A Trip to Holy Ground Ridley Scott is the current and all time master of the big budget long form film, no question. Most big budget productions are really collections of episodes. Few filmmakers have the control to manage the hoards of creative talent that are...
Flying at 40,000 feet in a state-of-the art aircraft that she helped design, Kyle Pratt's 6-year-old daughter Julia vanishes without a trace. Or did she? No one on the plane believes Julia was ever onboard. And now Kyle, desperate and alone, can only count on her own wits to unravel the mystery and save her daughter.
Oceans 2 Well, I suppose we all have to decide what it means to be a powerful or effective actress. And whether Jody is capable of delivering this. In this case, the project, at least the first half, depends on us believing her panic and resulting...
Nigel Spivey reveals how the images which surround us today come from the ancient world. It's an epic journey spanning five continents and a hundred thousand years of history.
The Skull in the Livingroom Here is a strange idea for a documentary. Make a movie about why movies work, why we cling to them and how they invent our humanity. Tell a story about storytelling. It is put together by a man who himself is a good...
A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...
Gossamer Connections I’m like most people I guess. For me, there are movies that are “just” movies, things I enter for fun. And there are others I enter as part of lucid living, what are usually called “art” films. Its an artificial division that exists only because of...
In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape who is immediately smitten with the leading lady.
The Tempest We can all celebrate. Jackson has now solidly replaced Spielberg. Most folks know that the 1933 "Kong" changed the world in fundamental ways. The world of movie imagination was in its earliest phases, so quite apart from the innovations of animation and dramatic scoring, the...
A group of unwitting teens are stranded near a strange wax museum and soon must fight to survive and keep from becoming the next exhibit.
Melted Me A good movie may be like anything else: long periods of ordinariness with a few memorable bits. We tend to recall and savour only those memorable bits. For me, that was this movie. Yes, it was ordinary: hokey, stupid, bad acting and such. Yes, the...
Disenchanted with the movie industry, Chili Palmer tries the music industry, meeting and romancing a widow of a music executive along the way.
Acting Cool We are born into the doom of being actors. If we are lucky we discover who we are but until then we go through a process of acting a role. Some movies play with this idea, and “Get Shorty” was one of the most...
On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina. Madeleine's affluent lifestyle clashes with the family, but she befriends George's wide-eyed and pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley, who is nearing her due date. Through the family, Madeleine gains greater insight into George's character.
July This is ostensibly a movie in the old, Cassavetes tradition. I’m not a fan of Cassavetes, because he wasn’t very good at being himself. But what he indicated was a certain honesty, a sure translucency of character, beings so open that we inhabit them instead...
In 1974, a family of six was brutally murdered. A year later, George and Kathy Lutz and their children move into the site of the horrific event, which is haunted by a murderous presence.
The House I don’t know why writers and filmmakers so often miss the point. The genre is the haunted house movie, and it exists for a very good reason. The most primitive fears are not of things or people but of situations. Of situations, and the ones...
An outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother, his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother.
Visits With a project like this, it is as likely that it is a random goof as something with some structure. It could be both. As this was sent to me by a fellow viewer, and because I am so inclined, I tend to see structure....
