The computer-animated kiddy feature Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists aspires to nothing more than Saturday-matinee thrills for the preadolescent crowd. The obvious direct source for the content is the cycle of Sinbad the Sailor fantasies — The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) and…
It’s easy to see how Play It to the Bone, writer-director Ron Shelton’s latest comedy-drama, got started. Shelton obviously wanted to do for boxing what he’d already done for baseball in Bull Durham, golf in Tin Cup and pickup basketball in White Men Can’t Jump. But somewhere along the way,…
The evening of March 14, 1885, was an auspicious one in the annals of musical theater. Less than four years had passed since the opening of London’s Savoy Theatre, built specifically for the productions of librettist William Schwenk Gilbert and composer Arthur Seymour Sullivan. The partners’ first six works had…
In the past 30 years, Woody Allen has written and directed something like 28 movies — “something like” reflects the confusion of how to count his contribution to New York Stories — a remarkable productivity record for a major filmmaker, and one that’s even more impressive when you consider how…
In Cradle Will Rock, his third directorial outing, Tim Robbins takes on an almost insurmountably ambitious project: a re-creation of an era into which characters imaginary, obscure and famous are woven into a tapestry that represents the texture of the time. It’s a tall order. E. L. Doctorow was able…
Boo hoo! Frank McCourt had a miserable childhood! Honestly, who can say their childhood wasn’t impoverished in some way… or in many ways? That Mr. McCourt survived and eventually published his inescapable memoir is nice, of course, and the book is indeed a poignant and crafty piece of work. Nonetheless,…
The world’s demand for minimally talented 30-year-old high school dropouts who believe they’re great poets or great musicians or great movie directors isn’t going to catch up with the supply anytime soon. That won’t keep the strivers from striving, of course, nor will it snuff out their dreams. Case in…
The first space opera of the year 2000, Supernova, turns out to be more nostalgic than futuristic. There isn’t an idea in this brief, handsomely produced actioner that isn’t a sci-fi chestnut. Event Horizon, Aliens, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, even The Fly all…
It’s likely that many of the readers who bought four million copies, in at least 30 languages, of David Guterson’s 1995 best-seller Snow Falling on Cedars have been looking forward to the movie version. Others have probably been dreading it. For better or worse, this multifarious story about nativist bigotry,…
Some people really are crazy, but then, “crazy” is a relative term. Does it apply to someone who feels he might spin off into outer space and never be able to get back down to Earth? Or is it only crazy when you have to cling to the nearest table…
The 1995 film Friday is best remembered as the film that brought actor Chris Tucker to audiences’ attention. A modest hit, it would seem an odd choice for a sequel, but Ice Cube — who co-wrote the original with DJ Pooh, as well as produced and starred — is back…
You hope for Dorothy Lamour, reclining against a palm tree in her sarong, when you hear the title The Hurricane. Instead, you get well more than two hours of Denzel Washington huddled in a cell. In the poster art, Washington glowers out, one bandaged fist cocked for a right to…
Sixty years after Walt Disney’s original plans to expand on the original Fantasia, Disney has finally gotten around to making new musical segments for a reprise of the film’s classical-music-cum-animation concept. Cleverly timed and titled to open on the first day of the new millennium — and, regardless of any…
When Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, Boogie Nights, was released in 1997, critics and film industry types fell over themselves to designate Anderson the next big thing, an auteur in the footsteps of Scorsese and Coppola. His film turned Mark Wahlberg from a has-been underwear model and rapper into a…
Let’s hear it for sports movies! The most avid sports fan can occasionally be bored by lackluster games, but even the casual spectator can appreciate what the big screen can do for an athletic contest, even one played by actors rather than athletes: the closer-than-life close-ups, the dramatic use of…
Writer-director Anthony Minghella has chosen to follow up his Oscar-laden The English Patient with another literary adaptation — this time, of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Highsmith is best known to film buffs as the author of Strangers on a Train, the basis for one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best…
Ah, what a miracle that Andy Kaufman was. So sublime his wit, so pioneering his spirit. Astonishing! A hero to be loved, adored and emulated by all artists and performers for the rest of eternity. An opener of doors; a smasher down of barriers; a glorious, luminous, intrepid spirit without…
The last half-decade has been very good to Jane Austen: Besides Ang Lee’s estimable 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility, we’ve been given film or TV adaptations of Emma, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice, not to mention Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s remarkably apt updating of Emma. Now Miramax and the BBC…
I sincerely hope that Jodie Foster gets a chance to relax and unwind this holiday season, because the lady has obviously worked like a horse to instill her latest role with humanity and significance. As intrepid British widow Anna Leonowens, in the huge and poetic new Anna and the King,…
At first glance, Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother seems uncharacteristically grim for a filmmaker with such a demonic sense of humor. Within 10 minutes, the heroine’s 17-year-old son is hit and killed by a car, which propels her and the events of the film into motion. In the next…
Ride With the Devil
Directed by Ang Lee; with Skeet Ulrich, Tobey Maguire and Jewel.
Rated R.
The Cider House Rules
Directed by Lasse Hallström; with Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine and Charlize Theron.
Rated PG-13.
