MOVIE REVIEW: ALL THE KING’S MEN

The ability of power to corrupt even the most decent and humble of men has long provided grist for some of America’s most talented writers. Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize for his compelling tale of Willie Stark, the fictional governor of Louisiana who tried to ride a populist facade to the White House. Warren’s “All The King’s Men” was made into a superior, Oscar-winning political film drama in the 1950’s. Now Steve Zallian, the outstanding screenwriter of “Schindler’s List” and writer/director of “Searching For Bobby Fischer,” has delivered a new version of this story to the screen. Despite a tremendously talented cast, something is missing.

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MOVIE REVIEW: THE BLACK DAHLIA

In Hollywood, consistency of effort is often an illusion. A director who turns out a great film one year can’t always repeat the same trick the next year. Even with a strong cast of talented actors and a well written script, the movie can go off track, taking the director’s career with it. As Brian DePalma shows in his adaptation of James Elroy’s novel “The Black Dahlia,” opening this weekend, there’s good DePalma and bad DePalma. This film, sadly, represents the latter.

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Beerfest

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

Bubbling up in theatres nationwide beginning 8/25/2006

Hollywood may be the place where (per William Goldman), “Nobody knows anything.” However, one thing you can be sure of is that when there is a mid-level sleeper hit, within a year there will be a slew of imitators all exactly duplicating their predecessor in everything but spontaneity, creativity, and originality. The first demon spawn of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is Beerfest, the latest effort from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe.

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