Bad News Bears (2005) (Paramount) The Beautiful Country (Sony) Death Race 2000: Special Edition (Buena Vista) F.I.S.T. (Columbia/Tristar) Gallipoli: Special Edition (Paramount) Gilmore Girls: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) The Island (Universal) Kiss: Rock the Nation Live! (Image) The Last Day (Strand) Marvin Gaye: Behind the Legend (Red Dist.)…
No wonder Iraq is a mess. If the battlefield in America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier is an accurate picture of what it’s like in the Middle East, we should cut and run ASAP. The United States Army’s officially licensed shooter puts you smack in the middle of the action…
For whatever reason, the modernized, comic redo of King Kong released exactly 29 years ago has become less the “pop classic” that Pauline Kael insisted it was at the time than a dimly remembered punch line. It barely registers with modern-day moviegoers, who remember it as a campy, eco-aware update…
Agony and beauty for us live side by side,” laments Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), the most successful geisha in Gion. You’ll know how she feels: Memoirs of a Geisha, as directed by Chicago’s Rob Marshall, is beautiful to look at, but when it comes to the dialogue and storytelling, agony just…
It’s not hard to predict how Ang Lee’s controversial Brokeback Mountain will play in John Wayne country. This romantic tragedy about a pair of lean, wind-burned cowboys who secretly live to love each other flies in the face of everything that most people in Casper or Riverton or Laramie think…
When Athol Fugard is in town, he has the well-earned ability to suck the air out of any other plays competing with him on any given night. In his Exits and Entrances, which opened last week at Florida Stage, although the septuagenarian South African playwright/icon isn’t here in body, he’s…
An exhibition of art inspired or influenced by cartoons, in the broadest sense of that word, sounds like a surefire winner. Its well of potential material is deep and vast, from classic animation and comic strips to contemporary anime and underground comix. So why is “Art in the ‘Toon Age,”…
Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated (Buena Vista) Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s near frame-for-frame adaptation of Miller’s bone-crunching comics finally gets a rewarding DVD treatment, following a shamefully sparse edition earlier this year. The theatrical cut boasts two commentary tracks (with Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Willis, among others), but there…
Jake Gyllenhaal’s hot. Heath Ledger’s hot. They’re two hot tastes that go hot together. No matter your sexual orientation, watching these guys in their so-called “gay cowboy movie,” Brokeback Mountain (see Film section), in which they swap spit (hotly), will make you want to slip into a ten-gallon hat and…
Dirty Love (First Look) Dragonball Movie Boxed Set (Funimation) Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) Fun With Dick and Jane (1977) (Columbia/Tristar) The Future of Food (Cinema Libre) Gilbert Gottfried: Dirty Jokes (Image) God Save the Queen: Punk Rock Anthology (Music Video Dist.) Hellbound (Warner Bros.) He-Man…
Cinderella Man (Universal) Back in the Great Depression, boxing matches only cost a nickel, and the ring was uphill both ways. That’s the central message of this well-made if sappy bio of 1930s boxer Jim Braddock. Ron Howard’s direction and a stellar cast save the film from its one-dimensional characters…
In less than a decade, first-person shooters like Doom and Halo have grown from a niche genre to a cottage industry. Whether it’s our love for their immersiveness, competition, or just old-fashioned bloodlust, the popularity of FPS games shows no sign of waning. They’ve become so much of a draw,…
Last time we checked, going to the movies cost about as much as making one. But during this weekend’s Can Film Fest at Cinema Paradiso, two canned food items or one new, unwrapped toy will get you past the ticket-taker. Which leaves you plenty of cash to spend on beer…
THU 8 When You Got Served came out last year, the aim was to further legitimize the art of urban-style, hip-hop dance. Naturally, the film was more successful in proving how inept Hollywood is at portraying street culture. So it’s a good thing there are guys like Rennie Harris out…
Much has been written about Jeremy Hotz’s unusual comic delivery — his signature style of cracking jokes by placing his right hand to the side of his mouth, ready to catch any laughter that slips out. He’s like a schoolboy snickering at the rude comment he just let loose in…
Taishi one on TUE 12/13 The lives of geishas are particularly intriguing to those of us in Western culture. These women, with their flawless façades, are so well-versed in the arts of hostessing, beauty, and manipulation that they could be seen as the Navy Seals of proper etiquette. While most…
With a side of magic FRI 12/9 Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade may be too old for a Happy Meal beneath the local golden arches, but he will be served an order of mile-high Nuggets on Friday when the Heat take on the Denver Nuggets at 7:30 p.m. This is…
Markings, musings, and… haiku? SAT 12/10 Hanne Niederhausen is obsessed with shape, line, and mark-making in general. For this German-born Boca Raton resident, inspiration comes in the form of dance and music, as well as from her love of books, printing, and even the gentle curvature of calligraphy. Niederhausen brings…
How many more to go? THU 12/8 You know the gods of mainstream rock are smiling down on you when your band makes it onto a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation. The CDs, sold in grocery-store checkout lines across the country, have now spawned their 20th sequel —…
If you’re a fan of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact. If you’re not a fan, perhaps you’re among…
Warner Bros. put $50 million into Syriana and allowed writer/director Stephen Gaghan as much time and travel as necessary to research and write his story. They’d be well-advised to pony up a few extra bucks to provide filmgoers with a flow chart that connects the myriad, scattered dots that make…
Close to a decade ago, at a comic book convention in Los Angeles, animator Peter Chung was asked by a fan if he’d ever consider allowing a live-action movie to be made based on his avant-garde MTV series Aeon Flux. Chung said he had no interest in such a thing,…
