Author: Rob Blackwelder Page 2
I ? Huckabees
The one philosophy behind the existential screwball comedy "I ? Huckabees" (pronounce the ? as "heart") is that there is no one philosophy. A satire of spiritual gurus, self-help and other psychological gimmickry, it makes...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Romeo Must Die
Most freely adapted from Shakespeare, "Romeo Must Die" is a pounding-adrenaline martial arts action flick with a rival gang romance subplot that seems to have lifted more from "Macbeth" than "Romeo and Juliet" -- mainly...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
40 Days & 40 Nights
One of the more gratifying feelings a movie critic can have is the feeling of going into a picture expecting tiresome clichés of an overplayed genre, only to discover delightfully surprising freshness and soul where...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Bourne Supremacy
Staying 100-percent true to the surprising, cerebral, cliché- and catch-phrase-eschewing spirit of 2002's "The Bourne Identity," screenwriter Tony Gilroy (returning from the original) and director Paul Greengrass have put together a breathless sequel with tense...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
How many times are we going to have to see some former stand-up comedian dressed in rubber fat lady suit, beating to death saggy boob jokes before people realize this kind of comedy just isn't...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Thir13en Ghosts
A genuinely spectacular waste of money -- and about as mind-numbing as you'd expect from a movie which brags in ads that its "R" rating is for violence, gore and nudity -- "Thirteen Ghosts" has...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Five Obstructions
An eccentric and intrepid testament to the pure joy of cinema, "The Five Obstructions" is what happens when one of the world's most audacious filmmakers -- Las von Trier, founder of the minimalist Dogme95 movement...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
A Walk On The Moon
Somehow "A Walk On the Moon," which takes place at a working-classJewish resort in upstate New York during the summer of 1969, manages tovisit every iconic event of that characteristic season which defined ageneration without...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Kill Bill: Volume 1
In the wake of "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown," film buffs have come to expect intrepid sub-Hollywood scavenger Quentin Tarantino to bowl us over with ingenious, amped-up, style-blending B-movie off-shoots made with a...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Independent
Remember that great Z-grade 1969 protest picture "Brothers Divided," about the conjoined twins drafted to serve in Vietnam?No? How about the blaxploitation classics "Venus De Mofo" and "The Foxy Chocolate Robot?" Or the tree-hugging girlie...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Perfect Storm
Somewhere inside "The Perfect Storm" there's a near-perfect movie drowning under gale-force swells of romanticized sea-faring melodrama.Here's a stomach-in-knots true story about the rugged crew a swordfishing boat caught in the biggest sea storm in...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
What Lies Beneath
Robert Zemeckis' self-indulgent direction hangs like an albatross around the celluloid neck of "What Lies Beneath," a soft-peddled yuppie horror flick that could have been -- with some fine tuning -- a sharp and genuinely...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Wild Wild West
It is readily apparent that Will Smith, Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh had a ball on the set of "Wild Wild West."Smith -- playing gun-slinging government agent Jim West -- looks so cool in his...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Antitrust
Just about the time the fur was really flying between Microsoft and the Justice Department in 1999, screenwriter Howard Franklin ("The Man Who Knew Too Little") seized the day and scurried over to MGM with...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Lake Placid
"Lake Placid" is a sub-standard monster movie with such a greatcast of enjoyable stars you won't even care that it's bad. Star number one: Bridget Fonda, who plays a lab jockeypaleontologist, an indoor kind of...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Matrix Reloaded
Here's your review of "The Matrix Reloaded" in a nutshell: One incredibly cool, gravity-defying, CGI-aided, swirling-camera kung-fu melee; one jaw-dropping, 100-mph, against-traffic freeway chase; and way, way too much long-winded, expository, circular, self-important, pseudo-philosophical yappity-yappity-yap.Writing-directing...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Bubble Boy
Great casting is absolutely vital to a puckishly impudent comedy like "Bubble Boy" -- the story of a happy-go-lucky, immune-deficient geek who zip-locks himself into a homemade portable orb to travel cross-country and stop the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Kill Bill: Volume 2
Everything the kinetic, colorful, superficially violent "Kill Bill: Volume 1" lacked in depth and character is remedied tenfold in Quentin Tarantino's stunning, cunning conclusion to his epic revenge fantasy.Gone are the absurdist bloodbaths and the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Scorpion King
Call it a premature yet promising start to the summer action season. Somehow "The Scorpion King" -- a movie starring a professional wrestler and spun off from a shameful sequel -- has become the most...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
A Knight's Tale
By now you've heard about the concept of "A Knight's Tale" and had the time to become justifiably dubious. A 14th Century jousting adventure set to the tune of guitar rock stadium anthems? How could...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera
Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals are garish, puerile melodramas with all the elegance and sincerity of a Super Bowl halftime show -- and his brash, brassy songs have the depth and nuance of action-movie explosions.Director Joel...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
American Beauty
Every time I see a new Kevin Spacey movie, I expect the world from him, and every time he delivers the galaxy.Arguably the greatest actor currently working in motion pictures, he is capable of putting...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Crocodile Dundee In L.A.
Somebody at Paramount Pictures must have owed Paul Hogan a humongous favor to green-light "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles." Before even seeing the movie, I could have told you it's 15 years too late for...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Wood
In its first five minutes "The Wood" looks likeit's going to be a breaking-the-fourth-wall disaster, as Omar Epps ("TheMod Squad") narrates to camera, explainingto the audience that it's two hours and ticking until his best...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
But I'm A Cheerleader
"But I'm a Cheerleader" is pure camp, from its often hammy acting to its candy-colored ambience to its plot about an in-crowd high schooler whose panicked suburban parents pack her away to retreat where sexually...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Love Me If You Dare
A smash hit in its native France, "Love Me If You Dare" is a precariously bold, dark but light-hearted comedy about a boy and a girl who grow up together challenging each other to more...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Ned Kelly
Plied with fiction and short on depth, the new biopic of legendary Australian outlaw Ned Kelly plays like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" without the excitement, charm and humor.Bearded and brooding but otherwise uncharismatic,...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Door In The Floor
Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger give a pair of extraordinary performances in "The Door in the Floor" as a couple whose souls and whose marriage have never recovered from the deaths of their teenage sons...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
What Women Want
You know how in testosterone-charged action movies an explosion will be shown over and over again in slow motion, and from four or five different angles? The ultimate sign of a guy movie, right?Well, in...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Love & Basketball
An inspired labor of love about sports and romance in which the female lead is an athlete, too, "Love and Basketball" is one for the "why didn't anybody think of this before?" file.For decades, the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Suggested
Leisure Festival - Dreamland in Margate
On the same day that Glastonbury welcomed back Margate's adopted sons, The Libertines, Margate itself put on it's very own Leisure Festival as it...
Oasis fans must answer trivia question to secure pre-sale ballot place
Oasis fans hoping to get tickets for the band's reunion shows are being asked a trivia question to secure access to a pre-sale ballot.
Pretty Fierce talk to us about collaborating with Doja Cat, emetophobia, arena tours and staying "true to yourself" [EXCLUSIVE]
Sheffield's very own all girl group Pretty Fierce are still on a high after the recent release of their debut single - 'Ready For Me'.
Will Varley & Jack Valero - The Astor Theatre Deal Live Review
Three nights before the end of his current tour Will Varley returned to his home town of Deal to delight a sold out crowd in The Astor Theatre.
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WYSE talks to us about her "form of synaesthesia", collaborating with Radiohead's Thom York and the prospect of touring with a band [EXCLUSIVE]
With only a few days to go before Portsmouth based songstress and producer WYSE releases her new single, 'Belladonna', we caught up with her to find...
Bay Bryan talks to us about being a "wee queer ginger", singing with Laura Marling and being inspired by Matilda [EXCLUSIVE]
Colorado raised, Glasgow educated and Manchester based Bay Bryan is nothing if not a multi-talented, multi-faceted artist performing as both...
Keelan X talks to us about staying true to "your creative vision", collaborating with Giorgio Moroder and being "a yoga nut" [EXCLUSIVE]
Former Marigolds band member Keelan Cunningham has rediscovered his love of music with his new solo project Keelan X.
![Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]](https://images.contactmusic.com/images/home/homepage/luke-de-sciscio-abof-a.jpg "Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]")
Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]
Wiltshire singer-songwriter Luke De Sciscio, formally known as Folk Boy, is set to release is latest album - 'The Banquet' via AntiFragile Music on...
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