Hustle and Flow
February 27, 2006
Hustle and Flow (2005) was the toast of last year’s Sundance Film Festival and helped launch Terrence Howard’s career into the mainstream (along with his appearances in Crash and Four Brothers). This small, independent film got so much buzz that MTV/Paramount...
Good Morning Vietnam: Special Edition
February 27, 2006
Good Morning Vietnam (1987) is one of Robin Williams’ earliest forays into drama. While The World According to Garp (1982) is arguably his first attempt to be taken seriously and blend his comedic sensibilities with drama, Good Morning maintains a much...
Broken Flowers
February 27, 2006
Ever since Night on Earth (1991), filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has worked with recognizable movie stars in what could be interpreted as a bid for mainstream acceptance or, more probably, a way to get his films financed and distributed in a progressively difficult...
The Constant Gardener
February 24, 2006
2005 was an outstanding year for politically charged movies: Crash, Goodnight, and Good Luck, Syriana and The Constant Gardener. The last film is a tightly plotted suspense thriller based on the John Le Carre novel of the same name. When a British diplomat’s...
3 Women
February 23, 2006
During the ’70s, Robert Altman made a series of films that pushed the boundaries of traditional genres into new and exciting areas. M*A*S*H (1970) dared to criticize and parody the Vietnam War under the auspices of the Korean War, while McCabe and...
2046
February 21, 2006
Several years in the making (and three cinematographers later), Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046 (2004) is a sequel of sorts to his sumptuous period piece of unrequited love, In the Mood for Love (2000). Or rather, it should be viewed as a continuation of that world,...
Anatomy of a Murder: Criterion Collection
February 20, 2006
Anatomy of a Murder (1959) was the culmination of a taboo-smashing decade that saw director Otto Preminger challenge the Production Code Administration, which censored content in American movies that it deemed immoral, with the sex comedy The Moon is...
Tiny Furniture: Criterion Collection
February 20, 2006
Every so often there comes along an independent filmmaker that is touted as a major new voice and makes a film that causes a big splash, spawning countless substandard copies and wannabes. In the past, it’s been the likes of Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch,...
Manhattan
February 20, 2006
After the phenomenal success of Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen confounded the expectations of his critics and fans with Interiors (1978), which saw him doing his best Ingmar Bergman impression. It was his first dramatic film and while critical reaction...
Dark Shadows
February 20, 2006
While the original Dark Shadows in the late 1960s was very campy, the show’s creator, Dan Curtis, decided to make the ‘90s incarnation a more serious take in the Hammer horror tradition. He is the godfather of TV horror with an impressive resume that...
