Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Collector’s Edition
June 30, 2005
Filmmaker Michel Gondry must be a firm believer in the old saying, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” His feature film debut was the Charlie Kaufman-penned Human Nature (2001) that, by most accounts, was simply awful. Maybe Gondry...
Stage Beauty
June 30, 2005
You’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching Shakespeare In Love: Part Deux, as wannabe Claire Danes steals lady-man Billy Crudup’s trademark role when an old law forbidding women to act on stage is thrown out by the king. A bare few months...
A Home at the End of the World
June 29, 2005
A Home at the End of the World (2004) chronicles the relationship between two friends and how it endures through the ups and downs of their lives. Much was made of a Colin Farrell’s nude scene—so much so that the director removed the scene from the...
Riding Giants
June 28, 2005
While the Billabong Odyssey (2003) tried to recreate The Endless Summer (1966) for the big wave surfing set, Riding Giants (2004) is much more ambitious. Fresh from the success of his documentary on ‘70s skateboarding, Dogtown and the Z Boys (2001),...
Bridget Jones’s Diary: Collector’s Edition
June 27, 2005
Before Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) was released in theatres, much was made of the casting of soft-spoken American (from Texas no less!), Renee Zellweger as the very British Bridget Jones. It was seen as almost heresy by fans of Helen Fielding’s very...
Shaun of the Dead
June 27, 2005
Whenever the horror genre becomes bloated with safe, CGI-heavy Hollywood product, a small, independent feature comes from seemingly out of nowhere to shake things up. Shaun of the Dead (2004) is just that film. Riding the recently successful, wave of...
Collateral
June 27, 2005
Cabbie Jamie Foxx is having a very bad day thanks to hitman Tom Cruise, who hijacks his car and takes him on a killing spree through Los Angeles. Michael Mann, some time after inventing trashy cop shows and bungling Nazi horror movies, has become an American...
The Manchurian Candidate
June 26, 2005
Remaking classic movies is almost always a bad idea and usually done for all the wrong reasons. Case in point: Gus Van Sant’s much-maligned misfire, Psycho (1998). There is a reason why these movies are so highly regarded—they don’t need to be remade....
The Ultimate Matrix Collection
June 26, 2005
It’s safe to say that The Matrix trilogy has become firmly entrenched in our pop culture zeitgeist. It is a classic example of being in the right place at the right time with just the right blend of genres: moody film noir, Cyberpunk science fiction...
The Door in the Floor
June 25, 2005
Based on John Irving’s novel, “A Widow for One Year, Tod Williams follows up his critically-lauded independent film, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998) with the even more accomplished and emotionally textured The Door on the Floor (2004). It...
