'What About Bob,' and other things only Bill Murray can get away with :
Bill Murray might be America's favorite celebrity prima donna.
Bio: Simon Abrams writes about comics, books and movies for The Comics Journal, L magazine, The New York Press and Slant Magazine. You can find a lot of his writing here.
How do you remember the War on Drugs? If you grew up in the ‘90s, you probably remember dire Public Service Announcements and health-class warnings that amounted to: Don’t grow up to be a junkie thug, don’t get a disease and certainly don’t die and disappoint your family.
A hero, back then, was someone who could rescue America’s youth from the dangers of drug experimentation and a life of crime. It was the age of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. More
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on December 9th, 2011 7:07pmIt’s hard to say if Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the latest adaptation of John Le Carre’s famous spy thriller, is a good one. It really depends on how you feel about the original novel. But taken on its own terms as a relentlessly slow-burning potboiler, Tomas Alfredson’s new film, which is co-executive produced and hence approved by Le Carre himself, is totally compelling. More
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on December 8th, 2011 3:30pmWarning: watching Possession will probably make you feel like you're losing your mind. But don't worry, you'll be in good company, right alongside Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani, the stars of Andrzej Zulawski's trippy, Strindberg-by-way-of-Cronenberg autopsy of a marriage on the skids. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, an uncut print of Possession will screen at Film Forum for a week-long engagement.
You might know Possession as "that weird movie in which Isabelle Adjani has sex with a hideous monster." But it's weirder than that. Zulawski, who directed and co-wrote the film, immerses us in the intense confusion and emotional tumult surrounding Mark and Anna (Neill and Adjani) after she tells him that she doesn't love him anymore. More
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on December 2nd, 2011 4:09pmWho will watch Redline, a new animated science fiction film from Japan?
Redline, which gets a limited roadshow engagement in New York starting this Friday, was not directed or animated by Hayao Miyazai, nor does it have an overwhelming cult following like some other anime films do. Also, last time I checked, director Takeshi Koike was still alive. These are the three criteria that contemporary anime need to be taken seriously by American media. More
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on December 1st, 2011 1:16pmThis Thanksgiving weekend, New Yorkers looking for the cinematic equivalent of comfort food have any number of fantastic options to choose from. The two films I recommend are fundamentally disparate classics, both of them designed to hit a certain spot and, to some extent, they both make you appreciate what you have. More
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on November 26th, 2011 4:16pmIt's not easy to make a bad new Muppet movie. So the fact that The Muppets is as underwhelming as it is is actually quite something.
This is particularly disappointing considering how much energy star and co-writer Jason Segel (co-writer and star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall) invested in his performance, and in his promotion of the film. Segel clearly had a blast working on and selling The Muppets. But it turns to be a maudlin and uninspired tribute to Jim Henson’s mirthful puppets and their Vaudeville style of humor. How did that happen? More
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on November 25th, 2011 11:16amHas it only been six years since Team America: World Police was excreted onto the big screen? It feels a lot longer, possibly because “South Park” co-creators Trey Park and Matt Stone’s proudly juvenile musical comedy is so proudly superficial. That’s part of its charm: The film takes equal time to skewer both Dubya-era conservatives and empty-headed “unpatriotic” armchair liberals because, well, all loud people are dumb, OK? More
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on November 18th, 2011 11:32pmThere have been rumors about an impending RoboCop remake for years now.
This rumor makes Robo-fans mad. At one point, Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) was supposed to remake Paul Verhoeven’s satirical action movie. This rumor made some Robo-fans glad. Then Aronofsky dropped out and Brazilian director Jose Padilha stepped in. This rumor made almost all Robo-fans confused. Jose who? More
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on November 11th, 2011 9:38pmThe latter-day canonization of Tim Burton as a respected member of the artiste community could not have come at a worse time in his career.
Last year, Burton, whose version of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory screens this Sunday at the Film Society at Lincoln Center, was the chairman of the main competition jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Burton was also the subject of a massive multi-media exhibit at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art, where his sketches, paintings and films, among other artifacts and paraphernalia, were lovingly displayed.
Unfortunately, Burton’s Alice in Wonderland flopped out into theaters in 2010, too. Burton had been flirting with adapting Lewis Carroll’s fantastical adventure novel for a little more than twenty years. Finally, when he committed to the project, he sucked the ever-loving life out of it. They love him! We hate him.
The public reception of almost every film Burton has made recently, from the miscalculated but not disastrous Planet of the Apes reboot to Alice in Wonderland, has ranged from lukewarm to sharply hostile, from fans and critics alike. More
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on November 4th, 2011 5:02pmA few weeks ago, respected short-story writer, essayist and science fiction author Harlan Ellison sued the creators of In Time, a new science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, S1M0NE) and starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.
Ellison, a writer who is rightfully proud of the lengths he’ll go to to protect his intellectual property, attempted to prevent the release of In Time, claiming that it shamelessly rips off “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Tick Tock Man,” Ellison’s own short story.
In Ellison’s story, an impish rebel named Harlequin, jokingly modeled after Ellison himself, rebels against a futuristic society where the time that people have left in their lives is methodically monitored and even policed by the government. Residents in Ellison’s future have internal clocks that get processed by “The Master Time Keeper,” a heartless martinet that never hesitates before punishing tardy civilians by robbing them of precious hours or even years of their lives. More
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on October 30th, 2011 10:26am
