items tagged with Timothy Olyphant

25TH HOUR

I wish my schedule had allowed me to catch Spike Lee’s 25th Hour sooner, as I would have happily spent the last two weeks extolling its merits to everyone I saw. (It ends its run at the Quad Cities Brew & View on April 17.) The film, wherein a convicted drug dealer (Edward Norton) spends his last free day in New York tying up loose ends among family and friends, is probably Lee’s most passionate, exemplary work since 1989’s Do the Right Thing. Though the movie showcases Lee’s trademark anger, profane humor, and uncommon vibrancy, what sets the film apart from his usual fare is its sadness; it has an aura of melancholy that keeps the director’s more bombastic impulses in check. (He even pulls off a beauty of a lullaby ending, one which, in lesser lands, could have been disastrous.)

DREAMCATCHER

Just how unspeakably bad is the Stephen King adaptation Dreamcatcher? Allow me to present a few examples of opening sentences I was considering for this review:

ROCK STAR and THE MUSKETEER

If you were to guess based solely on their previews, you’d probably imagine Stephen Herek’s Rock Star to be a kitschy, affectionate look at heavy metal in the ‘80s – like This Is Spinal Tap played straight – and Peter Hyams’ The Musketeer to be a brisk reinterpretation of the Alexandre Dumas classic with a martial-arts bent – Crouching Tiger, Hidden D’Artagnan.
Read More About Hollywood Marketing Triumphs With Two Bad Movies: "Rock Star" And "The Musketeer"...