Toasting Herzog Time‘s Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel are both smart and crafty film critics, but I’ve never regarded them as providers of radiant cinematic wisdom…until today. They’ve both chosen a Werner Herzog documentary as their favorite film of ’05 — Corliss going for The White Diamond and Schickel for Grizzly Man — and the … Read more
I’m struggling to sift through my feelings and understand why I’m looking forward to seeing Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha (Columbia, 12.9) with the same anticipation one normally associates with going to the dentist. I shouldn’t admit to this. Prejudice before-the-fact is not an admirable thing. If it’s made with the right stuff, if … Read more
What I’m not quite understanding from the various has-Tom-Cruise-gone-crazy? pieces, and particularly from Sharon Waxman’s report in today’s (6.2) New York Times, is why, exactly, Paramount Pictures is apparently re-thinking its support of Cruise’s Mission Impossible 3. As Waxman points out, many millions have already been spent on the action thriller, the total estimated M:I3 … Read more
Sticks and Stones There’s a scene in Lawrence of Arabia that comes just after General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) tells his artillery officers to bomb the hell out of the Turks. “Pound them, Charlie…pound them,” he says. Cut to Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) and Ali (Omar Sharif) riding their camels at the head of the Arab army … Read more