I’m going to spoil the last act of the new Shrek right now, so avert thine eyes if thou desirest an unmolested viewing of the film. The novelty of Shrek the Third is that a group of princesses normally relegated to the damsel-in-distress role end up saving the day at the end. This is empowering. … Continue reading
Iggy Pop didn’t always look like a gravel driveway. Before heroin and shards of glass* and everything else that goes into being a rock star turned his body into a landscape of livin’, Iggy was a just fresh-faced kid from Ann Arbor, Michigan named James Osterberg. So, since it’s much easier to gradually turn a … Continue reading
Edward Zwick wasn’t always the devil, but, as Marge Schott reminded us before hacking and wheezing her way off this mortal coil, Hitler was a real swell fella in the beginning before he went too far. And just as Schott was full of rosin on that count, we were all saps to think Zwick was … Continue reading
(As sternly requested by Fox’s Intellectual Property Department, we’ve removed the two unauthorized images of a bald Timothy Olyphant. Sorry ’bout that!) Hey, I’d rather be in Cannes firing off a review of last night’s opening film, Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights (even if it’s "Wong’s reheated leftovers" as Mike D’Angelo claims over at Screengrab), … Continue reading
Though he’s unproven as a solo director, comic book fans the world over have to be thrilled with the news that Frank Miller is finally set to begin shooting his live-action rendition of Will Eisner’s The Spirit. Little is known about Miller’s take on the character, who fakes his death to battle the underworld, but … Continue reading
I don’t know what’s more repugnant: the idea of Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz conspiring to foist upon moviegoers a romantic comedy titled What Stays in Vegas, or the fact that my toilet just backed up with what looks like a week’s worth of fury from the bowels of Charles Bukowski circa 1971. All things … Continue reading
It’s useless to brag "I knew there was another project coming!" after Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks snatched up Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, but, damn it, someone intimated to me a week ago that there was another project coming. What my source failed to mention was that the project was already a year in the … Continue reading
The Crop: Redbelt The Studio: Sony Pictures Classics The Writer-Director: David Mamet The Producer: Chrisann Verges The Actors: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tim Allen, Alice Braga, Emily Mortimer, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay The Premise: A principled martial arts instructor struggling to keep his modest dojo operational succumbs to the lure of Hollywood. The ensuing flirtation is a … Continue reading
Since it’s officially Roy Scheider Day on the East Coast as I write this, I’m going to let my guard down and offer up an unflattering confession: I only like one Guy Ritchie movie, and it features neither gangsters nor Kabbalah. It also takes place on an island and, to my warped mind, bests the … Continue reading
When Variety‘s Michael Fleming writes that Rob Cohen "cast a wide net" to replace Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell in The Mummy: Curse of the Talking Homicidal Jet, I think he means "they cast the first actress whose schedule checked out". Then again, does it really matter than Maria Bello looks nothing like her … Continue reading