Author Archive

Exploring how Hitchcock, Carpenter and Cunningham changed the horror genre with 3 classic films.

In our 21st-century, post-Tarantino world of filmmaking, originality has become almost a parody of itself. Is it even original anymore to have quirky characters, snappy dialogue, stylish violence and a needlessly convoluted—if not downright contrived—plot (Smokin’ Aces, anyone)? Or is there more skill in using a realistic, humanistic approach to storytelling, where the actual quality of filmmaking can’t be hidden beneath the guise of cleverness? Exhibit A in the latter argument is The Lookout, the directorial debut of accomplished screenwriter Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Minority Report), which features just the latest in a string of strong performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Ask a magician to categorize his profession, and he’s likely to tell you that it’s something more than just a skill with slight-of-hand techniques and misdirection–it’s an art form. Acclaimed director Christopher Nolan has similarly modeled his latest film, The Prestige (recently released on DVD by Touchstone Pictures), as a whole greater than the sum [...]

Coming-of-age yarns come around with enough regularity to reflect the comfortable, nostalgic portraits of youth they usually represent. And while our quirky/lovable/colorful cast of characters must often learn a lesson the hard way or cope with their first major tragedy, we can still count on these pics, with the familiarity and reliability of childhood, [...]

Times aren’t exactly tough for comic book movie adaptations. Recent years have offered the returns of Batman and Superman to the big screen, the critically lauded and innovative renditions of Sin City and V for Vendetta, and box office smashes like the X-Men trilogy. Even marginally popular franchises are being awarded super-sized budgets, like the [...]

Take one part true-crime narrative, one part disaffected youth commentary, add a touch of coming-of-age, and what do you get? Just what you’d expect—a muddled and unfocused, if occasionally compelling, film that disappoints despite its promising potential. The underachiever in question is Alpha Dog, director Nick Cassavetes’ tense, violent tale of an ill-conceived [...]

B-movies are often the unfortunate result of shoddy editing, half-baked scripts, cliched concepts, phony special effects, amateurish acting and scores of other corner-cutting pitfalls. In avoiding most of these missteps (FX aside) and in keeping its aspirations self-deprecatingly modest, writer/director Don Coscarelli’s 2002 comedy Bubba Ho-Tep is a B-movie for all the right reasons. Clearly, [...]

Jamie Kennedy took the road less traveled to celebrity status. As a struggling actor in Hollywood, he used his talent for creating eclectically interesting personas to pose as his own “agent” to finally get meetings with real agents. So when Kennedy’s childhood passion to become a rapper stalled, he once again pursued an [...]

Release Date: December 5, 2006
Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral) does not make action movies–he makes crime dramas. Never was this distinction more apparent than in Miami Vice, which hits DVD in an unrated director’s cut after a disappointing midsummer theatrical run. Perhaps the most misunderstood and mis-marketed film of the year, Vice, which was billed as [...]

So, you’d like to learn a little more about the man who brought Kong back to life? Maybe you’ve heard about his ambitions to bring the popular Halo video games to the silver screen? Or maybe you’re curious about the man responsible for the epic grandeur of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Let’s go back in time, then, somewhere between Shaun of the Dead, the Evil Dead movies and Re-Animator, and revisit Peter Jackson’s 1992 zombie-horror schlockfest, Dead Alive.

It’s called Mission Impossible, but for obvious reasons this series has never completely lived up to its title. These missions are not impossible, and given a big enough budget and sufficient plot, Impossible Mission Force (IMF) super spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) will make sure you get your money’s worth by the end of two hours.

United 93, the gripping and inevitably heartbreaking account of the doomed flight of the same name, is an intense and soberingly fair study of human courage in a time of despair.