Movies & TV

I WATCHED THE NEWEST VERSION of Shaft with my friend Eben Eldridge, who saw the original version when it came out in 1971 (I was still learning to talk at the time). After the movie we had the following conversation. Eben: John Shaft is a cold-blooded, calm, calculating avenger. He lives in a racially charged […]

THIS IS A FILM ABOUT SUBTLETY, nuance and patience: A Spanish painter, Antonio Lopez Garcia, stands in a courtyard trying to render light through the leaves of a Quince tree. Ultimately, the artist gives in to failure, compromised by the brevity of seasons, light and life. The artist’s painting, like the film, is an effort […]

Thursday, June 8 9:00 FOX GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS This week: Bearded ladies, Komodo dragons, and some dork who lifts bricks with his ear. 9:00 MTV 2000 MTV MOVIE AWARDS Television’s most smart-assy movie awards ceremony, featuring hotsy-totsy Sarah Jessica Parker (Square Pegs). Friday, June 9 9:00 MTV REAL WORLD/ROAD RULES CASTING SPECIAL How the new […]

OPENING THE BIG TEASE– Cinema 21 THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL– Hollywood Theatre DIVINE TRASH– Clinton Street Theatre GONE IN 60 SECONDS– 82nd Avenue A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH AMERICAN MOVIES– Northwest Film Center @The Guild Theater WINTER SLEEPERS– Cinema 21 MOVIES & EVENTS *American Movie A documentary about the trials and […]

THE PROBLEM with experimental films is that they are experiments. The makers of the films in the traveling Super Super-8 Film Festival, however, would probably dispute the idea that they are simply experimenting. What to us is idle dabbling must be to them a glorious individual work, valuable in its own right. Though many American […]

IS A DRAG QUEEN MUNCHING on a real piece of dog poop as shocking as it used to be? It still makes my gag reflex do flip-flops–which, considering the things I’ve put in my mouth, really says something. Director Steve Yeager explores this issue and other tabooisms in Divine Trash; his tribute to the masters […]

IF THERE’S ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE to a scientific argument for the existence of a collective unconscious, it’s film. Never mind the jillion dollar ad campaigns and Taco Bell tie-ins; the tentacles of movies unfurl into the mind’s darkest recesses, resulting in a branch of pop culture that’s more recognizable, universally speaking, than any other. Just […]

The June 6 video releases offer a lot of murderous kooks and a smidgen of homoeroticism. Hey, it’s kind of like the Mercury office! • MR. DEATH–Erroll Morris’ documentary of Fred Leuchter Jr., an execution device engineer-turned-revisionist historian, is so good you’ll wanna puke. Leuchter Jr. commits a series of gut-wrenching travesties, from making electric […]

Thursday, June 1 8:00 32 POPULAR A new male student comes to school with a strange request: He wants to be a pretty, pretty cheerleader! 8:00 49 SCREAM–Movie Now, here’s a really fun horror flick (until you remember it’s written by Kevin Williamson, who created Dawson’s Creek). Friday, June 2 9:00 USA STUART SAVES HIS […]

MOVIES & EVENTS 28 DAYS Sandra Bullock is an alcoholic whose behavior lands her in Serenity Glen, a touchy-feely rehab center filled with the requisite, cuddly goofs and embittered oddballs. Bullock carries an ultimately phony movie with something resembling humanity. Division Street ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER “You are more authentic the more you are closer […]

LIKE SCORSESE’S TAXI DRIVER and Bresson’s Pickpocket before it, Mike Hodges’ unreleased 1998 masterpiece Croupier makes a convincing case that a sleazy, specialized profession–in this case, the guy who rolls the ball and collects the chips at a roulette table–is a perfect metaphor for existential malaise. In the role of God’s Lonely Man stands Jack […]

THE WORLD OF JAPANESE ANIME is like an oversized carousel operated by the Marquis de Sade. The lights are too bright, it spins too fast, everyone around is screaming out of control, and in the end, all you want to do is throw up. The problem lies in the lack of appreciation for simple stillness. […]