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Offbeat comedy devolves to mundane

Feature | Film and TV
2010-2-7

THE deadpan comedy "Saint John of Las Vegas" opens with Steve Buscemi (pictured left) walking into a Vegas convenience store, plopping down an envelope full of cash and asking for 1,000 lottery tickets. "Why not?"...

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Mel teeters on edge with crusader's rage

Feature | Film and TV
2010-2-7

IT has been seven years since his last film, but Mel Gibson is still playing the martyr. One might fairly call him "The Crusader," and not just because of his widely known religious views or because he directed "The...

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Big ideas play out well in small film

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-31

CONSIDERING its huge themes -- evolution vs divinity, essentially Darwin vs God -- "Creation" is a pretty small film. Small actually benefits here in presenting what is, for many, a black-and-white debate about...

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Stunts prevail in annoying family, spy caper

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-31

JACKIE Chan seems to be a boring pen salesman named Bob Ho. But really he's an ace CIA agent who's retiring from the spy game to marry the single mom next door. Only her kids can't stand him because they think he's...

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Post-apocalypse with a bible

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-24

IN the future, according to "The Book of Eli," we will all dress like we are in a Nine Inch Nails video. It is written. Almost everyone wears goggles and leather in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of "The Book...

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Hooked by realism

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-24

A bit of guilt comes with watching the British teen drama "Fish Tank." Writer-director Andrea Arnold has created something so real and raw, you may come away with a twinge of guilty voyeurism, a sense of peering...

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So-so comedy's worth the trip

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-17

THE romantic-comedy "Leap Year" gets by, barely, on the charms of its stars and the beauty of its Irish scenery. Amy Adams and Matthew Goode aren't particularly convincing during the loathing portion of their...

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Vampire line is in its death throes

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-17

THE only lesson to take away from Ethan Hawke's horror-action tale "Daybreakers" is that vampires cannot run the world's affairs any better than we tasty humans can. Set in 2019, "Daybreakers" is like today's...

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Disregarded film script was better left ignored

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-10

"THE Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" was made from a screenplay written by Tennessee Williams in 1957. Unfortunately, the film does little to suggest the script's neglect over decades was unwarranted. When Williams...

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Tragedy of a hamlet in horror

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-10

MICHAEL Haneke's "The White Ribbon" is a masterpiece, but a demanding one. The Austrian writer-director has crafted a gorgeously gloomy parable exploring the origins of hatred, malice and communal barbarity, the...

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Spy flick in Shanghai

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-8

A Spy movie set in modern Shanghai is one of five pitch finalists in the People's Choice Awards, an American-based international poll of films that fans (not critics) award. Voting to determine the winner is underway...

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Manic update for Sherlock

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-3

TAKE it from a lifelong fan of Arthur Conan Doyle: Robert Downey Jr is so NOT Sherlock Holmes. That's not a hindrance -- in fact, it's a big help -- as he and director Guy Ritchie bring the dusty Victorian era detective...

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Coda for Ledger shows messy life's faded magic

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-3

TERRY Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" is more than a peculiar coda for Heath Ledger. It goes down in the books as another entry in Gilliam's history of remarkable production misfortunes, including...

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Shanghai Documentary Channel takes awards

Feature | Film and TV
2010-1-1

SHANGHAI Media Group's Documentary Channel took top awards in the recent Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival. Young documentary film maker Gan Chao's "The Red Race" about rigorous training for child...

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Fantasy of diverse creatures the basis for humanoid film species

Feature | Film and TV
2009-12-31

BLOCKBUSTER director James Cameron kept the creature design of Na'vi extraterrestrials in his new sci-fi epic "Avatar" within the realms of plausibility. However, he believes that when humans eventually meet the real...