (The tone is set with the opening slide-show of childhood photos, to the tune of "Paper Doll.") The autobiographical nature of the work makes it more personal for the filmmaker, Rosemary Rodriguez, though not necessarily more interesting for the outsider. With Ana Reeder and …
Asperger’s romance (and high time, too, after Tourette’s, Alzheimer’s, etc., have had a whirl at romance) about a socially handicapped astronomy buff and his pretty upstairs new neighbor, an aspiring children’s writer, in a New York apartment house. Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, the afflicted and the normal respectively, play …
Forced gay-ety around two men -- a Central Park nature guide and a germophobic psychologist -- who meet up again, without recognizing one another, seventeen years after their disastrous first date. The disaster is of gross-out proportions, a prologue that sets the sustained tone of trying too hard. With Craig …
Animated holiday greeting card — Christmas and Hanukah both — addressed to Adam Sandler's flock: juvenile tastelessness sprinkled with sugar. Besides being the model for the bah-humbug protagonist, Sandler supplies four different voices, all of them irritating in different ways. And the brand names and corporate logos on parade — …
Stagy, kitchen-sinky drama about three generations of women in one Soviet apartment: Grandma is paralyzed; the elder daughter can't get her boyfriend to commit; the younger has gotten herself pregnant; Mom is looking for a life of her own. Another of those heralded "advances" in the Russian cinema which nevertheless …
Husband and wife square off in the courtroom as District Attorney and defense advocate. The emphasis in this juridical battle of the sexes is on "cute" comedy (he summons a tear to his eye at will, he paddles her derriere, etc.). With Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and Judy Holliday; directed …