04 Jun 2002

Affleck Drags Down Latest Clancy Thriller: "The Sum of All Fears" and "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron"

By Mike Schulz

Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, and Lev Prygounov in The Sum of All FearsTHE SUM OF ALL FEARS

In The Sum of All Fears, the latest film adaptation of one of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan thrillers - the other movies being The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear & Present Danger - America and Russia are headed for war. In a horrifying scene that, given our national consciousness, might deeply unsettle audiences, a nuclear device has detonated at a football stadium in Baltimore, and all indicators point to the Russians and their new president (Ciaran Hinds) masterminding the attack. Our government, and our mildly befuddled president (James Cromwell), are readying a counter-assault that will inevitably lead to World War III, but Jack Ryan, our one-man CIA, knows that something's just not right about our leaders' assumptions, and tries to ... hey, wait a minute, is that Ben Affleck playing Ryan?

29 Jan 2002

I Damn "Sam": "I Am Sam," "The Mothman Prophecies," and "No Man's Land"

By Mike Schulz

Sean Penn and Dakota Fanning in I Am SamI AM SAM

How does one begin to discuss the blinding idiocies of I Am Sam? This comic weepie about Sam (Sean Penn), a mentally challenged Starbucks employee trying to retain custody of his young daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning), is so shockingly offensive, both thematically and as a work of cinema, as to defy rational analysis, so here's a brief checklist of what made me want to bash my head in:

15 Jan 2002

The Oscar-Bait Parade Continues...: "Gosford Park," "The Royal Tenenbaums," "In the Bedroom," and "Impostor"

By Mike Schulz

Gosford ParkGOSFORD PARK

In Robert Altman's Gosford Park, set in 1932 England, a group of well-to-do guests is invited to a country estate for a shooting party, with their numerous servants in tow, and find their weekend disrupted by the murder of their host.

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