Have you ever thought, "Gee, I wish I had a headache?" Wish no more. Just pop in Tony Scott's jarringly edited, borderline incoherent, torturously hip, and awkwardly postmodern Domino (New Line). The usually wonderful Keira Knightley stars as a real-life bounty hunter with a yen for self-aggrandizement in a film that dares to push the boundaries between fiction and reality until nobody watching could possibly care. When even Christopher Walken and Tom Waits can't redeem a movie, nothing can…
Chris Columbus' adaptation of Rent (Sony) doesn't sink just because of the inherent problems of converting a stagebound Broadway hit into cinema. Nor is it a problem that the "diseased New York bohemians at the end of the '80s" milieu is hopelessly dated, since Jonathan Larson's theatrical version wasn't all that historically accurate in the first place. No, what makes Rent the movie an all-time howler is that the source material is by drama geeks for drama geeks. Brechtian distancing techniques and angsty hand-wringing about selling out look especially silly in close-up…
In the rush to remake every J-horror buzz-magnet for American audiences, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's terrifying Pulse got caught in the shuffle as Miramax waited (and waited) for a Wes Craven version. Magnolia eventually rescued it from the shelves, and now it comes to DVD just before Jim Sonzero's remake finally hits theaters. J-horror has suffered a creative slump of late, but Kurosawa's film is still a chillingly potent look at the tech-fueled anxieties of the younger generation…
Director Niki Caro earned high praise but no Oscars for her effortless, lovely 2002 fable Whale Rider, so she swung for the bleachers with her history-based follow-up. North Country (Warner Bros.) stars Charlize Theron as the Minnesota miner who launched the first successful class-action sexual-harassment suit; her story is heavy-handed but compelling, though several side plots, including one involving Frances McDormand as a degenerating disease victim, just feel gratuitous and Oscar-baity. It worked: Theron and McDormand both made the running for Academy Awards this year…
Have you fallen helplessly in love with the boyish charm of teen snowboarding legend Shaun "The Flying Tomato" White over the course of the Winter Olympics? Then you're the ideal audience for First Descent (Universal), an affectionate, soft-headed snowboarding documentary in the Stacy Peralta mold—it prominently features White and other giants attacking some of the world's most formidable peaks.