An American Carol: Comedic conservatism David Zucker's political spoof yields few yuks Kent Williams on Friday 10/10/2008 Does political humor have to align with your politics before you can find it funny? That's the question I kept asking myself while watching An American Carol, David Zucker's comic skewering of the American Left in general and Michael Moore in particular. Admittedly, I laughed only rarely, but was it because Zucker's taking his pot shots from the right side of the aisle or because the pot shots themselves, in a purely esthetic sense, were so lame? >MoreAppaloosa: Way out west Kent Williams on Friday 10/10/2008 Appaloosa has been made with such quiet authority that its charms may be lost on modern audiences, who expect a certain amount of commotion, no matter what the genre. Of course, Westerns have traditionally taken their time. They're like baseball games, as much about the in-between moments as they are about the major shoot-outs. >More
Miracle at St. Anna: Second-class soldiers Spike Lee's war epic stays shallow Kent Williams on Friday 10/03/2008, (2) Recommendations "Why die for a nation that doesn't want you?" That's the question a platoon of African American soldiers hears over a radio loudspeaker as it's approaching the Serchio River in the hills of Tuscany toward the end of World War II. Posing the question is the Tokyo Rose of the European Theater of Operations, Axis Sally. And you can tell by the looks on the soldiers' faces that she's getting through to them. >MoreNights in Rodanthe: Wan weepie Kent Williams on Friday 10/03/2008, (2) Recommendations A hopeless romantic, Nicholas Sparks seems to have Hollywood's number. Four of his novels have been converted into movies, one of which, The Notebook, I actually liked. And now here's Nights in Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane as two ships who pass in the night, then dock in each other's harbor. >More
War, Inc.: War is sell Lampooning the big business of global conflict Kent Williams on Friday 09/26/2008, (3) Recommendations If satires are what close on Saturday night, as George S. Kaufman once wrote, then political satires are lucky if they make it to Friday afternoon. Yet they keep popping up, like sniper fire. And here's War, Inc., another one. Luckily, it hits its target more often than most do. >MoreThe Last Mistress: Vive la nudité Kent Williams on Friday 09/26/2008, (3) Recommendations She's been called "the reigning terror of French cinema," "the high priestess of highbrow provocation" and "a dauntingly courageous connoisseur of carnality," but I prefer to think of Catherine Breillat as Simone de Bouvoir with a strap-on dildo. Highly theoretical, but in a very sexy way, her films are like porno for eggheads, turning sexual desire — especially female sexual desire — into a thesis topic while holding on to its tumescence. >More
Righteous Kill: Masters at work Pacino and De Niro don't exactly rise to the occasion Kent Williams on Friday 09/19/2008, (7) Recommendations It could have been a dream match-up: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro strapping on the gloves and going 15 rounds, may the best man win. Who would win, Serpico or Travis Bickle? >MoreThe Edge of Heaven: Between worlds Kent Williams on Friday 09/19/2008, (7) Recommendations A man without a country or a man with two countries? That's one of the many questions posed by The Edge of Heaven, Faith Akim's wonderful film about a world where borders are so porous we don't know who we really are anymore. >More
Burn After Reading: Mission: Improbable Frothy spy stuff in Coen brothers' latest Kent Williams on Friday 09/12/2008, (10) Recommendations The Coen brothers reached the pinnacle of success with No Country for Old Men, and it must have scared the crap out of them, because with Burn After Reading they're back to their old tricks again, mixing and matching movie genres with film-school glee. >MoreMy Winnipeg: Way up north Kent Williams on Friday 09/12/2008, (10) Recommendations "I kind of like poking around in my own little cesspool and every now and then making a film," Canada's Guy Maddin recently told The New York Times. And if by "cesspool" he means his mind — all those memories and fantasies, dreams and nightmares — then that's a pretty good description of what Maddin does. Like David Lynch, he's more interested in the unconscious mind than the conscious mind. >More
Wilmington on DVD: Not enough Michael Moore Slacker Uprising, The Visitor, Sleeping Beauty, and Jean-Pierre Melville Mike Wilmington on Friday 10/10/2008 11:00 am Premiering on DVD and screens as a conscious political gesture -- to try and influence the upcoming Obama vs. McCain election -- Slacker Uprising is probably director/comedian/agitator Michael Moore's weakest movie in recent years, mostly because it's mostly a straight-out concert doc. The event is fascinating -- his 62-city tour calculated to bring out the youth vote, attracting its audience with guest stars as well as free Ramen noodles and new underwear. >MoreWilmington on DVD: Farewell, Paul Newman Iron Man, An American in Paris, The Last Laugh, and Lawrence Jordan Mike Wilmington on Friday 10/03/2008 12:00 pm, (2) Recommendations Paul Newman was the Great Good Guy of American movies. He was a film-star prince of middle America, a heartbreaker with a brain, an athlete with a soul. He became a movie star in the mid-'50s, by the time he was 30, and at first he seemed most famous for his good looks -- for that Grecian profile, that middleweight's body and those legendary blue eyes, as well as the flip, sardonic wisecracks that could issue somewhat surprisingly from his chiseled lips. >MoreWilmington on DVD: Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda get carried away Sex and the City, The Godfather, Bill Douglas, and Mother of Tears Mike Wilmington on Friday 09/26/2008 1:00 pm, (4) Recommendations I liked it. The filmmakers and the actresses have taken these characters so far and done so much with them, given them such fullness and depth, that they’ve grown into a thoroughly pleasant predictability, the blessed TV kick of familiarity. Also, Sex the movie scores points by balancing its bouts of sex (pretty steamy) and hilarity, with the drama and real anguish. >MoreWilmington on DVD: A small town epic Snow Angels, Max Ophuls, Aki Kaurismaki, and Speed Racer Mike Wilmington on Friday 09/19/2008 2:00 pm, (7) Recommendations Small towns are often romanticized and sentimentalized in the movies, turned into fantasies of good will and overly fond memories that sometimes make the consummately homey visions of painter Norman Rockwell look like the works of a cynical satirist. David Gordon Green's Snow Angels, however, takes the opposite course. It's nastier and more realistic, though, in the end, almost as poetic. >More
Enthusiastic crowd watches Public Enemies production in Madison Fans go crazy for Christian Bale, not to mention friends and family in shoot Erica Pelzek on Tuesday 05/06/2008 12:19 pm, (43) Recommendations As the Public Enemies production took over the Capitol Square on Monday, crowds gathered along the sidewalks and peripheries of the set to watch the spectacle. As the morning progressed, my fellow onlookers' morning coffee kicked in and their hunger for celebrity sightings intensified. Though many in the crowd hoped for a peek at Christian Bale or Billy Crudup, others sat patiently looking for their loved ones in the swarm of cast and crew members. >MorePublic Enemies shoot at Capitol wraps up at State Street Michael Mann directs Christian Bale and Billy Crudup in second Monday scene Kristian Knutsen on Monday 05/05/2008 8:14 pm, (44) Recommendations Following the morning and early afternoon shoots on the East Washington Avenue steps of the Wisconsin Capitol, the cast and crew of Public Enemies packed up and made their way to the State Street side of the building for the second major sequence on Monday. As was the case with the previous shoot, this scene featured Billy Crudup as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Christian Bale as agent Melvin Purvis in Washington, D.C., the latter tasked with leading the fight against the crime wave rolling over the Midwest in heart of the Great Depression. >More
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