Division III: Football’s Finest
March 15, 2005
Like motability scooters in supermarkets, America does sports comedies better than us Brits. Exhibit A, m’lud: Slap Shot, Horse Feathers and The Bad News Bears versus Blackball, The Calcium Kid and Up ‘n’ Under. I may be doing the British film industry...
The Perfect Score
February 22, 2005
It’s The Breakfast Club meets Ocean’s Eleven in this high-school comedy that doesn’t quite make the grade. Released after Johansson’s breakthrough role in Lost in Translation but filmed months before, The Perfect Score tried to...
Slacker
February 18, 2005
Richard Linklater’s film, Slacker (1990) opens with a fascinating scene. A young man (Linklater) has just gotten off a bus and is now en route to somewhere in a taxi. He begins telling the cabby about a weird dream he had while riding on the bus, which...
The Ladykillers
January 31, 2005
For years, the Coen brothers have been trying to achieve mainstream acceptance. Their first real attempt was with The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). Not even the presence of big-time Hollywood producer Joel Silver helped and the film was a critical and commercial...
The Big Lebowski
December 31, 2004
After the darkly surreal, snow swept landscapes of the Minnesota, depicted in Fargo (1996), the Coen brothers wisely opted for a different locale and tone with bright, comedic vibe of The Big Lebowski (1998). The film was just too odd for mainstream audiences...
50 First Dates
December 29, 2004
Once again Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler are thrown together for a laugh-a-minute romantic comedy, and after the on-screen chemistry of ‘The Wedding Singer’, dollar signs must have been rolling and kerching noises must have been kerching-ing...
Jersey Girl
December 28, 2004
Ever since Kevin Smith made Clerks (1994), he has been threatening to make a PG-rated, mainstream audience-friendly movie that his folks could actually go and see. Jersey Girl was his attempt. The question remained, would he soften the edges of his trademark...
Raquel Welch Collection
December 16, 2004
Raquel Welch had a modest feature film debut with a bit part in A House is Not A Home in 1964 but quickly shot to fame with the one-two punch of Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years B.C. in 1966. Her drop-dead gorgeous looks transformed her from a beauty...
Out of Sight: Collector’s Edition
December 16, 2004
“It’s like seeing someone for the first time. You can be passing on the street and you look at each other and for a few seconds there’s this kind of recognition. Like you both know something, and the next moment the person’s gone....
The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler
December 14, 2004
Before there was The X-Files there was Carl Kolchak (McGavin), an investigative reporter who covered a distinctly different beat—a supernatural one. Kolchak was a short-lived TV series that ran from 1974 to 1975. Before that he was introduced to the...
