You can tell the first wave of summer blockbusters has shot its wad when the studios start tossing out their second- and third-string films. Back in the old days, these would have been called “programmers” — thoroughly competent entries that reiterated all the conventions of their reliable, easy-to-market genres. Such…
Arlington Road. Directed by Mark Pellington. Screenplay by Ehren Kruger. Starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, and Hope Davis.
American Pie. Directed by Paul Weitz. Screenplay by Adam Herz. Starring Jason Biggs, Jennifer Coolidge, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Eugene Levy, Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Chris Owen, Tara Reid, SeannW. Scott, Mena Suvari, and Eddie Kaye Thomas.
Eyes Wide Shut. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, from a screenplay by Kubrick and Frederic Raphael, inspired by a novella by Arthur Schnitzler. Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
The Wood. Written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Starring Omar Epps, RichardT. Jones, Taye Diggs, Sean Nelson, Duane Finley, Trent Cameron, Malinda Williams, and De’AundreBonds.
Eyes Wide Shut. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, from a screenplay by Kubrick and Frederic Raphael, inspired by a novella by Arthur Schnitzler. Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
The Wood. Written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Starring Omar Epps, RichardT. Jones, Taye Diggs, Sean Nelson, Duane Finley, Trent Cameron, Malinda Williams, and De’AundreBonds.
It’s about time we had a talk. Yeah, you know, that talk. The one about how uncomfortable and strange it is to be a young human male, how raging and unforgiving the hormones, how fragile the ego, how mysterious the female form. You see, well, how do I say this?…
Do you feel snug and secure in your cozy suburban life? Are you happy in your picture-perfect home, with your carefully manicured lawn, your kids, your soccer games, and your barbecues? Do you feel safe? Well, the creators of Arlington Road, the ponderous new thriller starring Jeff Bridges and Tim…
To hear Spike Lee tell it, Summer of Sam means to be a panoramic view of the summer of 1977 in New York City — when temperatures shot into the high 90s and power blackouts set nerves on edge, when the party agenda included snorting coke at Studio 54 and…
The animated TV show South Park was the big sensation of the 1997-98 season — or at least as big a hit as a cable channel like Comedy Central can manage. It was almost inevitable that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone would take their batch of foul-mouthed eight-year-olds to…
Anthology films are an odd-duck genre: Although there once was a time — now long gone — when books of short stories were published with nearly the frequency of novels, their cinematic equivalent has never amounted to even 1 percent of the fictional films released. You could argue that Pulp…
The new Adam Sandler comedy, Big Daddy, isn’t just the funniest movie of the summer, it’s also the most improbable feel-good movie of the season. It’s improbable because practically everything about Adam Sandler seems so unlikely, so strangely back-assward. His whole phenomenal career — from Billy Madison to Happy Gilmore,…
Pretentiousness masquerading as profundity; self-indulgence masquerading as art. The Loss of Sexual Innocence, the dreadful new film from writer-director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, One Night Stand), joins the ranks of the worst films ever made. A statement that may, on the surface, seem harsh and heartless but that will…
Bernardo Bertolucci’s Besieged is a movie of enthralling visual poetry. Set almost entirely inside a ravishing Roman villa, it is a love story played out in furtive glances and stolen looks by characters on opposite sides of the ethnic divide. Culturally, Mr. Kinsky (David Thewlis) and Shandurai (Thandie Newton) couldn’t…
In John Sayles’ Limbo, which is set amid the rough-and-tumble of southeast Alaska, an ex-salmon fisherman with guilty memories (David Strathairn), an itinerant lounge singer with a lousy voice (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), and the singer’s melancholy teenage daughter (newcomer Vanessa Martinez) become stranded, Robinson Crusoe-style, on a remote island. This…
A fine line divides inspired silliness from out-and-out witlessness; it’s a short leap from grin to groan. In 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Mike Myers took a thin premise — spoof the ’60s by transplanting a horny Matt Helm-like secret agent into the ’90s — and danced an…
In an early scene in Instinct, released by Touchstone, a division of Disney’s Buena Vista Pictures, we’re told that a brilliant primatologist named Ethan Powell (played by Anthony Hopkins) is being brought back to the United States from Rwanda, where for several years he has been engaged in a close…
Joy isn’t a word that often comes to mind when thinking about the films of director Wim Wenders. But infectious, intoxicating joy is the emotion conveyed by every frame of this ravishing, exuberant documentary. Buena Vista Social Club is not only the German filmmaker’s most engaging, soulful film since Wings…
Maybe it’s the damned blinking thing, because it’s not simply the foppish hair and boyish face — or for that matter, even the vaguely befuddled reticence and wry, self-abasing demeanor we Americans prefer to see in our Brits. It’s got to be the blinking. That’s what he does, almost all…
If your poodle is decked out in the complete Captain Kirk uniform, you’ve taken Klingon language classes, or you once mailed DeForest Kelly a joint taped to a piece of cardboard just “to return the favor,” the 88-minute documentary Trekkies is a must-see movie — love it or loathe it…
The Love Letter has the dubious distinction of being the other studio film to open this week. In a week when all the other majors have run for cover, Dreamworks has taken a gamble with a classic bit of counterprogramming — in nearly every way, this sweet romance/ romantic comedy…
