Dallas Buyers Club Movie Review

People make a big deal out of actors packing on or shedding the pounds for the sake of a role. Think about De Niro in Raging Bull, Christian Bale in The Machinist, or Tom Hanks in Cast Away and images immediately come to mind of an altered body paired with a great performance. It’s easy to conflate physical transformation and great acting or to think that the one causes the other. I suppose it helps the actor get into the mind of the character in some cases, but regardless, the actor still has to do the work in his head even after the physical aspect has taken root.

From My Collection: Out of Sight Movie Review

Out of Sight is quite simply one of the slickest and sexiest films of at least the last two decades. One scene in particular, involving a female Federal Marshal and the bank robber she’s chasing taking a “time out” from their respective responsibilities to fan the flames of passion between them is stylishly edited and beautifully realized. I loved this movie when I first saw it. I loved every minute of it as it played out on the big screen. I loved the smoldering Clooney and the incredibly sexy Lopez; loved the threatening Don Cheadle and the comic relief Steve Zahn; loved the fact that the Clooney and Lopez characters turn some common genre stereotypes on their heads; but mostly I loved the film’s sense of cool stemming from its jazz, funk, soul soundtrack, its sharp dialogue, and Tarantino-esque flair.

Joy Ride Movie Review: Revisiting an Old Non-Classic

The director John Dahl had a fantastic start in feature films, making the neo-noirs Red Rock West and The Last Seduction back-to-back and then Rounders later. After a big-budget commercial fiasco in The Great Raid, Dahl has stuck mainly to television since 2005. He has directed several episodes each of “True Blood,” “Dexter” and “Californication,” all centered on subject matter that Dahl has been drawn to and executed quite well in his film career. It was mainly on the strength of his early work that drew me initially to Joy Ride, a fairly standard genre film that Dahl elevates slightly above the average thriller. Coming back to the film about a decade later, I’m somewhat disappointed, though not particularly surprised, to find it doesn’t hold up as well as I remember.

Saving Silverman Movie Review

This review was written in Feburary 2001 and is presented here for the first time.

Some boy-meets-girl movies that aren't good are at least charming, or cute, or have characters that you want to root for and see come to a happy ending. Not so with Saving Silverman, a new comedy from director Dennis Dugan.

In this useless movie, we're supposed to feel something for three life-long buddies: Wayne (Steve Zahn), J. D. (Jack Black) and Darren (Jason Biggs). They became best buds in the fifth grade and remained together for...well according to the movie it seems to be that a mutual love for Neil Diamond is the only thing that has kept these three imbeciles together. Wayne and J. D. are basically dogs with human qualities - they slobber, drool, yell, make ugly bodily noises and have no idea how to tastefully interact with the opposite sex (or the same sex for that matter). Darren is a little more cultured, a little smarter, but he hasn't made much of his life.