items tagged with Dylan Baker

HIDE & SEEK

(Warning: Potential spoilers – for both Hide & Seek and Million Dollar Baby – ahead. Proceed with caution.) If you haven’t yet seen Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, it might be too late to do so without prejudice, since numerous critics, pundits, and op-ed writers have probably already ruined the film for you.

PHONE BOOTH

Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth starts off so poorly that it’s a major surprise – a shock, really – when the movie winds up being thrilling, even exhilarating; it proves that a great, meaty premise can overcome almost all obstacles.

ONE HOUR PHOTO

One Hour Photo has a simple, juicy premise that’s just right for an art-film creepshow. The meek, late-middle-aged nebbish Sy Parrish (Robin Williams) has, for 11 years, run the photo lab at the California discount store Sav-Mart and has become inordinately fond of his regular customers, the Wilsons.

FRAILTY

Until it flirts with supernatural looniness in its last reel, Bill Paxton’s directorial debut Frailty is a strong, scary, deeply affecting piece of work – so good, in fact, that it easily ranks, thus far, as 2002’s finest film achievement.

ALONG CAME A SPIDER

Here’s a frightening thought: Are today’s filmgoing audiences being programmed to expect less from movies? Because I’m afraid it might be happening to me.