Brave, dynamic performances and sharp dialogue highlight writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s unrelentingly incisive portrait of a mother and her two daughters.
Writer-director Sofia Coppola’s story of two disaffected Americans stranded in Tokyo (one for business, one for marital obligation) is worth seeing if only for the beautiful photography and Bill Murray’s most complete, heartfelt performance to date. The story, which is at times hysterical and insightful, is just a bonus.
This documentary chronicling Terry Gilliam’s famously ill-fated production of ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’ is a fascinating look at the tenuous nature of filmmaking and Mr. Gilliam’s own quixotic obsession with the project.
The final chapter of Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ adaptation is also the best, standing not only as its own movie, but also as an exhilarating end to one of the finest trilogies ever put on film.
Mad genius Peter Jackson continues to defy expectations with an adaptation of the second chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Rings’ trilogy which is every bit as good, and sometimes better, than the first.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy phenomenon is finally given the beautiful, epic, reverent treatment that it deserves by director/co-adapter/Hobbit-phile Peter Jackson. Jackson’s love for the material both helps the film and also weighs it down. Purists may balk, but Jackson’s labor of love is quite an achievement.
Steven Soderbergh’s elegantly crafted journey of a career criminal searching for his lost daughter is marked by an intense, pitch-perfect performance by Terrance Stamp.
Roberto Benigni has been blessed with a joyous expression that is reminiscent of Harpo Marx.
Formerly promising director Wes Anderson continues his spiral into precious quirkiness with this story of a has-been Jacques Cousteau-clone on a mission to kill the shark that may or may not have eaten his partner. Even Bill Murray, leading a now-typical set of odd Andersonian characters, can’t keep this one afloat.
You’re not going to find a much better performance anywhere than that of Geoffrey Rush in this engaging but messy biopic of the legendary ‘Pink Panther’ star, which is long on re-creations and short on explanations.
