-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
The Texas Theater presents a special screening of a 35mm print of Blake Edward’s caper comedy The Pink Panther (1963), 4:20pm, April 8, at the theater. Details — The Magnolia’s The Big Movie classic films series concludes its two-part Biblical Spectaculars series with a screening of Cecil B. DeMille’s star-studded, quintessential Bible epic The Ten Commandments (1956), 7pm, April … Continue reading
An erotic French drama about two married couples who swap partners sounds intriguing on the page, but as committed to film by Antony Cordier Four Lovers instead offers little more than soft-core titillation punctuated by tedium. The story unfolds mostly through the eyes of Rachel (Marina Foïs), a jewelry designer married to Franck (Roschdy Zem), … Continue reading
Another in Hollywood’s incredibly long line of pointless, unnecessary remakes, Straw Dogs is a hollow, superficial film that trades moral ambiguity for cheap sensationalism. Granted, director Sam Peckinpah’s version (based on the novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams) was a savage male fantasy of misogyny and macho empowerment that left the viewer feeling … Continue reading
Best known for more romantic fare such as Her Majesty Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love, and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, director John Madden turns in a muddled but modestly enjoyable thriller with The Debt, a remake of the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov. Much of the story unfolds via flashback, in East Berlin in 1966, where a team of Mossad agents — … Continue reading
In honor of its 15th anniversary, Titanic — James Cameron’s mega-blockbuster that forever redefined mega-blockbusters — will receive the 3-D conversion treatment when it is re-released in select theaters this week. Ironically, thanks primarily to the success of Cameron’s equally blockbusting Avatar, it seems like you can’t throw a brick at a megaplex these days without hitting … Continue reading
The Magnolia’s The Big Movie classic films series begins its two-part Biblical Spectaculars series with a screening of William Wyler’s Academy Award-winning epic Ben-Hur (1959) starring Charlton Heston, 7pm, April 3, at the theater. Details — The Texas Theater presents special screenings of a 35mm print of Blake Edward’s caper comedy The Pink Panther (1963), 7:20pm, April 4 … Continue reading
Both fascinating and frustrating, the school-is-hell art-house drama Detachment is alternately shrill and sharp to an almost fatal degree. Written by Carl Lund and directed by British artist and occasional filmmaker (it’s only his second feature, the first being American History X way back in 1998), it is a potent, provocative, and sometimes effective condemnation … Continue reading
After re-inventing himself with the gritty crime fare of A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), director David Cronenberg turns in a surprisingly disappointing follow-up with A Dangerous Method, a limp and uninteresting historic drama that would thrive on — but is completely lacking — the psychosexual tension that usual permeates Cronenberg’s work. … Continue reading
Though he worked almost exclusively in television, Allen Baron made a name for himself writing, directing, and starring in the Blast of Silence, an obscure indie gem made during the brief gap between the film noir cycle of American post-war cinema and the French New Wave. A de facto hybrid of the two, it is a haunting … Continue reading
Arguably the best movie about baseball since Robert Redford nailed the stadium lights in The Natural, director Bennett Miller’s Moneyball combines the great American pastime, the unlikely dramedy duo of Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, and analytical statistics into a formula that works improbably well. At its core it is a classic sports underdog story, … Continue reading
movie ink™ 