I, Robot not only has very little in common with the Isaac Asimov book on which it is very, very loosely based, it also takes one of that book’s central messages and stands it completely on its head — and a part of me couldn’t be happier. Directed by Alex Proyas (whose moody, noir-ish sci-fi […]
Fahrenheit 9/11
Controversy made lots of money for Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ. Now Michael Moore is hoping it will do the same for Fahrenheit 9/11, his heavily sarcastic, rather entertaining and relentlessly incoherent screed against the presidency of George W. Bush. There is very little here that anyone who has followed the politics […]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Another year, another Harry Potter product. The Harry Potter franchise has produced one new novel or film every year since J.K. Rowling published her first book in 1997, and Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban may be the most entertaining installment to date — at least as far as the […]
Big Fish
Big fish is easily the most personal and mature film Tim Burton has made in years. It is also one of those films that manages to be both sad and uplifting at the same time — uplifting, because it points to a profound truth, but sad, because it offers no basis for that truth; beneath […]
Cheaper by the Dozen
Bonnie Hunt, who has often played the mother, big sister, or best friend in films like Beethoven, Jerry Maguire and her own directorial debut Return to Me, is such a charming, winning actress and comedian that you want her movies to do well. Alas, Cheaper by the Dozen, in which she plays the wife of […]
The Barbarian Invasions, The Event, My Life Without Me – 3 Canadian Films
Alas, technical problems and a crowded schedule prevented me from posting regular updates during the Vancouver film festival like I had hoped. But now that the festival has come and gone — and now that some of the films showcased there are opening in regular theatres — it is possible to comment on some of […]
The Fighting Temptations
Hollywood studios usually don’t pay much attention to Christian audiences, so it’s always a little flattering when one of them tries to curry our favour. But to judge from some of the films they send our way, they still don’t understand us very well. The latest case in point: The Fighting Temptations. Paramount Pictures seems […]
Evelyn
There once was a time, roughly 20 years ago, when Australian director Bruce Beresford was associated with powerful political and spiritual dramas like Breaker Morant and Tender Mercies. But lately, his films have been far less challenging. When he isn’t making a boilerplate revenge thriller like Double Jeapordy, Beresford tends to make smaller films, often […]
Superheroes and violence
John Shelton Lawrence & Robert Jewett: The Myth of the American Superhero, Eerdmans, 2002. Gerard Jones: Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes and Make-Believe Violence, Basic, 2002. Is violence okay when it’s only make-believe? And what is the relationship between imaginary violence and violence in the real world? Questions such as these have […]
About a Boy
Every story worth telling is ultimately about a girl, says Peter Parker in Spider-Man, but the makers of Hugh Grant’s latest star vehicle, About a Boy, might disagree. Yes, the film, which is already a hit in England, stars Grant — in his best role since Four Weddings and a Funeral — as yet another […]
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