Author: Rob Blackwelder Page 7
First Daughter
Set in an absurd, patronizing fantasy world in which flag-waving citizens line the streets to see the president's kid off to college and angry political protesters share the red-carpet sidelines at black-tie events with shallow...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Envy
Even if you have not yet tired of the eye-bugging, eyebrow-dancing, class-clown schtick of Jack Black or the eye-bugging, eyebrow-dancing, fretful straight-man schtick of Ben Stiller, the first collaboration between these two one-trick ponies is...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Something's Gotta Give
While blessed with entertaining performances and uncommon earnestness (for a Hollywood movie) about the tribulations of middle-aged romance, there's something a little too artificial about "Something's Gotta Give."Taking place largely in a Hamptons beach house...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Swimfan
"Swimfan" is the kind of thriller that requires, for the plot to move forward, a complete absence of common sense on the part of the hero -- in this case a high school swim team...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Beach
One would think that edgy, hallucinogenic "Trainspotting" team of Danny Boyle (director) and John Hodge (screenwriter) would be a perfect pair to adapt "The Beach," prodigy-novelist Alex Garland's edgy, hallucinogenic, travelogue about Southeast Asian adventure...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Mummy Returns
Remember how badly "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" turned out when Steven Spielberg tried to wedge an impish kid into his successful archeology-action-adventure formula? Well, deja vu.How pathetically contrived and sadly unoriginal is...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Malibu's Most Wanted
There are exactly two funny performances in "Malibu's Most Wanted" -- a one-joke comedy about an over-privileged white-boy wannabe rapper -- and neither of them are by top-liner and co-writer Jamie Kennedy.Expanding on a two-bit...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Green Mile
"The Green Mile" begins with a little deja vu. Like Tom Hanks' last mid-Century, Oscar-baiting drama, "Saving Private Ryan," it's bookended by a modern framework that finds an old man reluctantly reminiscing about a difficult...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
A Guy Thing
Jason Lee is usually the funniest guy in any Kevin Smith movie (Banky in "Chasing Amy," Azrael in "Dogma"). Julia Stiles has had fine comedic timing ever since her big splash in "10 Things I...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Alfie
Playing an inveterate womanizer as a sympathetic hero didn't work especially well for Michael Caine in 1966's "Alfie." He was Oscar-nominated for the performance, but his title character was a misogynistic, egomaniacal cad -- taking...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Debut
Looking past the frequently rudimentary filmmaking and the rather stale plot of Americanized kids struggling against the old world values of their immigrant parents, "The Debut" has at its heart a strong cast of actors...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Without A Paddle
A threesome of comedy second-bananas star in "Without a Paddle" as childhood pals (and Central Casting clichés) who reunite after the funeral of an adventurous friend (he died in a parachuting accident) for one "last...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Mexican
Brad Pitt plays a scatterbrained, indentured mob lackey on a do-or-die delivery assignment. Julia Roberts plays his neurotic, therapy-addicted girlfriend who made him promise he'd get out of the rackets. James Gandolfini is a hypersensitive...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Eye Of The Beholder
"Eye of the Beholder" isn't a title, it's a warning label. What's going on in this movie is anybody's guess.An erotic thriller/mystery/failed cerebral art film, starring Ashley Judd as an esoteric serial killer and Ewan...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Alex & Emma
After wishing I could claw my eyes out through "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" and now "Alex and Emma" -- the two worst romantic comedies of the year to say the very...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Dinner Game
Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I just don't find Francis Veber's brand of French farce all that funny. "La Cage aux Folles"? Feh. "Le Jouet"? Nice try. "Les Comperes"? Whatever.But then again, I think...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Paid In Full
The familiar story told in "Paid In Full," the story of a good ghetto kid seduced into the drug trade with tragic results, covers no new territory. But it's a story told so well --...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
An American Rhapsody
Film doesn't get any more passionately personal than writer-director Eva Gardos' semi-autobiographical "An American Rhapsody," the deeply stirring story of a Hungarian family torn apart by Cold War persecution, reunited through immigration and tested by...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Glass House
Remember that string of "...from hell" psycho flicks in the early 1990s? There was "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" (nanny from hell) and "Single White Female" (roommate from hell). Well, here's one that was...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Me, Myself & Irene
If only Jim Carrey's uninhibited and completely unhinged, sweet-and-sour insanity was by itself enough to carry a movie, it might not matter so much that the plot of the Farrelly Brothers' "Me, Myself and Irene"...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Bangkok Dangerous
The incongruous sensory overload of never-ending silence is potently captured by clamorous, unrelenting editing and a brilliant lead performance in the gritty but heartfelt Thai import "Bangkok Dangerous."An intense, pulsating, ironically noise-fueled redemption fable about...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Orange County
Somewhere inside the surprisingly fresh, sharply jocular, angst-of-youth comedy "Orange County" there's a trite, typical teen movie struggling to get out. But director Jake Kasden just keeps out-witting the monster, pulling the carpet out from...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Josie & The Pussycats
If you were to take the 1998 Spice Girls movie called "Spice World," then remove all the self-deprecation, all the homages to "Hard Day's Night," and all the surprising wit that made it such a...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring
In the entire three hours of the audacious, transporting, spectacularly cinematic first "Lord of the Rings" installment, there are only two very brief moments that don't come across as being 100-percent a part of the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Next Best Thing
Homogenized, sterilized and clearly revised by test-audience scoring, "The Next Best Thing" is a disingenuous, emotionally deficient comedy-drama about an earthy yoga teacher who has a baby with a gay friend after a night of...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Monkey's Mask
"The Monkey's Mask" is an old-fashioned film noir murder mystery, complete with a hard-boiled private eye narrator, a pretty young victim, a host of nebulous suspects and a smoky, enigmatic femme fatale.With whispered intensity, it...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Pavilion Of Women
Within moments of the opening credits of the weepy, self-important, World War II-era Chinese soap opera "Pavilion of Women" a question arises that plagues the whole movie: Why is this in English?Everything about this film...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Believer
Controversy has engulfed "The Believer" since its premiere at last year's Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize but still couldn't find a distributor because it's a frank and frightful portrayal of...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Four Feathers
All sweeping desert vistas and melodramatic 19th Century British imperial clichés (updated with politically correct tisk-tisking, of course), Shekhar Kapur's "The Four Feathers" is a hollow-hearted epic for the sake of an epic.The tedious seventh...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Tadpole
Home from boarding school for Thanksgiving holiday with unruly hormones and a festering Oedipal jones for his 40-something stepmom, idiosyncratic 15-year-old Manhattan sophisticate Oscar Grubman is having a hard time coping with life.Versed in 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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