The subway is the fastest way to get around New York City, a fact that’s noted more than a few times in Tony Scott’s “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” a bland retread of the 1974 heist flick of the same name. The subway system is the city’s circulatory system and so long as [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘griping’
February 16, 2009
Crosswalk Follies
I love you, Dover, but you’re killing me. Well, you haven’t killed me yet, but as someone who mostly gets around town on foot, the odds of me getting smashed by a car are pretty good and getting better. Just last week, another pedestrian got smacked by a car in downtown Dover. The pedestrian in [...]
December 22, 2008
Slumdog Millionaire
A flight of fancy that never takes its eyes off the ground, “Slumdog Millionaire” is Bollywood through the off-kilter lens of Danny Boyle. The director of “Trainspotting,” “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine” may seem an odd choice for a movie about true love helping a young man win a game show and find happiness. But [...]
September 8, 2008
Babylon A.D.
“Babylon A.D.” is one of those rare cases where the old storytelling maxim about showing instead of telling just doesn’t apply. The movie shows us a lot—mostly Vin Diesel shooting bad guys, choking dudes to death and taking on unmanned spy planes—but it doesn’t tell viewers a damn thing. It’s a big, dumb cipher, a [...]
September 19, 2007
‘The Brave One’
In the opening scenes of “The Brave One,” public radio host Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) laments the absence of the old Manhattan, home of gritty streets, the Plaza Hotel and dirty hotel rooms where Sid Vicious hung out after gigs. She neglects to mention the rampant crime that went along with those bygone days, [...]
September 6, 2007
ghosts of ‘Halloween,’ past and present
It’s remarkable that, for someone with the last name Zombie, Rob Zombie just doesn’t get horror. Now three films deep into his cinematic career, it’s undeniably clear that Zombie, who’s made a career in music and film based around his love of horror, doesn’t really understand what makes the genre work. Nowhere is that [...]
