AltWeeklies Wire
The Trilogy Has a Three-Way with Perspectivenew
Belvaux tests the adage by constructing three separate but interlocking films, each in a different genre. See one of The Trilogy's installments and you won't be able to resist seeing them all.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-15-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Lucas Belvaux, The Trilogy
A Look inside Sao Paulo's Most Notorious Penitentiarynew
With the loose, anecdotal structure of nonfiction work, the film explores the daily lives of the prisoners, who occasionally recount their stories in flashbacks. The tales inevitably build to violent confrontations, but frequently find room for gallows humor.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Carandiru, Hector Babenco
Stick a sword in it, King Arthur's donenew
King Arthur never commands our interest as an action film or a history lesson, and whenever director Antoine Fuqua tries to push the two together, it feels like he's hammering a square peg in the Round Table.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Antoine Fuqua, King Arthur
Delpy and Hawke Reconnect in Before Sunset new
Sequels are rarely improvements on the original, but Before Sunset is an exception to that rule. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are utterly charming as two quirky, overly analytical people whose cynicism blankets a soft core of romanticism.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Richard Linklater, Before Sunset
Family Values Reaffirmed in Kidnapping Thriller The Clearingnew
The Clearing is unconventional in some ways, for the age of its protagonists and for the way it bucks the usual thriller formula. Gone is the breakneck pacing and the kind of race-against-the-clock, heart-pounding hysteria that seems to dominate the genre.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Pieter Jan Brugge, The Clearing
The geriatric set experiences a sexual awakening in The Mothernew
Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) offers a convincing picture of how growing old means being forced to life's sidelines. The crux of the film, in fact, is May's determination to register as something more than a free babysitter and emotional punching bag for her harried daughter, Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw), and merit some attention.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
07-01-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Roger Michell, The Mother
High-School Outcasts Rule in Dynamitenew
Napoleon Dynamite scribbles a deadpan portrait of an adolescent on the margins. Hess reveals his lack of fresh ideas by spending too much time on pointlessly nasty caricatures. As long as Napoleon Dynamite restricts itself to the misadventures of the title role, the film finds laughs that are plentiful, if not exactly deep.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-01-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Jared Hess, Napoleon Dynamite
Operatic Spider-Man 2 improves on predecessornew
Since Batman, superhero films have frequently gone for gothic self-importance, but Spider-Man 2 brings camp back into the formula. The operatic, at times overblown adventure enthralls and amuses the audience without overtly winking at it.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-01-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Sam Raimi, Spider-Man 2
Documentary Takes Respectful, Sober Look at Poet's Lifenew
The documentary gives you the itch to get reacquainted with Bukowski's work, preferably while sitting astride a barstool.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
06-24-2004 |
Reviews
Waiting for Rocco at NBC's 'The Restaurant'new
NBC hyped the second season as a battle for control of Rocco's 22nd Street, but when the show ended June 5, both men still held equal stakes in the business. Unable to accept such an unsatisfying ending, we went to investigate the made-for-TV eatery for ourselves.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Heather Kuldell |
06-24-2004 |
TV
Tags: TV
Poultry, sexual awakening make for queasy brewnew
The Mudge Boy is about a sexual rite of passage with as much murky, disturbing content as stories of female sexual awakening, but Mudge's tale of chicken-fried yokels and brutal life down-on-the-farm shows a fairly conventional, crude view of rural life that never quite jibes with its art film trappings.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
06-24-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Michael Burke, The Mudge Boy
The Notebook is a hokey bag of Southern clichesnew
Everything from set design to dialogue to historical detail in The Notebook feels fake in this adaptation of crybaby novelist Nicholas Sparks' best-selling book.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
06-24-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Nick Cassavetes, The Notebook
Fahrenheit challenges post-9/11 politicsnew
Addressing material that Hollywood has taken pains to avoid, Fahrenheit 9/11 lights a fire under its viewers and challenges the sacred cows of 21st-century America.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
06-24-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11
Mario Van Peebles Follows in his Father's Footsteps With Baadasssss!new
Three decades after Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song became an instant cult classic, Melvin's son, actor and director Mario Van Peebles (New Jack City, Posse), has made a tribute and expose of the long road to making Sweet called Baadasssss!.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
06-23-2004 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles
Monster Movie is One Moronic Mashnew
Remember when you were a kid and you, or maybe your brother, would put all the monster toys on the floor and make them fight? "Van Helsing" amounts to basically a $148 million version of that.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
05-07-2004 |
Reviews
