Julie Taymor's FRIDA is a solidly entertaining biopic that's as easy to admire as a Grant Wood painting.
Julie Taymor's FRIDA is a solidly entertaining biopic that's as easy to admire as a Grant Wood painting, which is surprising since the movie tells the story of controversial Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. At its worst it's like a paint-by-numbers picture, but at its best, it sizzles with great Mexican folk music and warmly inviting cinematography. ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
Supposedly, just before you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes.
Supposedly, just before you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. Something similar happens to aging baseball pitcher Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) in the aptly named, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME. Throwing what may well be his last game, his entire life flashes by him as he struggles with over-the-hill muscles to eke out one last valiant effort...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
To paraphrase Joyce Kilmer's famous poem, boys are made by fools like me, but only Dr. Wells can make a copy.
To paraphrase Joyce Kilmer's famous poem, boys are made by fools like me, but only Dr. Wells can make a copy. GODSEND, a science fiction horror movie with a single idea (cloning), is directed lamely by Nick Hamm, whose last film was the equally inept THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU (internationally titled MARTHA, MEET FRANK, DANIEL AND LAURENCE). A by-...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
HIGH CRIMES, which reunites KISS THE GIRLS's Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman.
HIGH CRIMES, which reunites KISS THE GIRLS's Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, is an entertaining mystery and thriller by director Carl Franklin (ONE FALSE MOVE). Set during a military trial that sometimes resembles a kangaroo court, the story is filled with devilish machinations and partially predictable but nonetheless satisfying twists. The plot, ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
MULAN, which we saw being developed in Disney's Florida studios.
MULAN, which we saw being developed in Disney's Florida studios, is the first Disney animated movie produced on the East Coast. The animators we talked with said that they relished the creative freedom that being so far removed from corporate headquarters afforded them. And, as in any skunkworks, the workers used their independence to build the ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
A lifeless, mean-spirited film, it arrives DOA at your local theater today.
BEAUTIFUL isn't. A lifeless, mean-spirited film, it arrives DOA at your local theater today. Advertised as a comedy, the picture, thanks to Sally's Field's inept direction and Jon Bernstein's dull script, is, instead, a depressing drama. With beauty pageants as its subject, BEAUTIFUL should have been an easy success. Is there anything easier to ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
Texas -- not that you'll care.
In Louis Morneau's BATS, these unnecessarily maligned creatures are noshing on the residents of Gallop, Texas -- not that you'll care. A direct rip-off of THE BIRDS, although without any of its suspense and with no improvements in the special effects over Hitchcock's 1963 classic, this cheap-looking movie never rises above the level of a popcorn ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
CASA DE LOS BABYS is a preachy story about six neurotic.
John Sayles's CASA DE LOS BABYS is a preachy story about six neurotic, American women: Skipper (Daryl Hannah), Nan (Marcia Gay Harden), Gayle (Mary Steenburgen), Leslie (Lili Taylor), Jennifer (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Eileen (Susan Lynch). They are all getting cranky, having spent a couple of months in hotel rooms while waiting for the bureaucrats of...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
CARANDIRU, by director Hector Babenco, is a harrowing movie, based on a true story.
CARANDIRU, by director Hector Babenco (THE KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and IRONWEED), is a harrowing movie, based on a true story, set and filmed in a real Brazilian prison. Housing 8,000 prisoners, Carandiru was one of the largest in the world before it was recently demolished. Although intriguing, the film is way too long and is narratively all ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
The bad news about EMPIRE is that it isn't a parody.
"For everybody -- everybody! -- money is what life is all about," Vic Rosa (John Leguizamo) lectures us in voice-over in one of his many pedantic sermons. Vic compares himself to entrepreneurs past and present, including John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates. Vic, a local heroin kingpin, is in charge of the drug dealing territory of the Bronx that he ...
Review by: SteveRhodes
Added: 6 months ago
