AWN Blogs

The fiction films of Terry Zwigoff have all had a dark satirical bent to them that I love. What makes the comedy so special is the honesty that lies underneath. From GHOST WORLD's look at high school grads entering the "real world" to BAD SANTA's skewering of Christmas greed, there is a bite to his work that stings as only hard truths can. Now with ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, Zwigoff, reteaming with his GHOST WORLD screenwriter Daniel Clowes, takes a stab at art education and the larger modern art world in general.

Jerome (Max Minghella, SYRIANA) has lived in his art this whole life. He dreams of gaining fame and fortune through his paintings. But harsh realities set in when he arrives at college. His teacher Prof. Sandiford (John Malkovich, DANGEROUS LIASON) is a struggling painter himself, trying desperately to get a new show off the ground at every moment of the day. He tells Jerome that it has taken him 25 years to reach his current triangle period. Perpetual dropout Bardo (DODGEBALL) shows Jerome the collection of art school stereotypes from art chicks to hippies to butt kissers. Jerome's view of his own future only gets dimmer when he meets former art school grad Jimmy (Jim Broadbent, IRIS), who now wallows his life away drunk in his filthy rent controlled apartment in the ghetto. The only bright spot for Jerome is Audrey (Sophia Myles, TRISTAN & ISOLDE), a beautiful daughter of a popular artist who poses nude for the aspiring artists. However, the world seems to spiral out of control as a serial murderer stalks campus and Audrey and the rest of the university fall in love with the crude paintings of pretty boy Jonah (Matt Keeslar, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN).

Set in the bayous of Louisiana in 1962, the film launches with a voice over about memory and murder. The whole film is the reflection of a grown up Eve on her life as a ten-year-old girl — the year she killed her father. This admission sets the tone simmering with family secrets woven together by sex and violence. Just like her confession though, nothing is simple in this family drama, because the truth lies somewhere between various points of view and is clouded by the haze of time.

Eve Batiste (Jurnee Smollett, ROLL BOUNCE) was named after a slave who saved her master's life and then gave him 16 children. Her family has lived on a vast plantation for decades since. Her father Louis (Samuel L. Jackson, PULP FICTION) is a doctor, who makes house calls to the lonely women in town. Eve is jealous of the way her father favors her teenage sister Cisely (Megan Good, WASTE DEEP). Louis' philandering creates a volatile storm with his beautiful wife Roz (Lynn Whitfield, THE JOSEPHINE BAKER STORY), who is good friends with her husband's sister Mozelle Delacroix (Debbi Morgan, COACH CARTER), who has the gift to see the future, however it has never worked for her, whose three husbands have all died tragically. The way Lenny Mereaux (Roger Guenveur Smith, DO THE RIGHT THING) discovers that his wife Matty (Lisa Nicole Carson, TV's ALLY MCBEAL) has been sleeping with Louis will change the family forever.

Set in 1938, WATER chronicles the plight of widows in India, where they are forced to live exiled from the general public, begging for their existence. Some of them only children when they're husbands die are doomed to a life on the outskirts of society with no real chance of bettering their situation. While their lives may seem grim, this hopeful film from director Deepa Mehta wishes for a better life and finds joy in simply living. For the filmmaker who endured years of government shut downs and death threats from Hindu extremists for making this film, its nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at last year's Oscars is a glorious recognition of her determination and sacrifice.

At the age of eight, Chuyia (Sarala) is a widow sent to live in a home with other widows, which is only one of three options for her — the other two being throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre or marry his younger brother. At the melancholy ashram, the young girl's boundless energy disrupts the structured lives of the widows. She quickly befriends the beautiful 20-something Kalyani (Lisa Ray, BOLLYWOOD/HOLLYWOOD), who was widowed at about the same age as Chuyia. The rotund Madhumati (Manorama, DEVI) rules over the women, taking the best food and pimping Kalyani out to men of a higher caste. Shakuntala (Seema Biswas, BANDIT QUEEN) is a sad, devout Hindu, who runs the day-to-day operations of the ashram. Patiraji aka Auntie (Dr. Vidula Javalgekar) is a kind old woman who longs for sweets she had at her wedding. One day Kalyani meets Narayana (John Abraham), a handsome young lawyer, who wants to change the conditions for widows in his country inspired by the teachings of the ever-growingly popular leader Gandhi.

With the fifth installment of the HARRY POTTER series hitting DVD this week, it seems like as good as any time to have a Hogwarts marathon. You know you were going to do it anyway, but I'll give you some things to think about when you do it. If you hadn't intended to fill your weekend with the boy who lived then you need to consider sitting back and letting me lead you through what is turning out to be the most consistently well done franchise in movie history. If you don't believe that statement then read on and let me convince (and entertain) you.

As a kid I always wondered what my favorite characters would do if they grew up. Cartoon characters especially. One of my favorite TV series was THE WONDER YEARS, which brilliantly chronicled the innocent trials and tribulations of sixth grade up to more mature problems of one's late teens. I grew up along with those characters. The new generation gets to grow up with Harry Potter from more innocent adventures up till the life and death final battle into adulthood. In chronicling the entire adolescence of its characters (and it's actors), the series is accomplishing something that few feature film series have ever done. Each new film is a new adventure to enjoy, but the honest and accurate maturing of the characters is what makes this series special.

This six-hour SCI FI Channel miniseries reworks L. Frank Baum's WIZARD OF OZ into a darker adult adventure, which transports a young woman into the mysterious Outer Zone known as the O.Z. Overcoming some clunky moments, the story clips along on good performances and the inherent desire of the audience to see how the next element of the OZ world will be reworked.

DG (Zooey Deschanel, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY) is a bored 19-year-old girl who dreams of something bigger in life than living on her parents' farm and working at the local diner. However, unbeknownst to her, she holds a key role in the future of the O.Z., where Sorceress Azkadellia (Kathleen Robertson, BEVERLY HILLS 90210) is trying to locate a powerful emerald, which will give her the ability to plunge the realm into complete darkness. After a storm transports DG into the O.Z., she befriends Glitch (Alan Cummings, X2), the former advisory to the queen, whose brain was removed for knowing too much. Along the way, she will also meet Cain (Neal McDonough, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS), a former Tin Man (aka the police of the O.Z.) and Raw (Raoul Trujillo, APOCALYPTO), a lion-like psychic whose overly kind heart makes him very fearful. As DG tries to uncover the secrets of her past, the foursome must find the emerald before Azkadellia.

"It's just a little cut," said the studio execs as they prepared their screen adaptation of the award-winning novel THE GOLDEN COMPASS. However, with the removal of the core theological debate in Philip Pullman's amazing book, the film is left without a soul. Those devout folks wanting to protest the release of this film should not fear that little children would be converted to atheism after watching this production, because the little tikes will not have time to think about anything as the film rushes from one action set piece to the next.

Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards, feature film debut) is a tomboy who lives at Jordon College under the care of the scholars. In her world, a person's soul lives on the outside of their bodies in the form of an animal called a daemon. Lyra's daemon is Pan (Freddie Highmore, FINDING NEVERLAND), who shape-shifts from an ermine to a cat to a bird and back again. Her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig, CASINO ROYALE) comes to the school to secure funding for his experiments with the North Lights, which serve as a portal into other dimensions. However, the all-powerful Magisterium, an organization set up to control the lives of all the citizens of this world, finds Lord Asriel's work very threatening, because it will expose the organization's lies and undermine their own measures to control the influence of mystical Dust on the people.

When I heard from more than one person that this film was better than the original DIE HARD, I couldn't believe it. When I heard a few critics say it was the best sequel, I thought that was a more reasonable assessment. Now after actually seeing the film, my only suggestion is that all those above people go back and see the original film, because they have forgotten what makes an action movie good.

This time around John McClane is an over-protective father spying on his college-aged daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, SKY HIGH). After a cyber attack on the federal government, local police departments are asked to bring in suspect hackers. McClane is asked to pick up Matthew Farrell (Justin Long, DODGEBALL) and bring him to Washington D.C. But as things are for John McClane, an easy task is never easy. He must first save Farrell from assassins and a bomb in the young man's apartment. But the killers won't stop. Led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant, HITMAN), the bad guys have used hackers to shut down the U.S. infrastructure and financial records. Farrell knows too much and they want him dead. McClane makes the fight personal, so Gabriel follows suit by kidnapping Lucy.

I've heard Ridley Scott's new gangster tale described as SERPICO meets SUPERFLY. The former applies more than the later though. This is because Denzel Washington's Frank Lucas hates flashy pimp-dressing hustlers, but, like SUPERFLY's Youngblood Priest, Lucas is making his way selling drugs for it’s a very tempting opportunity for a poor black man in the 1970s. AMERICAN GANGSTER actually reminded me most of Michel Mann's HEAT, which also told the parallel stories of criminal and cop.

After his mentor dies, Lucas fights for control of the Harlem drug trade. To take an upper hand, he travels to Asia to buy his product directly from the supplier and uses the war in Vietnam to help smuggle heroin into the States. Dressed in nice, but not flashy, suits, Lucas runs his illegal business like a legitimate business. With his connections in Asia, he is able to sell a more pure product for half the price, putting his competition out of business or coming to him as a wholesaler. He even guards the image of his Blue Magic brand from two-bit hustlers like Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr., JERRY MAGUIRE). He takes pointers from the Italian mafia by enlisting his family, because they are the only ones he can truly trust. But he isn't afraid to threaten to kill his brother Huey (Chwetel Ejiofor, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) when his younger sibling starts to bring too much attention to himself. Even though he is involved in a violent business, his family life is sound, buying a huge house for his mother (Ruby Dee, THE STAND) and developing a tender relationship with his beauty queen wife, Eva (Lymari Nadal, TV's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA).

Director Werner Herzog has been so inspired by the story of pilot Dieter Dengler that he has made two films about the true story — the 1997 documentary LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY and now this dramatization starring Christian Bale as Dieter. The new film is a simple story of perseverance and survival. Lt. Dieter Dengler was German born and immigrated to the U.S. for the sole purpose of being able to fly jets. He never lost sight of that when his plane was shot down over Laos, was taken prisoner and struggled to survive in the jungle.

Bale plays Denglar with a matter of fact optimism, as if there were no other alternative. After enduring torture, the man still thinks first of escaping the jungle-based prison he is taken to. There he meets other soldiers whose hope has vanished after being incarcerated, starved and abused for more than a year. Duane Martin (Steve Zahn, HAPPY, TEXAS) is one of those soldiers, who only wishes to keep his head down and endure. The slight crazed Gene McBroom (Jeremy Davies, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) is vehemently convinced that a full-fledged war will not break out and that they will be let go soon. However, with the bombings of Laos still classified as top secret, there are not rescue parties coming.