It’s a sad fact that one day, we will live in a world without Hayao Miyazaki actively making movies. What we have in The Secret World of Arrietty is perhaps the next best thing to a film directed by Miyazaki. It’s a film written by Miyazaki and to some extent “planned” by him....
Read more »
Drive, starring the currently ubiquitous Ryan Gosling, is in part an homage to Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978) and quite an earnest endeavor: a post-modernist situation lacking most of the tropes and characteristics of the post-modern film.
Read more »
The inevitable sequel to the crass comedy hit 'The Hangover: Part II' brings back Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis, the bachelor party trio from hell. But it’s just not clicking this time around.
Read more »
'Kings of Pastry' is a documentary that focuses on several pastry chefs who yearn for and compete for the Meilleur Ouvrier de France in the category of Pastry-making, an elite tradesperson award in France. Despite some clunkiness, on the whole it's a jewel.
Read more »
Eviscerated as it was by critics, one might wonder why anyone would bother seeing M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Last Airbender.' Well, my curiosity, she is a morbid thing. I’ve watched all of Shyamalan’s films with an increasing anticipation of their burgeoning badness.
Read more »
Director Darren Aronofsky’s new film, 'Black Swan,' channels the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski at their most psychologically dark and sadistic. Where 'The Wrestler' toyed with a sense of redemption, only to have that redemption revoked, Black Swan is much more focused on a hopeless slide into insanity.
Read more »
Even for Disney, coloring by numbers doesn’t always add up to a good product. But what about in the case of "Tangled" (which was renamed from the original "Rapunzel" into something less outwardly princess-y)?
Read more »
Ken reviews an oldie--an exploitation film about exploitation. 'Scum of the Earth' concerns sleazy men who trick young girls into posing naked for photos and then blackmails them to go further.
Read more »
Alexandre Aja’s remake of the Roger Corman/Joe Dante/John Sayles original Piranha (1978) is most everything it promises to be, and unlike so many re-makes of horror films of late (A Nightmare on Elm Street , My Bloody Valentine ), it refreshes the content rather than just regurgitates it.
Read more »
Channeling comic books, video games, anime, manga and riffing off pop culture elements from music, film, television, and everywhere, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one of the most visually inventive films in a long time.
Read more »
Cold & Flu Symptom Relief: The Neti Pot?