Month: October 2004

Frankly, if it’s well made we could watch a feature-length documentary on the invention of the toilet brush. Not to take anything away from Jonathan Caouette’s spellbinding debut, Tarnation, a Sundance honey that reimagines what a documentary can be. Using his Macintosh, Caouette wove snapshots, Super-8 home movies, and answering-machine messages into a portrait of…

One of the things we love about Italy is that its aristocrats see no problem in being communists. Take Luchino Visconti, probably the only filmmaker capable of adapting one of his country’s most cherished novels. The Leopard recounts the efforts of a Sicilian prince to preserve his family’s fortunes during the revolutions that would eventually…

All right, all right, she may be America’s reigning movie queen, but whom can we petition for a moratorium on magazine covers featuring Ms. Kidman? Still, she and her child co-stars scared the bejesus out of us in The Others, and so we’re looking forward to this film, in which Kidman’s widowed character develops an…

With Sideways, Alexander Payne and his writing partner Jim Taylor more than fulfill the promise of their brilliantly offbeat earlier films, Election and About Schmidt. In fact, we’re actually more partial to this one because it’s still very quirky yet at the same time eminently accessible. The refreshingly schlubby Paul Giamatti (fresh off American Splendor)…

I’ll confess, I have never been a huge fan of Bob Dylan’s music; I don’t own a single record. But I am a huge fan of Bob Dylan. As historical music figures go, he’s someone who has always fascinated me and scared the crap out of me at the same time. One theory I have…

There is a large man in a small strip mall who knows a little something about eggs. Fat Nat’s is the kind of place that you pray will open in your neighborhood: There’s counter seating, glory be! When’s the last time you saw that in a strip mall? Posted signs will point out to you…