Author: Rob Blackwelder Page 8
The Crew
Too many crooks spoil "The Crew," and I'm not talking about the "grumpy old mobsters" played by Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel in this withering wiseguy comedy.I'm talking about the throng...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Bully
A troubling vérité-style docudrama about worthless, contemptible, murderous teenage losers, "Bully" is a raw and graphic, half cautionary tale, half exploitation flick, similar to director Larry Clark's controversial 1995 film "Kids."But as infamous as "Kids"...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Pearl Harbor
The handful of battle scenes that make up a good hour of "Pearl Harbor" are adrenaline-pumping and hyper-realistic on a massive scale.You feel the impact of every single 7.7mm round from dive-bombing Japanese Zeros as...
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
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
Daredevil
An unremarkably routine superhero movie based on the cult-favorite comic book about a satanically-costumed blind vigilante, "Daredevil" plays like a C-grade grad project for a night school course called Superhero Filmmaking 101.Faithful to his inspiration...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Blast From The Past
"Blast From the Past" is one of those high-conceptmovies in which the gimmick becomes an albatross around the story's neck.An obliging comedy about a 35-year-old man-boy raised ina backyard bomb shelter by parents who panicked...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Two Can Play That Game
A movie that preaches dishonesty, trickery and manipulation as the keys to romantic happiness, "Two Can Play That Game" is populated by pathetically shallow "players" of both sexes and very talented actors trapped by their...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
All About The Benjamins
Ice Cube and Mike Epps, co-stars of the stoner satire "Next Friday," trade their ganja for gunplay in "All About the Benjamins." Cube is a rebellious, hotshot Miami bounty hunter and Epps is his frequent...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Plunkett & MacLeane
A swashbuckling, bodice-ripping, 18th Century romp with a dance club pulse, "Plunkett and Macleane" is a slick, modern, action-comedy dropped daringly into the ambiance of a costume drama.Based very, very loosely on the criminal career...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
The very idea of a movie based on a Disneyland ride -- let alone such a movie produced by Jerry "Kaboom" Bruckheimer, whose standards of quality extend only to the explosions that substituted for plot...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone
Overly self-indulgent director Chris Columbus could have cut out the entire middle hour of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and if you hadn't read the popular children's book, you'd never know the difference.A good...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Kid
Disney sure lays it on thick in "The Kid," a feel-good family flick starring Bruce Willis as a snide, fundamentally unhappy L.A. "image consultant" who meets himself as an 8-year-old boy and learns to embrace...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Cellular
"Cellular" has all the earmarks of a genuinely smart thriller rewritten by a studio-lapdog script doctor who was told it didn't have enough car chases and comic relief.As originally conceived by Larry Cohen ("Phone Booth"),...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Wind Will Carry Us
I realize some people will tell me I'm missing the point of the beautiful, philosophical Iranian art film "The Wind Will Carry Us," but I just expected it to have some kind of direction.What the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
El Crimen Del Padre Amaro
Bearing subtle but uncanny structural similarities to American mob movies like "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas," Mexico's highest grossing homegrown film of all time is a substantive parable about an honorable young priest corrupted by desire,...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
2 Fast 2 Furious
When even a skillful writer-director with soul to spare like John Singleton ("Boyz 'N' the Hood," "Shaft") can't lend a street-racing movie an ounce of personality, it becomes abundantly clear that the trendy genre never...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Mickey Blue Eyes
"Mickey Blue Eyes" is one of those movies that wouldn't last 20 minutes if the main character wasn't a certifiable moron.A comedy of the uncomfortable, it's predicated on Hugh Grant, playing an tentative, English, auction...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Titanic Town
Of all the movies I've seen depicting The Troubles in Northern Ireland -- and there have been some powerful films on the subject -- "Titanic Town" is the first one that really drove home to...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Disney animated features have never been known for their originality, but their creators almost always craft delightful entertoonment from threadbare grab bags of clichés and contrived plot devices.This year's regularly scheduled summer cartoon release is...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Waking Life
Watching "Waking Life" is like eavesdropping on a theoretical discourse between Kierkegaard and Kerouac, while standing in a modern art museum as the paintings come to life and melt into your visual cortex.An eye-popping, mind-blowing,...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The In-Laws
With its overblown script striving for maximum wackiness and cheap laughs, the espionage-and-matrimony comedy "The In-Laws" walks a thin line between funny and dumb in an inebriated stupor. Butt-crack gags and unlikely explosions are the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Caveman's Valentine
"The Caveman's Valentine" is a terrible title for an intelligent movie. It sounds like some B-grade fright flick from the 1950s with screaming blondes in strategically torn outfits being abducted by ape men found living...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Rabbit-Proof Fence
An extraordinary true tale of perseverance set against the deplorable backdrop of government-sanctioned racism in 1931 Australia, "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is a stirring film about three kidnapped Aboriginal girls who run away from an indoctrination camp...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Traffic
"Traffic" is a socially and politically grandstanding soap opera about the narcotics trade and the futility of the "war on drugs." It's a film about how that war is propagated by bureaucratic demagogues in the...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Austin Powers: The Shagged Me
It's a shame Mike Myers didn't invent Austin Powers during his "SaturdayNight Live" tenure. The occasionally funny sketch bits he stringsweakly together with about six minutes of plot in his "Austin Powers"James Bond spoofs might...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
The Emperor's Club
A routine aerial shot swoops down over the grounds of an architecturally classic boarding school while a buoyant, sanguine score bleats with insistently lyrical French horns in the opening moments of "The Emperor's Club." And...
Movie Review posted on 8th March 2005
Love's Labour's Lost
For a long time I've had a theory that the musical genre couldn't survive the cynicism of modern audiences except as a ironic in-joke, like the "South Park" movie or as a post-modern homage, like...
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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