Beowulf
March 24th, 2008
A total fan-boy’s dream film, Beowulf has everything –creepy monster, a big-ass dragon, multiple gruesome deaths and a naked Angelina Jolie. To make it even better, it looks like a live-action/cartoon hybrid,thanks to the digital re-imagining of each character that, for example, strips away Ray Winstone’s aging gut and replaces it with a massive six-pack, enabling him to become the strapping leading man. Read on…
Mafioso
March 24th, 2008
Another tale about the mob, but this time in an uproarious 1962 Italian comedy from director Alberto Lattuada. Nino Badalamenti is a foreman at an auto plant in Milan about to leave on a two week vacation to visit his native Sicily, when his boss calls him into his office and asks that Nino bring a present to the town’s ‘godfather’ – Don Vincenzo. He and his wife and two daughters arrive at their destination and before long, Nino begins to realize that the family he left behind is in reality, part of a larger “family,” (if you know what I mean…nudge nudge, wink wink). Read on…
John From Cincinnati
March 23rd, 2008
I don’t know if I can ever forgive David Milch for passing on a final season of Deadwood and making John From Cincinnati instead. Yes, the concept was interesting and quirky; rife with quixotic dialog, odd personalities and a convoluted story line concerning a dysfunctional family of surfers in Imperial Beach, CA brought together by a strange visitor from who-knows-where. But, between the histrionics of Rebecca De Mornay, Read on…
Into The Wild
March 23rd, 2008
A beautiful, if sometimes frustrating film, Into The Wild is a road movie that travels across rivers and highways, as well as to uncharted territories of the soul (pretty deep, huh?). Sean Penn directs the Oscar-nominated tale of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a smart, well-educated kid who decides to renounce the world he’s grown up in and live free in the wilds of Alaska. Many adventures occur along the way, owing to a colorful cast of characters, played by an equally unique group of actors. Read on…
The Mark Of Cain
March 23rd, 2008
David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises introduced many to secret society of tattooed Russian mobsters, but the reality is not that glamorous, as depicted in this remarkable documentary that takes us behind the walls of some of the Soviet Union’s most notorious penitentiaries to speak with the criminals about the artwork that covers their bodies. Read on…
Excellent Cadavers
March 23rd, 2008
Ah, Cosa Nostra…the words just roll off the tongue. Can you smell the sausage, peppers and tomato sauce? How about the stench of death? This is the real Mafia, not the Jersey/Brooklyn empires of the Sopranos, but the world from where their stories evolved – in Sicily, where the “families” have flourished for generations. Read on…
Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection / Suburban Shootout
March 23rd, 2008
There’s a lot of great television being produced in the UK and Canada, but it’s often not that easy to find. Sure, you could watch BBC America and Masterpiece Theater regularly, but that would still not begin to graze the surface of what’s available. Slings & Arrows ran for three short seasons from 2003-2006 and followed a Shakespearean theater group in Canada, as they work their way through Read on…
Lust, Caution
March 23rd, 2008
And while we’re on the subject of the Japanese occupation of China, Ang Lee’s follow-up to Brokeback Mountain deals with another side of the same subject matter in Lust, Caution. Set in Shanghai during WWII, a group of young actors and revolutionaries decide to assassinate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a high-ranking member of the government acting in collusion with the Japanese. Wong Chia Chi (newcomer Tang Wei) becomes the group’s Read on…