Seventeen years after his impressive 1995 debut film The Brothers McMullen, writer-director-actor and indie-prod summa cum laude Edward Burns returns to the working-class Long Island landscape of his first success with The Fitzgerald Family Christmas. You can’t go home again.
In this overly familiar and ultimately meandering exercise in tedium, Mr. Burns also plays the Read More
Blame Kevin Smith, or perhaps Edward Burns. They took their little indie films (Clerks and The Brothers McMullen, respectively) to the festival circuit in the mid-’90s, grabbed a distribution deal and went on to fame and fortune. “The popular story that got everyone’s attention at the time was the young filmmaker who put Read More
To peek inside the windows of the WoofSpa and Resort at 678 Hudson Street was once to glimpse a real-life Cassius Marcellus Coolidge painting in action: Dogs of every breed lounged on leather dog furniture in the lobby. Multicolored Andy Warhol–esque portraits of the proprietor’s Wheaten Terriers adorned the walls. And for non-canine glitz, the Read More
In the postwar lull between Iraq and tax extensions, people are understandably searching for pleasant, mindless ways to pass the time. They won’t find them at the movies. In a week so lacking in real news that even The New York Times has filled its pages with riveting features on professional fire chasers and pet Read More
James Foley’s Confidence , from a screenplay by Doug Jung, dispenses with the pseudo-camaraderie of many crime-scam movies to provide a fitting parable of paranoia for our terminally corrupt age, both on and off the screen. Mr. Foley has been working the shady side of the street since his debut film, Reckless (1984), which also Read More
Edward Burns’ Sidewalks of New York , from his own screenplay, features several stirring moments of the pre-9/11 World Trade Center standing bravely in the background of a cinéma vérité interview with Mr. Burns. This accidental recording of a sadly vanished past is alone almost worth the price of admission to this Manhattan roundelay of Read More
The film forecast this week is bleak, black and bad for the
disposition. Since the beginning of the year, I can’t remember seeing so many
catastrophes in such a short amount of time. Doesn’t anybody know how to make
movies anymore?
15 Minutes , with
Robert De Niro and Ed Burns as, respectively, a Read More
SAUL’S SISTER SELLS $10.5 MILLION HOME FOR A MUCH SMALLER LIFESTYLE In March, Kathy and Gayfryd Steinberg, former sisters-in-law, got trapped in the elevator of a $20 million townhouse for sale on East 62nd Street with Gayfryd’s step-daughter, Laura Tisch. The three ladies escaped the incident only to decide that the townhouse was too pricey. Read More
Edward Burns’ No Looking Back marks both an advance and two interesting changes of direction from this young writer-actor-director’s two acclaimed films, The Brothers McMullen (1995) and She’s the One (1996). Up to now, Mr. Burns has comically chronicled the problems of working-class Irish-Catholic young men faced with adjusting their guilt-ridden sex drives to the Read More
Mr. Fonda, You’re No Jack Nicholson
Everyone has their favorite picks on Oscar night, even an aging crazy man like Dennis Hopper, whom you’d think would have gotten over this kind of Hollywood industry schmaltz years ago. Flanked by his wife, Victoria Duffy, and his daughter, Ruthana, on March 23 at the Academy Awards Read More
