Chuck Koplinski

During a recent appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, comedian Dave Chappelle admitted that he wasn’t having much fun with his hit Comedy Central program. But before the blues got him down, Chappelle shot a film that demonstrates exactly why he’s one of comedy’s most gifted entertainers. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party depicts the comedian at the […]

Sometimes the sheer force of an actor’s personality or ability can compel an audience to sit through a film they might otherwise walk out on. Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep — they got it. Paul Walker, Ryan Phillippe, Van Heflin and Kim Basinger — dull as dishwater. Of course, Anthony Hopkins […]

You can tell that Pierce Brosnan in having fun in The Matador, the smart new dark comedy from writer/director Richard Shepard. Best known for his James Bond roles, Brosnan gleefully dismantles his suave screen persona as Julian Noble, a burned-out assassin who carouses with hookers, tries to pick up teenage girls, and drinks himself into […]

A modern crime thriller set in England, Woody Allen’s Match Point focuses on two outsiders who get a peek at the sort of upper-crust lifestyle they can never hope to possess and the effect it has on them. Chris Walton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is a former tennis player who never made the big time but has rubbed […]

Everyone Kenya (Sanaa Lathan) meets is convinced that she’s a self-assured, independent woman. Indeed, she’s on the verge of being made a partner at the accounting firm where she works, owns her own home, keeps herself fit, and is, some would say, a knockout. But Kenya’s appearance is nothing but a façade used to ward […]

I wish that I could report that Glory Road is a fresh new addition to the sports-movie genre, an innovative piece of work that surprised me from the first second to the last. I can’t. This family-pleaser, directed by James Gartner, is strictly by-the-numbers, containing all of the elements we’ve come to expect in sports […]

From Giovanni Giacomo Casanova’s 12-volume memoir, we know that the great lover was also a gambler, philosopher, escape artist, soldier, gardener, and prisoner. At various times during his life he worked as a spy, government official, and novelist; was an aide to Russia’s Catherine the Great; fought in more than a few duels, worked for […]

If ever a film had “sure-fire hit” written all over it, it would be Susan Stroman’s big-screen adaptation of her Broadway smash The Producers. After all, the musical itself was based on the Mel Brooks comedy classic, released in 1968, and stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the roles that made them the toast […]

More classic films were produced by the Hollywood studio system during the 1930s and ’40s than during any other period in cinema history, and though many of these movies seem quaint and naïve today, they had solid scripts as their foundation. Although I love discovering modern features that remind me of films from that bygone […]

From the very first frame of the new King Kong, director Peter Jackson sets out to dazzle us. His Depression-era New York City is a grimy, vibrant urban jungle whose residents struggle to survive. Among them is unemployed actress Ann Darrow (a luminous Naomi Watts), who, despite a string of bad breaks, still believes that things […]

With the success of Chicken Little, Disney Studios has shown that it is capable of competing in the computer-animated-film business, even if its wildly successful distribution deal with Pixar Animation is a thing of the past. In producing a big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ beloved The Chronicles of Narnia series, the Mouse Factory hopes to […]

In an era in which special effects drive big-budget films and human interaction is regarded as an annoyance, memorable screen teams are few and far between. However, there’s always an exception that proves the rule. Case in point: John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton in The Ice Harvest. Having teamed up once before in the […]