Untitled Document Has anyone else noticed the dramatic slide in the quality of movie comedy in recent years? The outlook is a bit bleak but not hopeless. The major success of two excellent comedies last year, Borat and The Break-Up, could lead to some better rip-offs. Until then we are left with a group of […]
Marc Sigoloff
Posted inArts & Culture
School movies with bite
Untitled Document Mrs. Hart (Cate Blanchett), the new art teacher, inspires one of her teenage male students in Notes on a Scandal, but not in a good way. Female teachers who have sex with male students have long been fodder for the news media, but the movie industry seems more comfortable with the endless parade […]
Posted inArts & Culture
He’s paid his dues
Untitled Document Forest Whitaker just received his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role as the evil dictator Idi Amin, who ruled the nation of Uganda during the 1970s, in The Last King of Scotland. Whitaker is the frontrunner in his category, and a win will be well deserved. I defy anyone to […]
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Three of the year’s best
Untitled Document January is traditionally the worst month for movies. Hollywood releases its best product at the end of the year, then dumps the junk in January. With awards season upon us, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the best films of 2006. The current blockbuster mentality prohibits the wide release of […]
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Children of the future
Untitled Document Children of Men shows us a future in which all women have become infertile. It also shows us a future without maids and janitors. Will the world in the year 2027 really be this filthy and grungy? You would think that without kids around it would be easier to keep things clean. Children […]
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Broadway’s best and worst
Untitled Document What has happened to the musical genre? We used to get peppy children singing and dancing on mountains, or women trying to wash men out of their hair. Now it’s all about sex, murder, and madness. Achieving adulthood is a plus for this somewhat dubious genre, but it doesn’t solve all the problems. […]
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The lighter side of spies
Untitled Document The Good Shepherd presents a realistic view of the Central Intelligence Agency, but sometimes it is difficult to take the world of spying seriously. Movies have often taken a lighthearted poke at spies. James Bond movies are borderline spoofs, and their success opened the floodgates of lunacy in the ’60s. Check the bottom […]
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Sly’s comeback
Do we really need another Rocky movie? Apparently Sylvester Stallone does, as a means of resuscitating his dying career. There are three methods of regaining public attention: One is to try a gimmick, such as switching to politics. Californians probably voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger just to stop him from making more movies. Stallone is following […]
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Queen Helen
Helen Mirren appears to be headed for her first Oscar, for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. So far she has swept the critics’ awards for her introspective performance of the stoic queen. In a role that forbids the open expression of emotion, Mirren miraculously conveys all we need to know about […]
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Neo-noir
Film noir is a style of filmmaking that characterized Hollywood detective and murder thrillers in the 1940s and ’50s. The name essentially means “dark cinema,” and its influences are German expressionism and French existentialism. Noir came to life with The Maltese Falcon (1941), and its last great gasp is the classic Touch of Evil (1958). […]
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Buy this Bond
Every now and then the James Bond films need to scale back to a sense of reality. The Roger Moore Bonds became a bit too spacey, but the Timothy Dalton cure didn’t take hold. A fine actor, Dalton is too blandly serious for the acerbic spy. Pierce Brosnan was an improvement, but the gadgetry and […]
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Rest in peace, Robert Altman
The recent passing of Robert Altman is one of the greatest losses to the world of cinema. My high regard for his work should be apparent from past columns, including the one last week, which was written before his death. Altman has been a personal obsession ever since I saw M*A*S*H at the Senate Theatre […]
