OPENING TODAY; A “KNIGHT” TO FORGET
If you like Martin Lawrence’s shtick, then go. Otherwise, stand in line for “Harry Potter.” Whether “Black Knight,” the feudal flashback comedy is better or worse than Lawrence’s last film (the mercilessly misbegotten and mercifully forgotten “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?”) depends on your tolerance for manure — not…
No more dubs: What subtitles could mean in the language of cinema
A minor cultural revolution is taking place in American theaters. Words. No, not well-written scripts _ that would be a major upheaval. We’re talking the written word splayed on the lower half of a movie screen. To cash in on the action spurred by “The Matrix” and buoyed by “Crouching…
FANS WILL GO BANANAS OVER “IRON MONKEY”
With “The Matrix” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” phenomena, American studios have begun raiding the vaults of Hong Kong cinema, ironically years after its last golden age. The first movie has sparked interest in choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping’s other films, hence the re-release of his 1993 directorial turn, “Iron Monkey.” An…
WORD UP; UP ON THE SCREEN, THAT IS, THANKS TO ANG LEE
A MINOR CULTURAL revolution is taking place in American theaters. Words. No, not well-written scripts — that would be a major upheaval. We’re talking the written word splayed on the lower half of a movie screen. To cash in on the action spurred by “The Matrix” and buoyed by “Crouching…
COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU: MERCHANDISE HELL
I do rail against unbridled merchandising at the drop of a dollar bill. After all, I’m still suffering claustrophobic flashbacks from the time I shut myself away for a little private time in a public privy and ended up a temporary hostage to screaming billboards plastered all over the stall…
WAHLBERG, CAST ROCK IN “STAR”; OK, IT’S PREDICTABLE, BUT THE FILM IS STILL A SUCCESSFUL TRIBUTE TO ’80S HEAVY METAL
Mark Wahlberg, who probed the zeitgeist of America’s ’70s porn culture in “Boogie Nights,” dips into the time capsule again for “Rock Star.” The decade this time is the ’80s, and the subculture is heavy metal in all its big-haired squeaky leather-panted grandeur. It’s also another local-boy-makes-good tale, with Pittsburgh…
“JAY AND SILENT BOB” GOES A LITTLE TOO INSIDE FOR THE AVERAGE VIEWER
“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” is the final episode in director Kevin Smith’s quintology (“Clerks,” “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma”). The former video store clerk who parlayed the angst of a generation into low-budget box-office success and irked the Catholic League with his last film has now entered, as…
JOHN CARPENTER’S “MARS” HAS GHOST OF A CHANCE OF ACTUALLY ENTERTAINING
About 40 minutes into “John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars,” my watch read 8:16 p.m. The next time I looked at my watch, it read 8:19 p.m. It was just as well I didn’t know I had another hour to feel the life bleeding out of me. Instead, I cursed the…
“BOY’S” BUBBLE SHOULD DEFINITELY BE POPPED
A comedy about immune deficiency is bound to have its protesters, and IMD activists have already waged their war 21st-century style by hiring a public relations maestro to smear Disney’s good name. The activists could save their money in one of two ways. They could quietly wait for “Bubble Boy”…
TO MAKE EFFECTS SPECIAL, PRACTICE RESTRAINT; TODAY’S TECH-SAVVY HOLLYWOOD MAY BE LOSING SIGHT OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF FILMMAKING; THE STORY
IF THE BEGINNING of the millennium were to be judged by its cinematic output, future anthropologists might as well leave the 2001 reels to molder in the time capsule. Yes, there have been moments of theatrical innovation, thought and levity: “Memento” is among the handful of films that I eagerly…