Screen
Ferrell-in-training
The alcoholic son of an alcoholic, sales manager Nick Porter was born in a Raymond Carver short story called “Why Don’t You Dance?” published in the 1981 Carver collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The story, which takes place at a yard sale among...
Brotherly love
A mid all the promotional noise for Up in the Air and Avatar and the rest, it’s easy to overlook a drama like Brothers, with its plain-spoken title and stern subject matter...
The long on the shorts
As Violet from Willy Wonka or someone who just saw a spider will tell you, bigger isn’t necessarily better. An afterthought for most normals until Oscar night, short films are often bite-sized bits of delightful wonder. Heck, sometimes they even grow up to be feature...
‘This is how I win.’
Nothing
is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to
understand him. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and
Punishment
His name is Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler),...
Black humorless
Low-brow. Just expect it from Gulliver’s Travels. When Gulliver ( Jack Black) first arrives at the kingdom of Lilliput and puts out a raging fire by dropping his shorts and urinating, I was astonished by the audience laughter. This is a film unabashedly aimed at teen...
A foggy reflection
In 1998, Walt Disney Feature Animation released its 36th film, its first and only retelling of a Chinese legend: Mulan, the story of a...
Children of the night
The fictional oil town of Bad City, Iran is, as far as we know, populated with pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, drug users, a stray family member or two, a cat and The Girl (Sheila Vand). Casting a menacing shadow over this ghost town, The Girl rides a skateboard, ...
‘Would you like to play a game?’
They were friends in college, but it’s been 10 years since the whole group got together. Poor choices and hurt feelings came between them....
‘Edge of Darkness’ is boring
Mel Gibson has made a lot of films where he’s the simple-minded tough guy, notably the Lethal Weapon series, but the last few years have seen his personal life overshadow his career as he careened from one gaffe to the next. Edge of Darkness represents him trying to ...
‘Somebody’s fool’
Orson Welles needed money. That’s how this story begins. Back in 1946, Welles was putting the finishing touches on an ambitious stage production of...
