I believed that Kurt Cobain was going to change the world. After suffering through years of shitty hair metal and poor pop rap, Cobain and Nirvana blasted open the doors of the culture with Nevermind and ushered in what looked like an invasion of the great underground I knew had been percolating for years. But … Continue reading
Terence Howard dominates every moment of the new film Hustle & Flow with the intensity that Robert DeNiro left behind decades ago. As the hustler-turning-rapper DJay, Howard delivers the kind of performance that will have real film lovers screaming bloody murder when it’s overlooked at Oscar time. Hustle & Flow is one of those rare … Continue reading
After a screening of Rob Zombie’s new film The Devil’s Rejects, one of my fellow critics complained that the movie was “amoral, sociopathic, sadistic and fascistic.” He’s completely right, of course, but can you hold it against the movie when that’s exactly what it wants to be? Rejects is a sequel to Zombie’s debut film House … Continue reading
Praise the Lord, Vince Vaughn is back. When I say that his performance in Wedding Crashers is his best since Swingers, I actually think that means a lot. See, he was so good in Swingers that we have been giving him a pass on a decade worth of half-assed work. Even the films where he’s pretty … Continue reading
Tim Burton, don’t you think maybe it’s time you get past your daddy issues? I thought that Big Fish was going to be the end of them for sure – the film was like a colon cleansing for coming to terms with your pops. But one of the big additions Burton makes to Charlie and … Continue reading
Few actors have a following as tenacious as Bruce Campbell’s. There is hardly a genre property that hasn’t had a suggested dreamcasting of “The Chin” (or “The Bruce” or just “The Man”. Campbell’s nicknames tend to start out similarly). If the enthusiasts had their way, we would have Bruce Campbell as Superman, The Comedian and … Continue reading
Wheelchair rugby. It sounds like a contradiction in terms. The game is played in post-apocalyptic wheelchairs on basketball courts, as squads of quadriplegic smash into each other to get possession of a ball and deliver it to the other team’s goal line. Fast and brutal, the sport once known as Murderball is thrilling and scary. … Continue reading
Movies are like alchemy. If they were like chemistry, you could add the right ingredients – great actors, a promising director with visual style – and get what you would expect, a good movie. But because movies need some transmutive magic the end result is never obvious. Take for example Dark Water, a movie that, … Continue reading
What is the journalist’s responsibility? Is it to get the best story or is it to help people? This is the question that haunts John Leguizamo in his first Spanish speaking role in Cronicas. A hotshot reporter for a pan-Latin America news station, Leguizamo and his team are in Ecuador doing follow up interviews about … Continue reading