Not everything from Ireland travels as well as the whiskey. Like mud-thick porridge, Shadow Dancer, another dreary, confusing conspiracy thriller about the Irish “troubles,” is one of them.
In the 1970s, when she was growing up in war-torn Belfast, a girl named Collette McVeigh sent her little brother out to buy cigarettes for their father. Read More
Movies about the profound effects of cold-blooded nightmares on sensitive, impressionable children should not be dull, or arty at the expense of a good hair-raising yarn, but a benign horror flick called Intruders is nothing more (or less) than ludicrous, esoteric hokum. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, a Spanish director so unabashedly infatuated with the films of Guillermo del Toro that he even imitates the shadowy lighting and copies the same jittery camera angles as Pan’s Labyrinth, has done nothing to enhance the genre of thrillers that prey on the vulnerability of children and a great deal to cheapen it.
In Spain, before bedtime, a little boy named Juan makes up a story to entertain his mother, Luisa (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), about Hollow Face, a hideous monster shrouded in a cadaverous hooded cape who rips the faces off children and attaches them to his own blank head so people will love him. Read More
Nicole Kidman is here, trying to smile up some new interest in both a career that has turned anemic and a movie version of the Broadway play Rabbit Hole, which underscores her rarely tapped depths as a dramatic actress. As movies lose luster and star wattage dims, you wouldn’t guess it this week in Toronto. Read More
Today, in your sizzling-hot paper Transom:
New York’s first lady wears Rachel Roy, joining the illustrious ranks of Olivia Palermo and Tyra Banks.
The art magazine Tar might not live to see its first birthday, despite the best efforts of Al Gore’s and Norman Mailer’s kids.
Clive Owen hobnobs with Emeril Read More
The final weekend of September is upon and dare we say: not a moment too soon. Once October hits, real movies will start opening, but in the meantime we’re left with the rest of these September dregs. As we do every Friday, here’s a handy guide to the new releases.
Fame
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It’s hard to imagine Clive Owen, Emeril Lagasse, and The RZA together in anything but a pop-culture fever dream. But there they were on an unseasonably sticky Wednesday night at the Bon Appetit Supper Club, celebrating the New York premiere of Mr. Owen’s new movie The Boys are Back. The dinner—featuring Mr. Lagasse’s wild mushroom Read More
The Boys Are Back
Running time 104 minutes
Written by Allan Cubitt
Directed by Scott Hicks
Starring Clive Owen, Laura Fraser, Nicholas McAnulty, George MacKay
Clive Owen has either a bad agent or a bad eye. Considering his talent and charisma, it’s amazing how many really terrible movies he makes. (The male Julianne Read More
Monday: The Bachelorette
All the rose petals, candles, sky-diving, cringing hands-over-face-embarrassment and general buffoonery has led us to tonight, when our Bachelorette finally picks her man on the big finale. And yes, we are sort of un-ironically excited! Who will Jillian, former hot dog Read More
Nightlife impresario Nur Khan was bummed that rock singer Chris Cornell had pulled the plug on him.
“Am I upset that we’re not doing the gig tonight? Yeah, it would’ve been really cool,” Mr. Khan told the Daily Transom. “But we’re going to shoot for something in May.”
The charismatic 42-year-old operator of the artsy Read More
Like the 50-foot tall woman (actually 49 feet, 11 inches) that Reese Witherspoon voices in Monsters vs. Aliens, the box office over the weekend was particularly huge. The record setting 3-D release of the animated film smashed its way to the top spot with $58.2 million, while fellow newcomer, The Haunting in Connecticut, Read More
