Marc Sigoloff

The controversy over The Da Vinci Code began with the casting of Tom Hanks, but I suppose that is an issue only for those who read the book. Because I will never read it, I can easily accept Hanks in the role. In fact, unlike other actors who began their careers with light comedy, I […]

V for Vendetta concerns a lone avenger who fights a totalitarian government, a popular theme in science fiction. Why is totalitarianism associated with science fiction? Apparently one man’s sci-fi is another man’s reality. Maybe the genre is a safe haven for political commentary. The Smothers Brothers ran into problems with their television network as a […]

While was sitting in the dark on the night of the tornadoes, I realized that the topic for my next column was right in front of me. The disaster genre has given us some substantial hits over the years but very little in terms of quality. Why worry about a hackneyed soap-opera plot when it […]

Martin Scorsese praised David Cronenberg back when Cronenberg was generally dismissed as just a horror director. His penchant for biological horror set Cronenberg apart from his contemporaries, but most critics still ignored Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977). Now, with A History of Violence, others are waking up to his brilliance. Violence topped the 2005 Village […]

Fans of the cinema of the 1970s should rejoice over the new DVD special editions of two of that decade’s classics, Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Network (1976). Both films are the work of Sidney Lumet, a New York-based director who excelled at urban chaos. Consistency is not a hallmark of his career, and he […]

Match Point has given Woody Allen his widest mainstream recognition in years. He is considered a national treasure despite his enigmatic image. Even his public life is the source of confusion. A few months ago, Jenny Olive of KISS (99.7 FM) joked that Allen had married his stepdaughter. Actually he married the adopted daughter of […]

Some wedding pictures aren’t worth remembering, but people swarm down on them like locusts. Something about the subject strikes a chord with people. Wedding Crashers took off into the box-office stratosphere, far beyond the realm of most comedies, and it isn’t that good. I was hard pressed to find a moment that was remotely funny. […]

When I heard that Philip Seymour Hoffman had been cast as Truman Capote, my initial reaction was “absolutely perfect.” I couldn’t imagine another actor more convincingly handling Capote’s well-known physical quirks. His performance easily rises above the level of mere mimicry. We see the painful transformation Capote undergoes through his investigation into the murders that […]

The extended edition of Dune (1984) arrives on DVD with little fanfare, an expected reaction to an unfairly maligned film. The source of derision is David Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic science-fiction novel. Proper appreciation of Dune will come from ignoring the source material and seeing its place in the filmography of the master […]

The films of Terrence Malick are an acquired taste, and The New World is not likely to gain him any new fans. The New World is only Malick’s fourth feature in a career that spans more than 30 years, but, despite the Hollywood veneer, it is his most idiosyncratic. Audiences who aren’t accustomed to Malick’s […]