Search for 2004

My Summer of Love reserves the irony of its title for viewers who see the entire film. Yes, this is about the events of a summer, but it's up to the individual to decide whether what we're seeing on screen is love, a crush, co-dependency, or someth...

Napoleon Dynamite should be required therapy for anyone with a self-image problem. No matter how much of a loser a person believes himself to be, he couldn't possibly be in worse shape than the protagonist of Jared Hess' wickedly funny high school...

I'm as willing as any movie-lover to accept a certain amount of ridiculousness in a movie if it serves the greater purpose of entertainment. And, when it comes to action movies, I like to think that my level of tolerance is pretty high. Hey, I en...

There are many words that could be used to describe Night Watch, but "conventional" and "dull" are not among them. The film has the twin virtues of being bold and dizzying, but it features a cramped and chaotic narrative that concludes with a clim...

I have not read Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, but I have heard good word-of-mouth about the novel. Sadly, the elements that made the book special did not survive the transition to the screen. The Notebook, as adapted by Nick Cassavetes from a sc...

Pleasantness and affability reign supreme in Steven Soderbergh's sequel to the remake of Ocean's Eleven. This time around, even the bad guys don't seem so bad. Rumor has it that the atmosphere on the set of Ocean's Twelve was so easy-going that i...

Open Water, the second feature from director Chris Kentis, has been compared to both Jaws and The Blair Witch Project. That latter comparison is an apt one; the former is not. Aside from one coincident element - both movies feature sharks - there...

Palindromes, the fourth feature from Todd Solondz, makes me wonder whether this director only had two good films in him. A shallow, transparent satire/social commentary, Palindromes lives and dies on a gimmick. In an attempt to do something "artist...

There are so many ancillary issues surrounding the release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (née The Passion) that they threaten to dwarf the 127-minute movie that lies at the maelstrom's epicenter. (The controversy, whether real, concoc...

For high school kids with college aspirations, the SATs have always been the enemy. Most juniors and seniors try to improve their scores by studying or taking classes focused on SAT preparation. But not the sextet of characters inhabiting Brian R...