items tagged with sports movies

SEABISCUIT

Seabiscuit arrives as such a breath of fresh air – an inspirational period piece in a sea of noisy, formulaic action drivel – that you wish to God the movie was better than it actually is.

HULK

There are scenes of sublime directorial craftsmanship and exquisite beauty in the latest Ang Lee film, which should surprise no one familiar with Lee’s oeuvre but might shock the masses lining up to see a Summer Blockbuster entitled Hulk.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring has now been out for so long, has made so much money, and has been reaping so many critical accolades – it was just named the AFI’s Best Picture in its inaugural awards ceremony – that I’m not sure much more needs to be said about it.

STARTUP.COM, WIT, and 61*

I had the good fortune to view three sensational 2001 releases last week, but as you might imagine, none of them is playing at your local movie theatre. The Warner Bros. and Touchstone studios showed welcome tact by delaying the premieres of Training Day and Big Trouble, initially scheduled for release on September 21, in light of the tragic events of September 11; apparently, both films feature subplots that, in our current national climate, might be inappropriate for mass consumption. (One of the plotlines in Big Trouble, for example, deals with the impending detonation of a nuclear device.) Good for Hollywood, I say, and I hope they feel free to forever shelve any movie where explosions could legitimately be billed as featured characters. Will any of us feel the desire to watch the destructive, slow-motion set-pieces in something like Die Hard or Independence Day ever again? Should we ever have wanted to in the first place?

THE GLASS HOUSE

The domestic thriller The Glass House is obvious and over-the-top from the word go, and that’s what I liked about it. It takes true chutzpah to pull off a movie with visuals this baroque and plotting this convoluted; it might be the most trashily enjoyable work of its kind since 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate. Like that Al Pacino craptacular, The Glass House has no higher agenda than showing audiences, in horror-flick form, the luridness behind ultra-rich “perfection,” and it’s so up-front about its limited ambitions, and so earnestly performed by its top-tier cast, that you can easily lean back and enjoy it for the stylish dreck it is. Is it a good movie? Nah. An entertaining one? Hell, yes.