In the callused hands of director David Mackenzie...the rigorously tough-minded Asylum lives up to its potential as a modern masterpiece of psychological terror. 
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Groucho Reviews
Latest Film Reviews
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Asylum (2005)
In the callused hands of director David Mackenzie...the rigorously tough-minded Asylum lives up to its potential as a modern masterpiece of psychological terror. -
Following Sean (2006)
Without belaboring his narrative shaping, Arlyck asks big questions about life paths and philosophical drift. -
Hoodwinked (2005)
Too seldom clever, too often tiresomely busy, and wasteful of its voice cast, it's Hoodwinked that is the crime. -
Glory Road (2006)
When coach Don Haskins sent out five African-American starters to face off against an all-white Wildcat team, barriers were broken, but Glory Road just hits the wall. -
Tristan + Isolde (2006)
Bypasses the mythic tone of Richard Wagner's opera...without forsaking storybook romance. The inoffensive results get the job done, but sadly fail to excite. -
Hustle & Flow (2005)
Howard's work as Djay is sort of dazzling, but his character's unrelentingly selfish behavior makes audience identification an uphill battle. -
The Matador (2005)
Writer-director Richard Shepard speeds through the hairpin turns of a pure-comedy 'what if?' premise....as quirkily suspenseful as it is ticklish. -
Duma (2005)
Grabs for the gut by stoking primal understandings about our loving but tragically distant relationship with the wild. -
Match Point (2005)
Amounts to little more than an austere and extremely prolonged episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. -
Syriana (2005)
A potent legend of modern international relations. -
The Five Pennies (1959)
A bit of a sprightly-tragic mess, but if one doesn't try to sum up its parts, it's plenty entertaining in a nostalgic, old-movie way. -
Forty Shades of Blue (2005)
Has the plaintive, lyrical feel of a classic Southern short-story. -
Gong fu (Kung Fu Hustle) (2005)
Rock crumbles, wood splinters, and cartoon sound effects yelp in Chow's full-bore looney tune. -
Sueño (2005)
So good-natured and well-intentioned (showcasing as it does up-and-coming Latino bands) that it's tempting to overlook its significant narrative flaws. -
Cartoon Adventures Starring Gerald McBoing Boing (DVD Compilation) (1950)
Rhyming narration and highly-stylized disproportionate designs distinguished the theatrical cartoon[s]....colorful divertissements for kids. -
Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well) (1960)
A startlingly relevant 'social problem film' (shakai-mono)--of its time and our own--and an existential melodrama by way of Hamlet. -
Après vous... (2005)
Pierre Salvadori's consistently engaging Après vous... begins with an interesting situation and complicates it into delightfully excruciating farce. -
Casanova (2005)
A modern romantic comedy movie transplanted to 18th Century Venice...Hallstrom's fleet-footed romp is impossible to take seriously, but that's largely the point. -
Rumor Has It... (2005)
For a movie purportedly about the truth behind a movie, the mushy Rumor Has It... feels astoundingly false. -
Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)
The diminished return of the English striptease comedies...neither swanky nor funny enough to entertain, and Sherman's shallow script never earns its melodramatic turns. -
Munich (2005)
The man's increasingly crazifying attempts to make serious films are still nothing more than good movies. Perhaps only Spielberg could fail so spectacularly well. -
The Short Films of David Lynch (DVD Compilation) (2002)
From whence comes a filmmaker as original and strange as David Lynch? -
Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
Starts out as a nifty satire, then turns ghastly for most of its running time. -
Cheaper By the Dozen (2003)
Cheaper By the Dozen--inspired by the book by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey and a 1950 screenplay by Lamar Trotti--has all the comic sensibility of a food fight. In reality,... -
Airplane! (2005)
Unprecedented nonsense that--fashions aside--will remain timeless comedy cinema. [new DVD review] -
DumbLand (WWW) (2004)
"Dumbland is a crude, stupid, violent, and absurd series. If it is funny, it is funny because we see the absurdity of it all." —David Lynch
What happens when a world-class film director thro... -
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
It's difficult enough for filmmakers to make great films from great novels, but cinema's short history has seen plenty of fine adaptations. Hollywood's failure to make more than a handful of satisfac... -
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
Stands out for its sheer audacity of subject matter and its sustained emotional-roller-coaster effect: it's quite possibly the most high-strung movie ever made. -
The Red Tent (1971)
An unusual and rich blend of epic film and memory play. -
The Glass Shield (1995)
The film's ambition makes Burnett's occasional overstatement easy to forgive. -
The Escape Artist (1982)
Offers plenty to appeal to children and adults, and the clever ending delivers one more treat to pay off the story's tricks. -
The Batman/Superman Movie (V) (1997)
Essentially, The Batman/Superman Movie is an action comedy, a superhero "buddy picture"...this eventful superhero adventure delivers twice the fun. -
Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt (TV) (2003)
Fans of the series will be hooked, if not thoroughly delighted, and others may prove unable to resist the train-wreck spectacle...unabashedly cheesy but 100% mesmerizing. -
creature comforts—The Complete First Season (TV) (2003)
"The Great British Public" says the darndest things....creature comforts tickles most effectively in its small doses, but its cleverness and craft are undeniable. -
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)
Fans will be positively enthralled at the well-preserved nuggets, and neophytes will understand the fuss over the musician and the man. -
Taxi—The Complete Third Season (TV) (1980)
Sometimes resembled a weekly Neil Simon play...but James Brooks' celebrated brilliance with emotional storylines also justified experiments in the absurd and satirical. -
Frasier—The Complete Sixth Season (TV) (1998)
Frasier was a series that enjoyed dabbling in farce, and the sixth season includes some relatively simple farcical gestures...as well as full-blown efforts. -
Cheers—The Complete Seventh Season (TV) (1988)
A typical season of Cheers, which is to say 'excellent.' -
Enterprise: The Complete Third Season (TV) (2003)
Occasionally hit the heights of Trek feature-film action, and often used the plot to ask the moral questions that have been Trek's raison d'être on TV. -
Enterprise: The Complete Second Season (TV) (2002)
Repetition is what sent longtime Trek fans packing...[but the] season does muster a number of good episodes...while maintaining its high quality of production value.