The Matador (Weinstein) Richard Shepard’s spec script, sent to Pierce Brosnan’s production company out of desperation, wound up as 2005’s best buddy pic — damned if I can recall a funnier movie from last year, except the one with the middle-age virgin. Brosnan, not afraid to don cheerleading skirts and…
Charlie’s Angels: The Complete Third Season (Sony) Cyberteam in Akihabara: Complete Collection (ADV) Eastern Horror Double Feature: Satan’s Slave and Corpse Master (Brentwood) King of the Cage: The Superstars of KOTC (Brentwood) The Kinks: The Live Broadcasts (Classic Rock Legends) The Legend of Prince Valiant: The Complete Series, Volume One…
For an industry in decline, print journalism has done a fashion publicist’s job of staying in vogue, particularly among the more stylish of career-seeking college grads. Never mind telling these BlackBerry-toting eager beavers that even an unpaid gig in the field is as rare as a winning lottery ticket: The…
After all that, just this? After all the anticipation, all the hype, all the product available on toy-store shelves and kiddie sections at bookstores, after all the promise that this would be the most super of Superman movies, all we get is just this this remake? Because let’s first call…
Vondie Curtis Hall’s irrational and contradictory crime thriller stars Tyrese Gibson (2 Fast 2 Furious) as an indestructible ex-con who, with a sullen but sizzling L.A. streetwalker (Meagan Good), sets out to find his kidnapped son. They raise ransom money on a well-publicized 24-hour crime spree and put two rival…
The Devil’s Sword (Mondo Macabro) Few trash movies live up to their reputation, but here’s a balls-out wonder that surpasses it. Grab a 12-pack of Bintang and cue up this jaw-unhinging slab of Indonesian sword-and-sorcery circa 1983 — a start-to-finish feast of martial arts, mullets, flying heads, vestal virgins, dry-ice…
Commander in Chief: 2-Disc Inaugural Edition Part 1 (Disney) The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection (MPI) Cow Belles (Disney) Danger After Dark (TLA) Evil (Magnolia) Is It Really So Strange? (Frameline) Failure to Launch (Paramount) Family Affair: Season One (MPI) Fear Factor: The First Season (Universal) Imagine Me & You (Fox)…
Given that John Singleton directed the second movie in The Fast and the Furious franchise, it makes a perverse kind of sense that Justin Lin would follow. Just as Singleton did with Boyz N the Hood, young Lin quickly made a name for himself with a powerful breakthrough film that…
Forget what a fun couple Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves were in Speed. In this slow and heavy kickoff to the summer romance season, they play the mopiest lovers to hit the big screen since Tony and Maria channeled Romeo and Juliet on the fire escapes of New York City…
Night Watch (Fox Searchlight) Every once in a while, Hollywood needs somebody else to steal a genre and totally reimagine it; it keeps old ideas young, like celluloid Botox. Well, Hollywood’s gonna need one big needle to absorb Night Watch, an insane, insanely cool Russian action/horror/sci-fi brew that’s like nothing…
Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Four Seasons (Warner Bros.) The Art of Erotic Dancing (BFS) Austin City Limits 2005 Music Festival (Image) Charlie Chan: Volume One (Fox) The Cult of the Suicide Bomber (The Disinformation Company) Eight Below (Disney) Equinox: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) A Fine Madness (Warner Bros.)…
For the twin offenses of being French and not starring Tom Cruise, District B13 — a fanboy mashup of John Carpenter’s greatest hits — is getting exiled to the art-house ghetto. Spread the word: This delirious import is the most (maybe the only) fun action movie of the summer —…
Valley of the Dolls Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Fox) Behold The Godfather and Godfather Part II of drag-queen cinema — two movies that provide the gateway to a lifetime of wig addiction. The films couldn’t be more different in temperament — the 1967 original is mile-high Hollywood kitsch,…
All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise (HBO) Aquamarine (Fox) Beavis and Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 2 (Paramount) Before the Fall (Picture This) The Betty Grable Collection: Volume 1 (Fox) Cemetery Man (Anchor Bay) End of the Spear (Fox) Fatwa (Ventura) A Good Woman (Lions Gate) Green Street Hooligans (Warner…
There is no movie more overrated in recent history than Napoleon Dynamite; it’s to cinema what the Doors are to rock and roll, a thing blindly and inexplicably championed as though it were a religion above being blasphemed by nonbelievers. And every time someone tries to explain its appeal —…
About ten minutes into Michael Cuesta’s 12 and Holding, the following thought came to mind: Not afraid to put children in harm’s way. Twenty minutes later, not afraid was replaced with compelled. As he did in L.I.E. , which introduced child molestation into a fetid tale of adolescent obliteration, Cuesta…
With ice caps melting, sea levels rising, and Poseidon sinking fast, this is no environment for any disaster movie — particularly a real one — to take our interest for granted. Thus An Inconvenient Truth, named for the superbad news of global climate change, isn’t just another lefty doc for…
Like the Grand Ole Opry plopped into a fragrant barn at the county fair, Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion befits its roots in frosty Minnesota soil through its worldview, Buddhist by way of Scandinavia: Life is about suffering. The wind chill is below zero and so is your spouse;…
The latest vehicle to roll off a Pixar assembly line that has thus far kicked out nothing but spit-shined classics answers that age-old question: What would Doc Hollywood have been like had it been populated entirely by, ya know, cars? If the promise of that premise — in which a…
The John Wayne/John Ford Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Featuring the most epic pairing of director and actor in Hollywood history, this 10-disc box spews machismo all over. Wayne and Ford defined not only the western and war-movie genres, but also our culture’s image of rugged manhood. Among the highlights is…
Black Hawk Down: Extended Cut (Sony) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: The Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Fox) Charmed: The Complete Fifth Season (Paramount) Dumbo: Big Top Edition (Disney) Entourage: The Complete Second Season (HBO) The Fast and the Furious: Franchise Collection (Universal) Firewall (Warner Bros.) Garfield: The Movie — The…
There was a time when people moaned whenever Hollywood would remake — and thus suck the life out of — a classic movie. These days, Hollywood just sucks the life out of movies that weren’t that great in the first place. Ah, progress. Well, June 6, 2006, is upon us,…
