AltWeeklies Wire
Inside Jokenew
The hilarious new film, The Aristocrats, proves, our hesitance to offend sometimes robs humor of its vitality.
Tags: Paul Provenza, The Aristocrats
The Life Lethargicnew
As intriguing as Jim Jarmusch's latest film, Broken Flowers, might be, it nevertheless feels like something we've all seen too many times before.
Tags: Broken Flowers, Jim Jarmusch
State of Fearnew
Kate Hudson and a supporting cast of stereotypes sleepwalk through The Skeleton Key as British director Iain Softley continues the time-honored tradition of turning Louisiana into a sticky, icky gumbo of cliches.
Tags: Iain Softley, The Skeleton Key
Irreconcilable Similaritiesnew
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie face off nicely in Doug Liman's latest, which (sometimes clumsily) tries to juggle the genres of romantic comedy and action-adventure with little atonal moments of dramatic wistfulness.
Tags: Doug Liman, Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Image Makernew
With his feature-film debut, fashion/glamour photographer and video director David LaChapelle takes a look at a subculture that, like the vogue-ing drag queens of "Paris Is Burning," blossoms out of desperation and a need for survival.
Tags: David LaChapelle, Rize
Pet Soundsnew
No matter how hard Unleashed director Louis Letterier and star Jet Li try, they're working with atonal material, and can't have it both ways.
Tags: Louis Leterrier, Unleashed
Culture Clashnew
Ousmane Sembene deftly tackles a squeamish subject with his topical film, Moolaade.
Tags: Moolaadé, Ousmane Sembene
Dance Fevernew
Stephen Chow's love of cinema floods the scenes of Kung Fu Hustle like so many kicks and chops, moving almost chronologically through a history of not only martial-arts movies but movies in general.
Tags: Stephen Chow, Kung Fu Hustle
Forest for the Treesnew
Through all of its obvious symbolism, thinly sketched characters, portentous filmmaking technique and vague narrative, writer-director Nicole Kassell's The Woodsman remains an affecting piece of work.
Tags: Nicole Kassell, The Woodsman
Amazing Gracenew
Grace under pressure is one of the key themes to Terry George's Hotel Rwanda, which chronicles Paul Rusesabagina's miraculous efforts in 1994 that saved the lives of some 1,200 people.
Tags: Terry George, Hotel Rwanda
War-Torn and Lovelornnew
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's latest is what a sweeping epic of love and war should be: beautiful and ugly all at once, dramatic on a grand, yet thoroughly calibrated, scale.
The Top 10 in a Year of Solid Filmmakingnew
While there were no real masterpieces in 2004, there were enough solid films to make two serviceable top-10 lists of equal value.
Ocean Wonderlandnew
Can a filmmaker show artistic growth from one film to the next without necessarily having made a "better" film? When it comes to Wes Anderson's fourth film, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, that's a tough question to answer -- but one that deserves asking.
Family Albumnew
The photograph collectors depicted in the new documentary Other People's Pictures seem to be trying to recapture the human touch.
