Articles tagged "derek luke"

Film DVD Review

Notorious

by Jesse Hassenger

[24.Apr.09] :. More fan companion piece than galvanizing cinema, this stands at a distance too respectful to get under anyone's skin.

Recent DVD reviews

Short Ends and Leader

Why Biopics Just Don’t Work

by Bill Gibron

[21.Apr.09] :. It’s not a hard genre to mess up. There are so many pre and post production hazards to overcome that the moviemaking winds up the easiest part - some of the time. Writers and directors have to...

Short Ends and Leader

Column: Busted Headphones

Biggie Gives Us One More Chance

by Quentin B. Huff

[16.Feb.09] :. Biggie Smalls' mythology hasn't afforded him a dreamy endgame à la Tupac or Elvis. Nobody imagines Biggie pulling the ultimate Machiavellian coup by making the world believe he's dead while he's secretly chillin' in Jamaica.

Recent columns

News

‘Miracle at St. Anna,’ ‘Frozen River’ two of 2008’s best

by Bruce Dancis [McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT)]

[10.Feb.09] :. Two of the most powerful films of 2008, movies that stay with you long after their final credits roll by, are out this week on DVD. Yet “Miracle at St. Anna” and “Frozen...

PopWire

News

Q&A with ‘Notorious’ star Jamal Woolard

by Roger Moore [The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)]

[16.Jan.09] :. Before this month, Jamal Woolard was an obscure rapper going by the stage name of Gravy. And Gravy was best known for a 2006 shooting outside of a New York rap radio station. But that changes now....

PopWire

Film Review

Notorious

by Cynthia Fuchs

[16.Jan.09] :. Notorious looks back on the day when hip-hop was coming into its seeming own, when telling stories was a way to make order from chaos, as well as money and, as Biggie saw it, mo problems.

Recent Film reviews

Why, Spike, Why?

by Chris Barsanti

[17.Oct.08] :. For all of Spike Lee's status as the eternal Young Turk, he's also a moviemaker who came of age just a few years after the brat pack of Spielberg, Scorsese, de Palma, et al.

Miracle at St. Anna

by Cynthia Fuchs

[26.Sep.08] :. Spike Lee's answer to the many WWII movies that have left out the experiences of black soldiers, Miracle at St. Anna is ambitious and ardent.

‘Miracle’ Is Engrossing if Uneven

by Bill Gibron

[25.Sep.08] :. Spike Lee has a big mouth. It’s a good thing he’s so talented, since he often loves to write confrontational checks that his filmmaking sometimes can’t cash. When Clint Eastwood...

Talk, Talk, Talk: September 2008

by Bill Gibron

[9.Sep.08] :. From wars both past and present to a number of nail-biting thrillers, September is sizing up as a potentially profitable one.

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

by Bill Gibron

[29.Jun.08] :. One really does have to feel bad for the Romantic Comedy. It’s a genre that’s life support system is more or less irretrievably broken. Of course, part of the problem lies in the two...

Definitely, Maybe

by Cynthia Fuchs

[14.Feb.08] :. As much as she wants her dad's story to be a kind of hybrid surprise, Maya early on comprehends its conventionality.

Iraq War-themed films can’t find an audience

by Soren Andersen [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[2.Jan.08] :. What if they made a war movie and nobody came to see it? No biggie. Individual films fail all the time for all kinds of reasons. Filmmaking is a crapshoot. Always has been. Always will be. The...

In ‘Lions for Lambs,’ cool icon turns passionate political advocate

by Carrie Rickey [The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)]

[9.Nov.07] :. PHILADELPHIA—Sundance fever. Happens every time Robert Redford comes to the University of Pennsylvania. Back in `98, the president and deans panted like fangirls. This time, undergrads are...

Lions for Lambs

by Cynthia Fuchs

[9.Nov.07] :. Though Lions barely considers the soldiers' choices, it's clear they've been egregiously misinformed, turned into terms in someone else's argument.

Today’s foreign wars are Hollywood hell

by Lewis Beale [Newsday (MCT)]

[9.Nov.07] :. This is not your grandfather’s war. This war is unpopular and controversial, seemingly endless. But that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from releasing a series of films about Iraq and its evil...

Redford says ‘Lions for Lambs’ isn’t just another Iraq war movie

by Rick Bentley [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[6.Nov.07] :. SAN FRANCISCO—Actor and political activist Robert Redford learned a lifelong lesson when he was a teenager. “At 18, I went to the University of Colorado. I was asked to leave after a...

Catch a Fire (2006)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[27.Oct.06] :. Actually, Phillip Noyce's thriller raises a question: how have the South African "terrorists," so deemed by Botha's administration, since become courageous freedom fighters?

Glory Road (2006)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[5.Jun.06] :. In a Jerry Bruckheimer sports movie, truth and good intentions have little chance against formula.

Glory Road (2006)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[13.Jan.06] :. Includes all the usual tricks of the genre, from vintage soundtrack and heart-pounding court action to excellent performances and heartfelt lessons underlined by teary eyes in close-up.

Friday Night Lights (2004)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[8.Oct.04] :. It's mostly about how football -- in this place, at this time -- overwhelms its adherents, apparently giving them something to live for but also sucking their lives from them.

Spartan (2004)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[11.Mar.04] :. David Mamet extends his famous preoccupation with masculine preoccupations into the murky workings of the U.S. government.

Pieces of April (2003)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[23.Oct.03] :. And April sits in the window frame, hair damp, contemplating the disaster she expects her day to become.

Antwone Fisher (2002)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[28.May.03] :. 'I wasn't concerned with whether or not the audience liked Antwone at first.'"

Biker Boyz (2003)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[31.Jan.03] :. Amid all the conventional movie dazzle, Biker Boyz's most important idea is the bike.

Antwone Fisher (2002)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[19.Dec.02] :. This single-mindedness can feel limited; there's obviously more to Antwone's story than the scenes in which he appears.