The Constant Gardener

What’s interesting about the process by which this mystery unfolds lies in the parallel between Justin’s career as a diplomat and his interest in gardening. Gardeners and diplomats both require patience. Fiennes manner is slight, carefully paced. He understands he’s treading…

Clueless: “Whatever!” Edition

The film works through its necessary conflicts, between Mel and Cher, between Cher and Tai Fraiser (Brittany Murphy, in one of her most underrated, clever performances), and so on… but intelligently, not malevolently. I credit this partly to Jane Austen, as the film is based loosely on Emma. I also credit this to Amy Heckerling, who demonstrates a keen understanding, much like Tina Fey (head writer of “Saturday Night Live” and screenwriter of “Mean Girls”), of…

The Cave

The acting is on par with what you’d expect of this type of film, which is to say that only after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have ridden will an Academy Award® be sitting on anyone’s mantel for their performance in “The Cave.” This however, is as it should be…because no one going into this movie is expecting to see “Citizen Kane.” This film’s draw is all about its plotless premise and the ensuing carnage, not about…

Red-Eye

If I can try to summarize, however, Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is a hotel manager who maintains the tenuous belief that the customer is always right. We know this because, lo and behold, there’s a customer in need of better service than Reisert’s in-charge is prepared to provide, which begs the question…

Wedding Date

This is yet another one of those formulaic plots where the woman needs to recruit a male companion to accompany her to a wedding. This is, of course, so she doesn’t look desperate to her family/ex-boyfriend/sister or whomever else it is a director of a film like this decides to insert as the requisite hindrance to her self-esteem. How many times has this plot been recycled?

Columbo: Season 3 & The Dick Cavett Show

The advent of season-by-season television on DVD was a beautiful thing. Indeed, it has sparked a minor revolution in the way people watch TV and they way they view it. If anything, the ability to to devour a season of television at your own pace like a good (or not-so-good) novel has led…

The Skeleton Key

A strange thing happened after opening weekend as studio generated buzz seeped into the advertising campaign. Suddenly (and supposedly) every one was talking about the twist ending for “The Skeleton Key.” For someone riding the fence on whether or not to see this film, I took the bait…

Closer (2004)

“Closer” is one of the most brilliantly-written films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a film where the characters’ lives revolve around using sex to hurt each other, but (aside from a rather humorous “conversation”…

March of the Penguins

Antarctica, with its vast ranges of white, cliffs of ice, and frozen, deep blue, is an awe-inspiring place. My gratitude goes to the film makers who were insanely ambitious enough to brave this weather so that I need not. The cinematography, directed by Laurent Chalet and Jerome Maison, is the most remarkable documentary footage I have seen. Perhaps…