AltWeeklies Wire
'Choke': Against the Mainstream
In adapting Chuck Palahnuik's novel of sexual addiction, con artistry, and subjugated maturity screenwriter/director/actor Clark Gregg creates a fantastical brand of satire that is engaging as it is diabolically ribald.
Tags: Choke, Clark Gregg
Expect a Different Kind of Happy Ending in 'Year of the Fish'
Year of the Fish is a tawdry tale about a Chinese immigrant girl sold into Manhattan massage parlor servitude.
Tags: David Kaplan, Year of the Fish
'Humboldt County': In Pot He Trusts
Peter (Jeremy Strong) is a repressed UCLA med student who finds his inner voice after spending time in the nurturing company of some Northern California pot farmers in an inspired independent comic drama filled with nuanced performances and delicate narrative touches.
Spike Lee Tries is His Hand at War in 'Miracle at St. Anna'
Lee boxes outside of his directorial weight-class with a war story bogged down with ham-handed smacks of magical realism and over-pronounced examples of racial prejudice.
Tags: Spike Lee, Miracle at St. Anna
'Obscene': The Rise and Fall of Barney Rosset
Debut filmmakers Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor tell the dynamic story of Rosset's iconic rise and fall as the owner of Grove Press and Evergreen Review, responsible for publishing such 20th century literary icons as Allen Ginsberg, Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Malcolm X, and Jack Kerouac.
'Battle In Seattle' Examines the WTO
A searing fictionalized telling of America's most recently effective public protest at 1999's WTO convention in Seattle, writer/director Stuart Townsend's debut feature makes a point of tracing the WTO's global stranglehold to its post WWII roots.
Tags: Stuart Townsend, Battle In Seattle
Avoid 'Towelhead'
As its openly racist title implies Towelhead is an exploitation movie that wears its shock value on its guilty sleeve.
'Mister Foe' Tries to Come of Age
Quirky for its own sake, Mister Foe (originally titled Hallum Foe) is an opaque attempt at a coming-of-age-via-modified-incest story that follows malcontent Hallam (Jamie Bell) after the suspicious death of his mother lands another woman (Claire Forlani) in his filthy rich father's bed.
Tags: David Mackenzie, Mister Foe
'The Women' Misses the Mark
Piecemeal and earnest to a fault, this remake of George Cukor's 1939 film relies so much on the elite world of humorless, filthy rich New York women that it excludes most of its would-be target fans.
Tags: Diane English, The Women
'Burn After Reading': The Coens Serve Up Laughs
The writing/directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen create a laugh-a-minute black comedy that pokes fun at America's surveillance-dominated existence, plastic surgery desires, and all out greed.
'Igor': A Monster Mash
John Cusack is the voice of Igor, a hunchbacked laboratory assistant to the doomed mad scientist Dr. Glickenstein (voiced by John Cleese) in this irresistible feel-good animated comedy that's rooted in early monster movie classics.
For Bristol Palin, Abortion Should Be Mandatory
Teen parenthood and marriage have disastrous consequences. Why are even liberals saying that Bristol Palin is doing the right thing?
'Towelhead': Racist Sexploitation Movie is Unspeakable
As its openly racist title implies Towelhead is an exploitation movie that wears its shock value on its guilty sleeve.
Old Spirits--New Decade: Czech New Wave Crests Again
Writer Jiri Menzel's ambitious filmic adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal's picaresque novel about a diminutive Czech waiter with dreams of becoming a millionaire and of owning his own extravagant hotel, is a rich black comedy steeped in wartime experience and sexual exploration in WWII Czechoslovakia.
Sarah Palin, Queen of the Nobodies
Governor of one of the nation's least populous states for a mere two years and the ex-mayor of a municipality that's home to 7000 souls, Palin is now positioned to be a proverbial heartbeat away from the ability to order ICBMs fired at Russia.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
09-02-2008 |
Commentary
