The Devil Wears Prada
December 12, 2006
The fashion world has rarely been depicted accurately on film. Case in point: Robert Altman’s well-intentioned mess Pret-a-Porter (1994). The problem most adaptations have is accurately depicting such a specific world with its own lingo and rules. Reality...
Love Actually
December 7, 2006
Richard Curtis is a terrific writer of comedy – no question. He has had unmitigated success ranging from TV’s Blackadder through to global blockbuster hits like Four Weddings, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary. It’s not surprising...
An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder
November 21, 2006
If Kevin Smith stopped making movies, he could easily make a living doing spoken word tours entertaining his fans with stories about his life and the movies he’s made. He’s a natural speaker who loves to talk. His spoken word gigs are the stuff of...
My Name is Earl: Season 1
November 15, 2006
The rest of the world has finally realized what fans of Kevin Smith’s movies already knew for years – Jason Lee is a very funny guy. He established his comedic credibility with classic performances in Mallrats (1995) and Chasing Amy (1997) and had...
Art School Confidential
November 14, 2006
Daniel Clowes made the successful transition from the comic book page to the big screen with an adaptation of his graphic novel Ghost World in 2000. It was an excellent example of all the right elements coming together at the right time. Clowes is back...
Slither
November 10, 2006
Slither (2006) harkens back to the heady decade of the 1980s when monster movies were gross-out affairs that mixed cleverness with gore. Early on, James Gunn’s feature film directorial debut gives several shout outs to these horror films by naming several...
Solo con tu pareja
November 8, 2006
Alfonso Cuaron’s Solo con tu pareja (1991) was actually made in 1990 with state funding but was shelved by the government before finally being released in Mexico in 1991, becoming a minor commercial and critical success. Its North American debut was...
Bad Santa: Director’s Cut
November 7, 2006
Already released on DVD with a theatrical version and a raunchier, unrated version, Bad Santa (2003) is enjoying yet another DVD release, this time the Director’s Cut. This is an anti-Christmas movie that gleefully thumbs its cynical nose at the fake...
Nacho Libre
November 3, 2006
Mexican professional wrestling (or Lucha libre as it is known) is the subject of Jared Hess’ (of Napoleon Dynamite fame) new film, Nacho Libre (2006). The sport started in the early 1900s and was mainly a regional phenomenon until wrestlers were brought...
The Office: Season 2
October 30, 2006
It came as something of a pleasant surprise that The Office didn’t completely suck in comparison to its infinitely superior British counterpart. It came as an even greater surprise that the show developed enough of a following that it survived to a...
