The Manatti Brothers faced an impossible task with their adaptation of the comic book adventures of Italy's most famous anti-hero. How could any new film come close to reaching the stylistic heights of Mario Bava's original film--perhaps the most singularly gorgeous film of the 60s?
You can't, but once you forgive the attempt, they still managed to create an entertaining film that succeeds largely on the criminally electric chemistry between its two leads, who actually manage to equal Law and…
Overlong and overpraised, THE BATMAN is a well-made film that learned all the wrong lessons from Nolan's trilogy and will be long beloved by people who resent the fantasy involved in fantastic cinema and prefer instead for imaginative works to be stripped of imagination.
The mystery is obvious and the tension forced. This is noir so tastefully self-conscious it never risks anything. Out of all the Batman films made so far, this one is the safest and most pedestrian. It…
A disaster you say? Maybe, but an infectiously enjoyable one! I've seen it more times than Citizen Kane! Where else can you see The Village People pretend to be everyday heterosexual dudes conscripted into the gayest disco sensations of all time? All that and Caitlyn Jenner in jean shorts and Valerie Perrine's perfect breasts! Do you hate joy?
There's a genius at work here in this biopic about the life of Doug Kenney--one that, based on the reviews I'm seeing, is going to be missed by a lot of other viewers.
It's a film that walks an amazing balance between deliberate self-parody and genuine sincerity--a meta-work that plays up its genre cliches as successfully as WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX story, while also reaching an emotional climax I never saw coming.
Many, I suspect, will make the mistake…
