Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

In Anaconda, Danny (Ice Cube), while he is being pursued up the Amazon by a gigantic, man-eating snake and a homocidal river man, dreams of being back in “civilization” — by which he means “on the L.A. freeways with my cell phone.” Ha! If you’ve got to choose between the giant snake and the river…

A delightful pastiche of 1950s rom-coms with a weird French accent

Anaconda by Luis Llosa is a riot of special effects but as dramatically negligible as you would expect. If you haven’t seen it, see if you can answer the following questions about it. 1. The expedition up the Amazon is (a) to shoot big game, (b) to capture big snakes to sell to zoos, (c)…

Ready to Rumble, directed by Brian Robbins and written by Steven Brill, might have been called “Dumb and Dumber Go to the Mat.” Its ostensible look behind the scenes at professional wrestling could have followed the trail blazed by the excellent Beyond the Mat, reviewed here last month. Instead the movie settles for repeated attempts…

Going All the Way, directed by Mark Pellington, to a screenplay adapted by Dan Wakefield from his own novel is yet another among the plethora of recent cinematic evocations of the 1950s—and one which, I would have thought, might have elicited one or two protests from women because of the way that it treats them…

[See “Entry from July 13, 2011” under “My Diary”] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe