“God will forgive them. He’ll forgive them and allow them into heaven. I can’t live with that.” So begins “Dead Man’s Shoes,” a pitch-black revenge thriller set in an even darker suburban London underworld. It’s an indie jack of all trades of sorts, using elements of drama, horror and even a pinch of comedy to tell its tale. It’s a bit jumpy, and, thanks to the thick accents, could use subtitles a la the club scene in “Trainspotting,” but despite the fact that there is little left to the imagination, the movie is enthralling. The dialogue quoted above belongs to…
Author: David Medsker
To quote “The Simpsons” (ask my friends, I do that a lot) when they lampooned Enron in their episode at Epcot Center, mmmm, now that’s good satire. “American Dreamz” looks like total fluff on the surface, the kind of thing that the Wayans brothers would do for a “Scary Movie” installment, were they still in charge of that franchise. Instead, it’s one of the funniest, most biting satires, both political and cultural, that you’re likely to see this year. It miraculously uses a terrorist sleeper cell as a subplot in a comedy, and you totally buy it. That doesn’t just…
I overheard a couple of women coming out of “The Illusionist” talking about how they loved every minute of it. Which is odd, because I found myself strangely annoyed from the very beginning. Pity, too, because Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti are incredibly engaging actors, but the movie they’re trapped in has painfully dull dialogue, and the camera techniques feel as though they were chosen by someone who has read a book about movies but has never actually seen one. By the time the ending arrives – and it’s easily the best thing about the movie – we have suffered…
Believe the hype. “Snakes on a Plane” may not be the Greatest Movie Ever Made, as “we” (and truth be told, that Bullz-Eye editorial “we” was just me) have been claiming it to be for the last year or so. But there is no denying that it is one hell of a thrill ride, and quite possibly the best popcorn movie of all time. Say what you will about the dialogue, the spotty acting, and the special effects, and any derogatory comments you make about any of those things are admittedly true. But watching the movie with a whole bunch…
While the title of this book is indeed a curious question, this collection of short essays, assembled from the contributions of Hicks’ faithful to Ben Mack’s web site WhatWouldBillHicksSay.com, does not properly do Hicks justice. The essays, which were limited to 250 words or less, cover the familiar topics ad nauseum – Bush is the devil, the Iraq war is a farce – and while Hicks would probably be killing Republicans onstage as part of his routine were he alive today, his followers do not possess the wit, the timing or the restraint that made Hicks the brilliant comedian that…
The good news about “The Benchwarmers” is that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The bad news is that it is still not a good movie. But then again, what good can possibly come from the combination of Rob Schneider, David Spade and director Dennis Dugan, never mind Jon Heder? The ads will tell you that Dugan directed “Happy Gilmore” and “Big Daddy.” What they won’t tell you is that he also directed “Saving Silverman” and “Beverly Hills Ninja.” There is no point in even dissecting the filmographies of the other actors. It will only end…
The best thing that can be said for “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is that it is one of the rare sequels that bests its predecessor. But the truth is that that is a lot like saying that “Shrek 2” was better than “Shrek”; one may indeed be better than the other, but neither is particularly good. (To the “Shrek” fans that are reading this: don’t bother wasting your time telling me how “wrong” I am. You’re just wasting your time.) Still, it is an improvement, which makes it all the more frustrating that the makings were there for something even…
“Inside Man” is like some dream team blend of Spike Lee’s sass with the taut suspense of John McTiernan or Wolfgang Petersen’s best work. (Why yes, it has indeed been a long time since either of them made a good movie, but their good stuff was really good.) It’s funny, it’s nerve-racking, it carries a slight whiff of Rich Whitey Condescension – thankfully, Lee makes his point and moves on, rather than stopping to swing his big stick – but most importantly, it doesn’t cheat us with a ridiculous ending. The movie begins, oddly enough, with a fourth-wall introduction from…
There’s a movie in here somewhere, one that tells the shocking tale of a power-hungry politician who drove a country to fascist isolationism, and the one man with the guts to stand up to him, a movie that combines thrilling action sequences with a complex political potboiler storyline. But “V for Vendetta,” sadly, does not tell the tale it seems capable of telling. The fascist angle doesn’t inspire any righteous indignation, and the terrorist angle is not the fiery revolutionary rhetoric it thinks it is. The story begins in futuristic England, which is under the totalitarian rule of Chancellor Adam…
The reason that the phrase “gorehound” exists is because of movies like “The Hills Have Eyes.” They’re classified as horror, but in truth they’re not particularly scary. They’re more like a litmus test for your freak meter. How much disturbing imagery can you handle? That will determine how much you enjoy the movie, not your tendency to jump when something goes “boo.” The problem with the movie is that it appears to be holding back, afraid to embrace its inner “Evil Dead” and let the carnage flow freely. When it does let loose, it’s a ton of fun. It just…