At the American box office, hot weather means action heroes wisecracking their way through one elaborately staged disaster after another–all that we hold dear depending on their charisma and endurance. But this is a unique summer: the country is still reeling from allegations that the Oklahoma City federal building was…
Forget Hollywood’s crop of summer action flicks and their puny explosions; for demolition beyond compare, turn to the wonderfully ludicrous Japanese import Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Yes, indeed, giant monster fans, this 1995 production–which makes its stateside premiere May 19 as part of the 24-screen AMC Grand theater’s “Gourmet…
When 16-year-old mail order bride Riyo (Youdi Kudoh) gets off the boat that has borne her from her old home in Japan to her new one on a sugar cane plantation in Hawaii, she is shocked by the sight of her spouse-to-be. She expected that the man who paid for…
Clad in a sleek black party dress cut to emphasize her violin-shaped torso, Tamlyn Tomita was a magnetic attraction in the lobby of the AMC Glen Lakes, where she visited last month to promote her latest project, the immigrant melodrama Picture Bride. She’s saddled with the Thelma Ritter part, offering…
Some movies are so bad that they make you look back over your recent moviegoing life with the merciless eye of an FBI agent assembling a dossier, desperately trying to figure out whether the people responsible for the picture that ruined your evening showed signs of obnoxious incompetence early on…
Have you seen these “Choose To Dee-Fuse” commercials? They have a bunch of gangsta rappas hangin’ out in The ‘Hood. One of ’em gets shoved, or dissed, and two guys double up their fists–and then an announcer walks into the picture and says, “Violence is not cool. Choose to defuse.”…
When Major Theatre cofounder Bryce Gonzalez’ brother, who lives in California, fell ill with AIDS last month and needed a caretaker, Gonzalez made the trip west. That left the East Dallas theater operating with a one-man staff–cofounder Rob Clements–who, of course, couldn’t run the projector, sell popcorn, and tear tickets…
Ginger Rogers, who died April 25 at the age of 83, embodied star power with unsurpassed subtlety. Born Virginia McMath in Independence, Missouri (a location with a name so symbolically right it sounds invented), she was primed for stardom at age six when her ambitious mother took her on the…
For nearly three decades, some of Hollywood’s most powerful African-American players have labored unsuccessfully to bring the story of the Black Panther Party to the big screen. The father-son filmmaking duo of Melvin and Mario Van Peebles has managed to make the dream come true, and “dreamlike” is certainly the…
Why do people on the witness stand lie about stuff that doesn’t even matter? “Isn’t it true, Mr. Mossfelt, that before you identified this man as the thief, you were complaining that your contact lenses were dirty?” And all Mr. Mossfelt has to do is say, “Yeah, they were dirty.”…
The Perez Family and My Family (Mi Familia) are full of hardship, deprivation, bitterness, and death, yet they’re ultimately optimistic. They remind us that no matter how terrible our daily lives might seem, for our immigrant predecessors, life was almost certainly worse. These movies don’t glance off of you the…
About 20 minutes into the French-Italian melodrama Farinelli, a spoiled courtesan summons the greatest castrato singer of 18th century Europe, Farinelli (Stefano Dionisi), to a private meeting with her and dozens of tittering ladies fair. All of them are astounded by the three-octave range of this slender, incendiary beauty who…
In the past two decades, filmmaker John Carpenter has directed 17 movies, and has established himself as a towering figure in modern horror. In technical terms, he’s some kind of lowbrow genius: he has a better idea of how to build unease through freaky camera movements, dissonant sound effects, and…
As Jim Carroll, the teenage prep-school junkie hero of The Basketball Diaries, Leonardo DiCaprio is so brilliant he’s scary. He’s only 20, but he has the expressiveness and assurance of someone who’s been starring in films for decades. He gives you everything he has to give, yet at the same…
Whether Oscar-nominated actor Leonardo DiCaprio chooses to identify himself as “gay” is entirely his business. Where once the issue of outing celebrities sharply divided the gay and lesbian community, there has been a growing consensus that the reluctance of the mainstream press to discuss such “personal” issues is hypocritical, since…
How come all the people who defend porno act like they hate porno? You ever notice this? There’s always some guy in a corduroy coat, the professor of institutional mediocrity at Wyoming State Technical Institute, and he’s being interviewed by Dick Cavett or William F. Buckley or somebody. He says,…
The name Kenneth Anger conjures different associations, depending on who you’re talking to–and assuming, of course, that the person has heard of him to begin with. Anger, who will visit Dallas April 28 and 29 in conjunction with Las Colinas’ Mandalay Festival of Arts, is a multifaceted legend. He’s a…
The past couple of months have already seen an ongoing, gay-themed series of midnight movies cosponsored by the Inwood Theater and The Met, and a Silver Anniversary USA Film Festival schedule rich in gay and lesbian-themed features. Which means that the organizers of the 1995 Gay & Lesbian Festival, which…
I’ve tried credit cards. I can’t do it. I get a little surprise in the mail every month, and when I open it, I go, “I did not spend 700 bucks on phone sex. I know it wasn’t a penny over 650.” I’ve tried checking accounts. After one week, I…
The Cahiers du Cinema-era French film critics coined a name for the American crime drama of the ’40s and ’50s, in which every technical effort was extended to forge a mood of sordidness and epic struggle. They called it film noir–a genre in which ticket-buyers were carried roller coaster-style through…
Paul Schrader, thank God. On the occasion of the USA Film Festival’s 25th anniversary, there could not be a more inspired and appropriate choice to receive the organization’s Great Director award than this bookish, bespectacled, 48-year-old auteur. With the possible exception of Martin Scorsese, no working American director in his…
Note: The 25th Annual USA Film Festival runs Thursday, April 20 through Thursday, April 27 at the AMC Glen Lakes theater, 9450 North Central Expressway (except for The Stars Fell on Henrietta and Panther, which will be screened at the General Cinema NorthPark III-IV, North Central Expressway at Park Lane)…
