Reviews

REVIEW: QUEEN, THE

This film is playing at the 44th New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. It’s the opening night film, and it’s playing Friday, September 29th at 8:15 (Alice Tully Hall) and 9 (Avery Fisher Hall). For information on how to get tickets, click here. Be aware that even if a show is sold out there … Continue reading

REVIEW: LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, THE

Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland is complete. He seems to spiritually, as well as physically, metamorphasize into the brutal African dictator; his every action and movement is that of Amin, and while his face, with the droopy eye, remains recognizable as Whitaker, everything else reads completely, totally as … Continue reading

REVIEW: JESUS CAMP

I walked out of Jesus Camp feeling a little dirty. I felt like what I had just watched was a hatchet job, a case where filmmakers with an agenda took advantage of trusting, provincial people, and presented a portrait of them as loonies, weirdos and extremists. Jesus Camp seemed like the worst kind of documentary … Continue reading

BOOK REVIEW: NIGHT GARDENER, THE

Buy it!: Click Here! Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Pages:384 pages Author website: GeorgePelecanos.com The Night Gardener is the best novel of the year. This is what crime fiction is all about, human, dark, with glimpses of hope and real joy and sadness. Pelecanos has risen to the top of the class following the classic … Continue reading

REVIEW: FEARLESS

I have always said that I wanted to study martial arts so that I could pick fights at bars. This is the wrong reason to study martial arts. It’s so wrong, in fact, that Jet Li’s new movie is essentially all about that. How do you make a movie about the philosophy behind martial arts, … Continue reading

REVIEW: FEAST

Saying that Feast is the best film to come out of the Project Greenlight TV show is dim praise indeed… so it’s a good thing that this isn’t the only praise I have for it. Feast is a genuinely fun splatter movie that almost never lets up and definitely never takes itself too seriously. In … Continue reading

REVIEW: JACKASS NUMBER TWO

During the end credits of Jackass Number Two Bam Margera, who cries a couple of times in this film, says, “I hope there’s no Jackass 3.” I understand where he’s coming from – this movie has upped the ante so much that I think the only way a third can top it is to intentionally … Continue reading

BOOK REVIEW: BAD TWIN

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!PUBLISHER: HyperionMSRP: $21.95PAGES: 272 I’m not really interested in the meta of Lost. The creators have diversified from the serial television story to include a meta-game called The Lost Experience which seems to fascinate people as much, if not more, than Microsoft’s successful ilovebees promotion for Halo 2. The trouble … Continue reading

FESTIVAL REVIEW: BLACK SHEEP

New Zealand Jonathan King   Someone had to finally force sheep buggery into a horror film, and it makes sense that a Kiwi would be the one to do it. With Black Sheep, Jonathan King has made a film so obviously indebted to Peter Jackson (Dead Alive in particular) that it can be difficult to … Continue reading