In the spring, movies are like New Yorkers—pale and flabby after the winter thaw, tannish and muscular by May.
So let’s get the easy ones out of the way. Come May 5, Tom Cruise will be pushing Mission: Impossible III hard, an excuse to get away from his pregnant wife. A week later, Poseidon, Read More
Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa , from a screenplay by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is the funniest send-up of bad Christmas karma I have ever seen. It’s also one of the happiest surprises of this already wearisome ho-ho-ho season, burdened as it is with an excess of hype, hysteria and hypocrisy. Mr. Zwigoff and his Read More
Michael Polish’s Jackpot , from a screenplay by Mark Polish and Michael Polish, reminds me of the old joke about academic disputes being so fiercely contested because the stakes are so low. The Polish brothers do not deal with academics, but their characters–here and in Twin Falls Idaho (1999), their previous film–play for stakes so Read More
