Film Reviews

Lowdown and high-brow

Comes with video

WIDE RELEASES Nine (Dec. 25) A singing, dancing Daniel Day-Lewis returns to the screen in this $50 million musical drama based on the Broadway show, which, in turn, was based on Federico Fellini’s film 8 1/2 (l963). It’s all about the meltdown… [»Read]


Strange bedfellows

Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity / Like The Blair Witch Project before it, Paranormal Activity is the latest low-budget home-camcorder horror flick to arrive amidst gigabytes of Internet hype. While the scares are a smidgen obvious, the experience is still fun as theater audiences collectively… [»Read]


The wild rumpus starts

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are / Director Spike Jonze has always been one of our most creatively playful contemporary filmmakers (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation). Coupled with co-screenwriter and literary wunderkind Dave Eggers, he created a version of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book… [»Read]


World’s most adequate dad

The Boys Are Back

The Boys Are Back / With a title like The Boys Are Back and a plot summary not unlike Mr. Mom, the most surprising thing about director Scott Hicks’ newest film is how it manages to avoid sitcom-stylized antics and treacly moralizing. The subject matter is shamelessly made for… [»Read]


A body eclectic

HIFF 2009

HIFF 2009 / One of the greatest appeals of a film festival that doesn’t rely on some sort of theme (be it length-based, region-centric, genre-specific or otherwise) is that each film you see is like a palate cleanser to the last. As this year’s Hawaii International Film Festival… [»Read]


HIFF hits

HIFF 2009 / The folks at the Hawaii Independent Film Festival gave us a peek at a variety of offerings this year. Here are a few more. 9500 Liberty (Tues 10/20 & Fri 10/23) Local-born Eric Byler (director of the amazing Charlotte Sometimes)… [»Read]


The power of music

HIFF 2009

HIFF 2009 / A surefire way to grab your audience’s attention is to break out into song. If you’re going to go that route, however, you damn well better have something to say. In After the Storm, playing Thu, 10/22 and Fri, 10/23 at Dole Cannery, there’s a lot that… [»Read]


Laughing matters

To tell the truth, only the first third of the overrated, overstretched The Invention of Lying is above average. Once, a few years ago, in a San Francisco bookstore, I stepped back to get a better view of a floor-to-ceiling shelf, and stepped, hard, on the foot of… [»Read]


Brainless fun

Comes with video

Zombies, along with vampires, are clearly the two monsters with the best cinematic subgenres. Where the latter get romanticized by people who wear too much black and spend their time espousing middle-school learned philosophy, zombie aficionados celebrate the mindless nihilism… [»Read]


Capitalism for Dummies

Web Exclusive

Capitalism: A Love Story / Right-wingers rev up your tempers and get ready to stab at the keyboard in a tweet-rage, Michael Moore is back. This time our favorite rotund documentary-filmmaker takes on an entire ideology with Capitalism: A Love Story. The subtitle is rather obvious and that’s… [»Read]


Space Oddity

Pandorum
Web Exclusive

Pandorum / It is minorly legendary that when Stanley Kubrick was prepping 2001: A Space Odyssey, the best sci-fi film ever made, he watched over 40 movies of that genre. Yet his masterwork does not look in the least like any one of them. Or if, in making your sci-fi debut, you… [»Read]