Category: Film Reviews

John Favreau wrote, directed, starred-in and produced this funny, fun fairy tale about a chef who, trashed by a critic who once praised his work, regains his bliss for cooking in a food truck that serves roots food with the help of a trusted sou chef, wonderfully played by John Leguizamo, and his 10-year old…

John Travolta, Gene Hackman, and lots of other stars strut and preen in this filming of an excellent Elmore Leonard novel. I read the book and enjoyed it more, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the film

John Woo’s excellent homage to American and French gangster and action film makers, including Scorcese and Peckinpaugh. Based in part on a Japanese Yakuza film, this balletic bit of Hong Kong triad cinema follows the dance between an assassin (Chow Yun Fat) and a cop (Danny Lee) as the former tries to get out of…

Isabelle Huppert stars in this Paul Verhoven thriller with a sense of humor about a woman who is raped and refuses to become a victim in any sense. Michelle is a successful sex/violence video games production company owner who is assaulted by a masked assailant in her home. She is also a ‘mature’ bourgeois woman…

It is also about people recreating themselves. A very good film. See this one!

It must be our month for wedding pictures. But whereas the other has real substance, this one is pure spun sugar. No there there, I’m afraid. Some very funny stereotypes, and the Chicago house built to resemble the Parthenon is a total hoot, but otherwise not worth much. Gigantic hit because of feel good fantasy…

It must be the week for films about 14-year-old boys This film strikes me as a look at a couple of steps up from beasts of the southern wild Ellis lives with his mother and father on a houseboat in the River Delta. He and his best friend, Neckbone–who lives with his uncle, an oyster…

It took us three nights to watch this slow, gorgeous yet rather opaque Thai film as we both kept falling asleep. It’s a very weird, and beautiful story about a Thai man dying from an illness in a ‘space’ where ghosts and animal/people are the norm. It ends as strangely as it begins. Who has…

It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a Star Wars film. I loved the first (4th?), enjoyed the second (5th), and found the 3rd (6th) to be like watching a bad Muppet movie. The prequels 1, 2, 3, bored and saddened me. Jar-Jar Binks was a new low even in comparison to the Ewoks….

It’s probably close to sacrilegious to say this, but I was underwhelmed by this nice little film. I kept waiting for the many laugh out loud scenes, and they just didn’t come until the totally wild scene at the end at the kiddy beauty/talent contest. It’s a great send-up/critique of both regular and especially kiddy…

Interesting look at IMF controls over debt and underdevelopment in Jamaica. The game is rigged, kids. Narrated by Jamaica Kincaid

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in this sentimental road movie for the dying. Rob Reiner directs. Sean Hayes has good lines. It’s predictable and funny. Quick and well written, it’s nothing special. Live life to the fullest. Do what matters and what you want and what you’ve got to do. Wealth lets you do…

Interesting pop-psych sci-fi with Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishbourne. Nice play on the issue of what is reality and what is the image as a few people struggle to destroy the enslavement of the rest of us by AI machines (artificial intelligence) that actually control our world, suck our energy, and keep us living the…

Jackie Chan action flick that’s fun to watch for the ½ hour of stunts, but the plot is incredibly stupid

Interesting story about a young man who falls for a transsexual he knew as a young boy. Not the hilarious comedy type. This is a thoughtful, sometimes painful, sometimes sly look at gender-bending and the personal costs and benefits thereof. Nice work by all concerned

Jafar Panahi wrote and directed this very interesting little film about six girls arrested for trying to sneak into the Iran-Bahrain soccer match in the 2006 World Cup cycle. An indictment of the oppression of women, it was filmed over 38 days but one of those was the actual game day at the stadium. It…

Interesting suspense classic from France about a husband and his mistress plotting to kill his wife The audience is not in on the information. Subtitled

Jamie Lee Curtis is good in this remake of the Disney classic about the mother and daughter who exchange bodies and, of course, learn to truly love and respect one another’s tough row to hoe. It’s good. On the other hand, there are just some parts I have trouble with. It’s much more adulatory about…

Interesting to see this right after “Menashe” because even though this is a very different film, there are many themes in common. In particular assimilation, communal/family pressure vs individualism, and what one will do for the people one loves most dearly. Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) is a Pakistani-American immigrant struggling to make it as a standup…

Interesting, occasionally affecting taping of Julia Sweeney’s one-woman show about her starting out on her own after leaving Saturday Night Live and getting divorced. Buying a house, her brother becomes sick with cancer, her family moves in with her, she herself becomes sick, her brother dies, and lots more happens. I found the film thoughtful,…

Interesting, sometimes humorous look at cultural change and modernization among Mongolian herders in the 1970s. Anachronistic but weirdly interesting. Russian. Subtitles

Interesting, well photographed, emotionally connecting, but very simple and sort of slow piece about a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks in exile in India. The elders pine for Tibet, the youngsters want to watch the World Cup. Tibet is an ideal for them, not a reality. The prayer scenes and life scenes are fun. Some…

Isabel Huppert stars in this very good, well made and very painful look at sexual repression, S&M, passion, and the terror of giving in to it. Huppert is astounding. The film flips back and forth between eros and horror. It is a very intelligent and very painful film to watch. See it on DVD and…

I’d wanted to see this Korean thriller from Jooh-ho Bong for quite a while and it did not disappoint. Very well written and acted, it looks at a single mother (wonderfully played by Hye-ja Kim) who supports herself selling medicinal roots and herbs, whose son, a slow and rather irascible young man, is accused of…

I watched this slight teen comedy about a total nerd with an amazingly dysfunctional family in Idaho and enjoyed it despite myself. Its ending is really well done. I loved the boy and girl geeks What’s lovely about the thing is that they truly remain geeks and you do understand why other people find them…