AltWeeklies Wire
Body, But No Soulnew
From the "You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, Folks" files comes this unfeeling take on how Gram Parsons’ body went missing and reappeared a few days later in the desert, half-cremated.
Austin Chronicle |
Kimberley Jones |
08-20-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: David Caffrey, Grand Theft Parsons
In Space, No One Can Hear You Laughnew
For a synopsis, read a different review. It’s enough to know that a bunch of walking lunchboxes in a confined space (OK, a giant subterranean pyramid) in the middle of nowhere (all right already, half a mile under Antarctica) find out the hard way that they’re not alone.
Missoula Independent |
Andy Smetanka |
08-20-2004 |
Reviews
Spike Lee Blows His Credibilitynew
When Spike Lee was filming She Hate Me, a friend should have taken the filmmaker aside and told him he would better serve everyone's time -- that of his cast and crew, his audience, himself -- by turning the feature into a soft-core adult film.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
08-19-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Spike Lee, She Hate Me
Postmodern Infidelity Brewsnew
We Don't Live Here Anymore often feels like Reality Bites-brand slackers playacting at tweedy adulthood, trying to convey how, in the post-college, post-kids landscape, real ennui -- and real disappointment -- set in.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
08-19-2004 |
Reviews
Blend of Animation and Hard Science Spins Your Headnew
Interspersed with scenes of Amanda (Marlee Matlin) moping about are clips of interviews with top physicists, doctors, mystics and authors who attempt to explain radical ideas of alternate realities, quantum physics and the power of thoughts to change your life. It seems just the thing to snap Amanda out of her doldrums.
Monterey County Weekly |
Catrina Coyle |
08-17-2004 |
Reviews
Open Water is Jaws Droppingnew
Funny how slowly the recognition of disaster dawns on those with faith in normality and common sense. That’s one of the many chilling glimpses into the human survival mechanism that Open Water's ingenious and limpidly simple premise offers.
Boston Phoenix |
Peter Keough |
08-16-2004 |
Reviews
Insert God Herenew
By aping Hollywood's greying action genre tropes so faithfully, this evangelical film manages the rather remarkable feat of being neither alternative nor all that useful as a proselytizing tool.
Austin Chronicle |
Marc Savlov |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Jerry Jameson, Last Flight Out
All Sugar, No Spicenew
This modern-day fairy tale has a particularly high sugar content, but coasts by on the affability of its classy leads.
Austin Chronicle |
Kimberley Jones |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Wipe-Outnew
This surfing doc has come to sanctify its subject rather than to explore it.
Austin Chronicle |
Marjorie Baumgarten |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Stacy Peralta, Riding Giants
Chinese Melodrama Derailsnew
As Anna Karenina taught us, doomed love affairs and trains definitely don't mix. The Chinese film Zhou Yu's Train certainly subscribes to that deadly equation in this Instant Romance (just add tears) about a woman, a man ... and a locomotive.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Zhou Yu's Train, Zhou Sun
A Siren Confesses Her Secrets in Talky Thrillernew
In an effort to maximize the intrigue, director Patrice Leconte uses some Bernard Herman-style music to suggest a build to thriller payoff, though that build is largely a ruse. The film's first half, with its promise of deep mysteries to be cracked wide open, never materializes in its less satisfying second half.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Three Willful Women Cope in a Post-Stalin Worldnew
Since Otar Left, a French production set in the former Russian republic of Georgia, treats the other side of emigrant life: those people -- often old, often female -- left behind, who wait for letters, money and a keyhole glimpse into life on the other side.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Julie Bertucelli, Since Otar Left
Garden State Finds Humor in Homecomingnew
Why Andrew Largeman has shut down his emotions, and how he switches them back on again, provides Garden State with its loose plot. Director Zach Braff's film shows that we can't escape our formative influences.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
08-13-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Garden State, Zach Braff
Mann Is Still the Man
This is how a movie about assassins should be: dark, impersonal, loud like a gunshot and full of palpable dread.
Boise Weekly |
Nicholas Collias |
08-12-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Michael Mann, Collateral
"Shrek 2" Avoids the Expected Sequel Pitfallsnew
Freed from the need to be the cocky "anti-Disney," SHREK 2 gets hilariously comfortable in its own skin.
Salt Lake City Weekly |
Scott Renshaw |
08-07-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Andrew Adamson, Shrek 2
