items tagged with Julia Stiles

Are mainstream movies, in general, becoming more and more stale? The question arose a couple of weeks ago when an acquaintance asked if I’d seen anything good recently. After a pause I was finally able to reply, “Uh ... Return of the King?”

“Well, of course that. Anything since then?”

CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND

George Clooney’s directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, plays like the funny, ironic companion piece to A Beautiful Mind, and the new film shrewdly, and hysterically, plays off your knowledge of Ron Howard’s Oscar-winning opus.

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

I have a lower threshold for international spy thrillers than most people, yet I must admit that I found The Bourne Identity, based on Robert Ludlam’s 1980 bestseller, pretty damned enjoyable.

O

We’ve had so many reinterpretations of Shakespeare’s classics in recent years, and so many that have been surprisingly fine (I’m thinking of 10 Things I Hate About You, the Ethan Hawke Hamlet, and the genre’s standard-bearer, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet), that you’re inclined to give O, which sets Othello in the world of high-school basketball, the benefit of the doubt.

SNATCH

First, the bad news: Guy Ritchie’s latest crime thriller, Snatch, is nearly a carbon copy of his sizzling 1998 debut film, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. The good news: Who cares? Those who like their thrills fast, bloody, twisty, and awfully funny will be in B-movie paradise here; we’re only three weeks into January, and we already have a movie that’s more enjoyable than 90 percent of what was released last year.