2004

Review: Layer Cake

By Allen Holt ⋅ September 14, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

Take a story about several denizens of the criminal British underworld, mix in a few spoonfuls of dark humor and a couple of cups of violence, a handful of plot twists to taste, and what do you end up with? Snatch. Well, OK, yes, you do, but if you mix the recipe up a bit [...]

Review: Team America: World Police

By Allen Holt ⋅ June 12, 2005 ⋅ 2 comments

Man, Trey Parker has got no love for Michael Bay. Not only is Team America: World Police constructed as a brutal satire of the lamebrained explody Bay oeuvre (Transformers and the trainwreck Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the Bad Boys flicks, The Rock, Armageddon), he even has a song in the movie devoted entirely to [...]

Review: A Love Song for Bobby Long

By Allen Holt ⋅ May 25, 2005 ⋅ 2 comments

The New Orleans found in A Love Song for Bobby Long doesn’t map to the real New Orleans: it’s a romantic impression of a mythical New Orleans, all hot jazz and cool rain, a city imagined by writers for generations as a safe haven for broken creatives. This New Orleans can’t help, of course, but [...]

Review: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

By Allen Holt ⋅ May 24, 2005 ⋅ One comment

At some point during the last few years–I think quite likely it was during the making of Charlie’s Angels, if not earlier–Bill Murray decided it was time for him to put away his trademarked schtick for awhile and do some actual acting. Oh, he’d tried doing the dramatic stuff early in his career, of course, [...]

Review: In Good Company

By Allen Holt ⋅ May 22, 2005 ⋅ One comment

It happens all the time in all manner of businesses, from Hollywood backlots to sports fields to corporate boardrooms: seasoned, talented veteran with plenty of good years left gets pushed to the side in favor of hotshot rookie with none of the experience but all of the flash and promise. Our culture has never been [...]

Review: Ray

By Allen Holt ⋅ May 13, 2005 ⋅ 2 comments

We all know the familiar dark glasses, the side-to-side sway and euphoric smile as music pours from the piano, the raspy voice that should be part of the dictionary entry for “soulful”; Ray Charles has been such an icon for so long that it’s probable most of us born after 1970 or so don’t truly [...]

Review: Sideways

By Allen Holt ⋅ April 18, 2005 ⋅ 9 comments

Miles Raymond, the wine connossuier at the heart of Alexander Payne‘s Sideways, would surely have looked down on, if not openly mocked, the bottle of wine the wife and I opened up as we cozied down on the couch to watch this fascinating movie. The wine was an ’02 Firesteed pinot noir, and though Miles [...]