AltWeeklies Wire
Anatomy of a Sumbitchnew
This fascinating documentary is no mere instructional video about how to fail in show biz. It's about willful self-immolation, about letting raw ego and crazy delusion run amok, about driving friends and family into storms of rage.
A Psychomagical Encounternew
In life, as well as film, Chilean-born director Alejandro Jodorowsky is avant-garde.
SF Weekly |
John Mecklin |
12-06-2004 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Enduring Creepinessnew
The film wants to come from behind and surprise in a way that feels punishing, as though the audience being taught a bitter lesson. The result is creepy and unpleasant. There is hope, however bleak, at the end, but mostly there's a sense of unnecessary devastation.
Tags: Roger Michell, Enduring Love
Well Trainednew
The runaway-train action stuff is fantastic. Where the movie falters is when it delivers platitudes about how the spirit of Christmas is in every one of us and Santa is the symbol of the spirit of giving, etc., etc.
Tags: Robert Zemeckis, The Polar Express
Redemption Thongnew
The witless inanity of this film is so numbing that the sole reason for any living creature to sit through it is to marvel at actress Salma Hayek's relentless succession of thongs, sarongs, diaphanous cocktail frocks, and all-but-nonexistent bathing suits.
Tags: Brett Ratner, After the Sunset
Icky, Icky, Ickynew
The filmmakers want to have it both ways: They do everything to convince the protagonist and the audience that it might indeed be OK to run off with a 10-year-old boy, then cop out just before she's about to throw away her life.
Tags: birth, Jonathan Glazer
Exposing Utopia's Gateway to Auschwitznew
The Holocaust hangs like a shadow over everything, but this is really more a Kurt Gerron biopic, from his days onstage to his long-awaited stint as a director. Seeing Nazism as just a passing fad, he ignored the threat to himself until it was too late.
Brave and Crazynew
There is no denying that Tarnation is a very brave movie. Rarely is the subject of a documentary willing to lay himself bare before the camera, exposing his very consciousness to the audience, and it's still more uncommon for a director to do it.
The People's Historiannew
At 80-plus, Zinn has the kind of sheen that emanates, spreading cheer even as he exposes the corruption, deceit, and violence that characterize the lion's share of the history he studies. Zinn's beauty is the beauty of righteousness.
Full of Gracenew
The plot makes this film sounds like a cheap romantic fantasy, contrived to make a chunk of change off wistful women pushing 40. In fact, p.s. is a character-driven drama, concerned more with its protagonist's emotional life than with her romantic one.
Mad Cownew
Numerous auteur directors have been inspired by David Lynch. Takashi Miike is one of the few who not only get Lynch's sense of surrealism but also seem to understand his sense of humor.
The Passion of the Goynew
This film's subject matter -- a standoff in World War II Berlin -- is relevant, and it may serve as a balm for many, yet the film itself often resorts to heavy-handedness.
