Monthly Archives: August 2011

“So it’s clear what I’m saying?” The Italian gangster jaws at the screen, the camera jammed right up into his jowly face. Returning the man’s imploring hostility with steely boredom from the other side of the polished desk (the whole room a gleaming imitation of some robber baron’s den of power), the Irish gangster grumbles back, “As … mud.” From that point on in the Coen brothers’ headache-inducing comic-gangster farrago, it’s easy to get lost, but that’s no matter. The only trail of bread crumbs one needs to follow leads back to the one character who matters: the man standing behind his Irish gangster boss: Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), the smartest man in whatever the hell city this is supposed to be…

Miller’s Crossing actually has been out on DVD for awhile. But now you can behold all its cold beauty in Blu-ray. My full review is at filmcritic.com.

How does a mighty barbarian with a heart o’ gold make his way in the world? If one listens to the portentous voiceover in this laughably unnecessary film, it’s a healthy dose of “slaying, thieving, surviving.” Which only makes sense, as what else is a kid to do after his father is butchered in front of his eyes by a bug-eyed father-and-daughter team who really should have worked out their issues in therapy rather than on the bodies of unlucky barbarians? Familial bonds broken, a pre-teen Conan (Leo Howard) sets out for adventure, vengeance, and — we’re led to think — resolution of his serious case of survivor’s guilt. The cliché-littered, lazy script gives him plenty of opportunity for the first two but not so much the last…

The new Conan the Barbarian (no Arnie, sorry) opens today all over the place. You can read my review at filmcritic.com.

The F.B.I. spends a lot of time and resources hunting down dangerous criminals and devious terrorists. It also exerts a lot of effort in the pursuit and prosecution of kids like David McKay and Brad Crowder, the so-called “Texas Two” who took a few wrong turns and ended up the main attractions of a three-ring circus of entrapment, paranoia, and dubious motives. How it all came about is a curious and occasionally sickening sight. Documentarians Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega take the story of a how a seemingly hapless pair of activists stumbled into the harsh spotlight of the American security establishment and turn it into an oblique indictment of a society in which fear trumps all…

Better This World is playing now in limited release. You can read the full review at filmcritic.com.

You know you’re in trouble these days when even James Franco can’t be bothered to deliver much of a performance. Even in sophomoric mistakes like Your Highness, Franco showed up ready and willing to engage energetically with the material. But in Rupert Wyatt’s energetic but ultimately ho-hum genetic twist on the Planet of the Apes origin story, Franco’s character doesn’t do much but furrow his brow and make bad decisions…

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is playing in multiplexes across this apparently doomed planet. You can read my full review at Film Journal International.

Charles Homar, William Giraldi’s wholly untrustworthy narrator in this 110-proof jug of moonshine of a novel, isn’t one for half-measures. Though ostensibly an adult of independent means, he moons and glooms like a lovesick teenager at nearly all times. He’s given to flights of rhetorical excess so severe that the state police could likely write him up for it. The lies tumble forth from his mouth and pen in a nearly unstoppable flood. And he’s driven to altercations as though a moth to flame, particularly over the most innocuous of subjects…

William Giraldi’s Busy Monsters is on sale now. You can read my full review at PopMatters.