Cinema Archives

25 November 2006An Inconvenient Truth
I finally saw Al Gore's movie this weekend. It was everything I expected. Depressing, disturbing and maddening. Clearly we have a problem, but it seems as though if we act collectively, we can change the disasterous course that we're currently...
30 March 2006Basic Instinct 2...
Comes out tomorrow. Is there anyone who thinks this movie will be anything less than the biggest dog of the year (if not the decade)?...
01 March 2006The Machinist
I saw The Machinist last night. I don't know why this flick hasn't gotten more publicity. It's a remarkable film. Christain Bale stars as Trevor Reznik, the paranoid insomniac, anorexic machinist searching for truth through the haze of his self-inflicted...
24 January 2006Spalding Lives
I can't tell you how excited I was when I heard on NPR that Steven Soderbergh is working on a documentary about Spalding Gray on Fresh Air today. The idea, says Soderburgh, is that he has access to a huge...
09 January 2006More Thoughts on Munich
First all, let me say that I really liked Munich. It was a brilliant piece of film making, played out with dramatic flashbacks, great attention to period detail, a period, the 70s, which I think is very challenging to recreate...
07 January 2006Munich
Saw it tonight. So many many thoughts. I need to sleep on it. One thing I will say now is that what happened to the Eric Bana who played a marble statue in Troy and a wooden soldier in Blackhawk...
27 December 2005Owen Wilson
Is it me, or does Owen Wilson pretty play the exact same character in every movie he's ever been in?...
28 November 2005Before Sunset
Has anyone out there seen Before Sunset with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy? I picked it up today at the Oakland Public Library and it srtuck a chord with me. It's about two young people who meet traveling in Europe...
14 November 2005Capote
If Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn't win the Oscar for Best Actor for his tour de force performance as Truman Capote something is wrong with this world. Hoffman is one of world's greatest actors and it's time his incredible body of...
11 August 2005From Russia with Love
Considered by many to be one of the best James Bond films ever made, this second outing moves between Venice, Istanbul and other European locales as agent 007 tries to nab a top-secret Russian decoding machine. Features the first...
29 June 2005Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is great. Here's the cast list: Peter Coyote .... Narrator Andrew Fastow .... Himself Ken Lay .... Himself Jeff Skilling .... Himself What more do you need to know? If you're from California...
20 April 2005Sideways
I finally saw Sideways last night. I had wanted to see it on the big screen when it came out, but I'm actually glad that I waited until last night. That's because if I saw it in the theater, I...
10 March 2005Ray
I finally saw Ray last night. I enjoyed it. I'm a big Ray Charles fan. I thought Jamie Foxx was brilliant. But I don't think this was a great film. There was a few things that really bothered me. The...
01 March 2005Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels was on Bravo the other day and I just had to watch it even though I had much better things to do. The movie is now officially on the list of flicks that I...
16 February 2005See it Twice. See it With Someone You Love.
There is a continuum of love/hate that is generally linear, but at the far extremes, the line bends back around to form a circle so that only things that you love passionately, can you also hate with equal fervor. The...
09 February 2005Danny Deckchair
I don't know how Danny Deckchair ended up in my Netflix queue, but I'm glad it did. I haven't seen a movie that charmed me like that in a long time. It's a modern day fairy tale with just enough...
03 February 2005Seen Any Good Movies?
My Netflix queue is growing thin these days. I'm finding it harder and harder to find good movies to watch. Very little that comes out in the theaters interests me and browsing the stacks at Blockbuster is a pure horror...
10 January 2005King Arthur
If you want to see a really crappy film, go rent King Arthur. I stayed away when it was out in theaters, but curiosity got the best of me, I Netflix'd it and I really wish I hadn't. If you're...
28 December 2004The Aviator
I have a hard time getting over the Leonardo DiCaprio's boyish looks. He's a fine actor, underated, definintely. However his look turns everything he does into a cartoon. He's brilliant in something lighthearted like Catch Me If You Can, but...
15 December 2004The Passion
I finally saw Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. It was in theaters when I was living in Vail and I didn't get a chance to see it. Hard to believe anyone would think it was anti-semitic....
07 December 2004The Station Agent
If you haven't already seen it, do yourself a favor and rent The Station Agent. Peter Dinklage gives a slick performance in the title role as a man who moves to take up residence in a small town station house...
01 December 2004The Verdict
There are some movies that you see all the time on TV, like Heaven Can Wait, for example. There are others that come out in the theaters and then disappear from the collective consciousness. The Verdict falls into this category....
24 November 2004Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me was just the movie to watch to keep anyone from overindulging at the Thanksgiving table. Spulock's movie documents his plunge down the fast food dark side to eat nothing but Mickey D's for thirty...
19 November 2004Nuthin' but Star Wars
Just this week I watched all three of the first Trilogy of Star Wars. It's something you have to do every so often. This time the movies I saw were not the same as the ones I had seen in...
05 October 2004Who's The Best Fighter Pilot You Ever Saw?
You're looking at him. I didn't really know Gordo Cooper, but I felt like I did. Almost everything I know about this man comes from reading Tom Wolfe'sThe Right Stuff and repeatedly watching the movie in which he was played...
12 August 2004One Day in September
The 1972 Munich Olympics were supposed to be the Olympics of Peace, a showcase for the new democratic Germany. But celebration turned to tragedy as Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Olympic village and took Israeli athletes hostage. On the even on...
02 August 2004The Manchurian Candidate
It always bothers me when a great Hollywood classic like The Manchurian Candidate gets remade. What's the point? The remake is almost never as good as the original. What they should do is remake bad movies. Take some old piece...
03 July 2004Fahrenheit 9/11
I finally saw F911 this week and I've had some time to reflect on it so here it goes. The film brought up a number of emotions and when I sat in the theatre watching it, I was supremely uncomfortable....
03 July 2004"Everything I Say, by Definition, is a Promise"
This quote is by far and away my favorite on-screen Brando moment. You won't see it on the news featurettes about his life where you'll hear him intone repeatedly that he could have been a contender, or scream for Stella...
16 June 2004Fahrenheit 9/11 Flap
I just witnessed something that was as absurd piece of television as I have ever seen. Crossfire on CNN just had a show where the topic of debate was Michael Moore's new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. This movie has been the...
14 June 2004My Big Fat Greek War or We'll Always Have Paris
I recently saw Troy, the Wolfgang Peterson epic based loosely on The Iliad. I went into the theater expecting to be disappointed and I was not let down. Some of the elements of the movie were just plain comical like...
26 April 2004Best Con Flicks?
I'm not talking about ex-Cons. I'm talking about Con-Artists. I'm talking about The Grifters, The Usual Suspects, The Thomas Crowne Affair (both the Steve McQueen original and the Pierce Brosnan remake), and Confidence. For my money, the best hands down...
17 December 2003Mathis or Sinatra?
I recently saw Diner again, one of my favorite flicks and possibly the greatest work by director Barry Levinson, in his directorial debut, I might add. A great part of the genius of the film is the casting. It's perfect....
01 December 2003Ain't Nothing to Watch
Last night I went to the video store to pick up a few DVDs and I experienced a familiar sensation. There are so many crap movies on the shelves, I had a hard time finding something I wanted to dedicate...
28 November 2003If Your Pictures Aren't Good Enough, You're Not Close Enough...
I recently saw War Photographer, a documentary about one of my personal heroes, James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever. The film was both moving and incredibly disturbing, but having pored over Natchwey's photos, I was expecting...
23 October 2003Culture ... It's a Beautiful Thing
There's an Italian Film Festival playing at the theater across the street from my brother's place. The festival is showing classics like Cinema Paradiso and Il Postino, but it's also got some current movies. Today I saw Sunday Lunch or...
13 August 2003Mad Max Meets His Maker
There's an interesting article on Salon.com about Mel Gibson's forthcoming movie, "The Passion", an anti-Semetic opus about the life of Jesus. The basic complaint is that the movie portrays the Jews "as bloodthirsty and vengeful" killers. I find this...
08 August 2003Finding Nemo
It must be a director's dream to not only be able to completely direct every aspect of the shot, but also to have a team of the finest digital animators in the world to make it a reality. The...
20 July 2003The Recruit
I rented "The Recuit" over the weekend and was completely underwhelmed. Colin Farrell's performance was really weak. It might as well have been Freddie Prinze, Jr. The music was horrible. And the story did nothing to engage me. It's...
16 July 2003Whale of a Movie
I just came from seeing "The Whale Rider" and I can't stop thinking about it. The movie gave me chills. If you haven't seen it, I don't want to give away the plot, so I'll only say that this...
10 July 2003Shiri
Last night, a friend of mine rented a DVD and brought it over to my house. This movie was the Korean action flick, Shiri. Shiri was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It should be called...
03 July 2003Amelie
My friend Van received a package from home yesterday and amongst the various things inside was a the DVD of Amelie. We rushed back to her place to watch it. I hadn't seen it since it was out in...
29 June 2003Adaptation
I did something on Saturday that I don't think I've ever done before in my life. I watched a movie three times, back-to-back-to-back. And this was after watching it for the first time the night before. This movie was...
25 June 20038 Women
I rented 8 Women (called 8 femmes, in French) last night. There was nothing particulary special about this flick, other than that the entire cast was female. Well, except for the small role of Marcel, who had no lines...
12 June 2003Charlie Don't Surf
I caught a screening of Apocalypse Now at Magic Cinema today. There were so few people in the theater, it was almost a private screening. There was no one in the 15 rows in front of me. I had seen...
05 June 2003Snow Falling on Cedars
I just rented Snow Falling on Cedars last night. (The video store next to the Peace Corps office has over 2000 DVDs in stock.) I wasn't expecting much. I read the book a few weeks ago and it is one...
11 May 2003Neo vs. Smith
Well, so Matrix Reloaded isn't going to win Best Picture, but the special effects were incredble. There were a couple of fight scenes that took fight scenes to a whole new level. I'm not going to give anything away for...
10 May 200305.15? Not in Samoa
HEY HEY HEY! Look what we have here. Matrix Reloaded is playing in our theaters here in SAMOA, a full five days before the release date in States. Take that! Yes, that's right. Our little speck of an island...
21 April 2003The Talented Mr. Ripley
Last night after I dried off and had some dinner, I cooked up a pop of popcorn and put the Talented Mr. Ripley on. There are a few movies out there in the world that I can watch again and...
18 April 2003Know a Good Blind Lawyer?
I just saw Daredevil in a packed house (on Good Friday, mind you) at the Magik Cinema. Not a great movie, but they did a decent job with the "blind" special effects. Plus Colin Farrell was just plain freaky cool...
12 April 2003Johnny English
Johnny English is probably not going to be winning any academy awards, but it's funny as hell (and good enough for Samoa). Rowan Atkinson is a physical comedy genius. There are some scenes in the flick that are classic. And...
08 April 2003Possession
Possession is probably not going to go down as one of the great "Merchant Ivory" films, but it was an enjoyable film despite Gwyneth Paltrow with her annoyingly fussy British accent. The best part was the scenery, the shots inside...