Articles tagged "james woods"

Decade-Dense: The 60 Most Memorable Films of 1999 Feature

Part 2: The Virgin Suicides to The Blair Witch Project (May - August 1999)

by PopMatters Staff

[24.Mar.09] :. In Part Two of our look at the most memorable films of 1999, we experience music, foul-mouthed mayhem, and a late, great auteur's final cinematic statement.

Decade-Dense: The 60 Most Memorable Films of 1999

Cinema Qua Non - Indispensable DVDs Feature

Cinema Qua Non - Indispensable DVDs: Part 2

by PopMatters Staff

[14.Oct.08] :. Day Two - A demanding Decalogue overflowing with everything: from fascinating international fare, misbegotten masterworks, some out of the blue bafflers, and that seminal show about “nothing”.

Cinema Qua Non - Indispensable DVDs

TV Review

Shark

by Cynthia Fuchs

[29.Apr.08] :. Shark's return is boosted by the specter of Jimmy Woods and Michael Rooker locked in a stare-down, as they display their weird-and-creepy chops.

Recent TV reviews

Column: The Box Office Belletrist

The Lisbon Bunch

by Jennifer Makowsky

[14.Jun.07] :. Purposefully ending one's life is often seen as a last act of personal desperation. But in Jefferey Eugenides' poignant, bewitching novel, it may actually be a form of salvation.

Recent columns

Film Review

Surfs Up (2007)

by Daynah Burnett

[8.Jun.07] :. Surf's Up offers nuanced and energetic penguins, as well as top-notch CGI.

Recent Film reviews

The PopMatters Summer 2007 Movie Preview Feature

Monkey Business (Part 2: June)

by Bill Gibron

[2.May.07] :. Apparently, as the sun's strongest rays finally settle over the movie going public, sequels are the remedy to cool down an overheated demographic. This month alone holds five examples of such redux refreshment. The rest of the choices are a variety pack of genres, ideas and possibilities.

The PopMatters Summer 2007 Movie Preview

Shark (CBS)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[21.Sep.06] :. Shark opens on James Woods. This is right, for he is the reason to watch.

Northfork (2003)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[24.Jul.03] :. Challenges U.S. myths of enduring national identity, corporate good will, and westward-ho expansions.

Stuart Little 2 (2002)

by Tracy McLoone

[18.Jul.02] :. With all the incessant action, 'SL2' feels like it's trying to be bigger than it is.

John Q (2002)

by Cynthia Fuchs

[14.Feb.02] :. After 'Collateral Damage', you might imagine that most every aggrieved father cliché has been unturned. But no. Here comes 'John Q'.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

by Todd R. Ramlow

And yet, for its many pleasures, I find myself conflicted in thinking about The Virgin Suicides.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

by Cynthia Fuchs

It's hardly a new idea, to read into adolescent girls' suicide something poetic, passionate, and deeply meaningful. Neither is it a secret that countless girls have admired Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman, seeing in their wounded and inviolate art reflections of themselves, their own pain and enchantment.

True Crime (1999)

by Cynthia Fuchs

Steve Everett is an old-school newspaper reporter, the kind who has improbable hunches that turn out to be right, who gives investigative reporters a good name, who's relegated to fiction these days. He's also more complicated than that, a self-styled macho boozer and womanizer, but recently slipped into another state, feeling confused and a little pathetic.

Scary Movie 2 (2001)

by Cynthia Fuchs

Truth be told, it's hard to call out 'Scary Movie 2' for being excessively disgusting and stupid, since that's precisely how the sequel to the most profitable R-rated movie in history is selling itself.

Riding in Cars With Boys (2001)

by Cynthia Fuchs

In 'Riding in Cars', Barrymore plays to her strengths -- her ability to seem at once disarmingly open, as well as poised, ironic, and above all, delighted to be living her life.

Recess: School’s Out (2001)

by Jon Munn (and Rachel Munn)

Perhaps Recess' most culturally savvy element is its skewering of the '60s, in a flashback showing how the ideals of the teachers (particularly Principal Prickly and Dr. Benedict) have fallen by the wayside as they were sucked into The System and traded their ideals for hard-nosed discipline.

The General’s Daughter (1999)

by Cynthia Fuchs

The title character in The General's Daughter is dead. The image gets your attention. It's grotesque and horrifying. And it's recalled several times in the film, verbally and visually, to impress on you the threat that it supposedly poses for military, moral, sexual, and aesthetic orders.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

by Cynthia Fuchs

The invasion is not from without, per se, but from, and, as Ripley noted so insightfully in 'Alien 3', 'It's a metaphor.' And when 'Final Fantasy' pauses to engage this question, most notably in Aki's dreams, it's onto something.

Another Day in Paradise (1998)

by Cynthia Fuchs

Larry Clark’s Another Day in Paradise is — no surprise — brazen about its interest in young bodies. Whether the filmmaker himself is into them or not is irrelevant (and...

Any Given Sunday (1999)

by Cynthia Fuchs

Oliver Stone's movies usually seem more complicated than they are. Partly this comes from his evolving style, from the curiously romantic realism of Platoon, to the assaultive ding-battiness of Natural Born Killers, to the debased lunacy of U-Turn. But mostly it comes from his obsession with a single theme: brutality. Or more precisely, how brutality becomes morality.

Any Given Sunday (1999)

by Tobias Peterson

Whatever you think about Oliver Stone as a director, you can't deny his firm grasp on this country's interests. From Vietnam to JFK to serial killers, Stone's pictures have always depicted major subjects of national fascination. With his latest release, Any Given Sunday, Stone looks to go his previous films one better by focusing on the most popular sport in America.