Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:38:39 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss John Devore :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/John+Devore istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/lets-get-ready-to-rumble-again/68938/ Fri, 4 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST In 1989, the proto-reality television show "American Gladiators," on which everyday citizens competed in futuristic games against athletic Samsons, premiered in syndication. Now, 18 years later, it is being resurrected by NBC, one of many desperate networks scurrying to fill a programming void left by Hollywood's striking writers. The return of "American Gladiators" recalls a simpler, headier time: A wiser, wimpier Bush was in office, a defeated Russia licked its wounds, a victory in Iraq... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/dying-hard-doesnt-come-so-easy-anymore/57358/ Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST The third sequel in the excessively violent, R-rated "Die Hard" movie series, "Live Free or Die Hard," is rated PG-13, which is an open invitation for parents to attend with their tween and teen broods. Here's what they'll learn about the PG-13 rating: So long as a film eschews sex, hard-core curse words, and cigarette smoking, filmmakers can weave a tapestry of brutal, wall-to-wall violence. Dozens of innocents and bad guys are dispatched — bullet-ridden, charbroiled, or in pieces — to their... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/it-may-not-be-history-but-its-part-of-history/55272/ Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 EST Just a friendly note to the programming executives over at the History Channel who green-lit the new documentary "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed": George Lucas's epic popcorn crash course in Western civilization is a work of fiction. The only legacy revealed in this exhausting, self-aggrandizing DVD advertisement is that the "Star Wars" movies will endure as timeless archetypal myths, a veritable fact of nature repeated over and over again. Seeing as this weekend marks the 30th anniversary of... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/here-he-comes-to-save-the-day/46537/ Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 EST In the opening episodes of the highly anticipated new season of Fox's "24," super secret agent Jack Bauer's release from a Chinese prison is negotiated by the American government, and the battered hero is asked to make a sacrifice for his country, that sacrifice being … well, I can't tell you, lest the public relations department of Los Angeles's Counterterrorism Unit cut off my reviewing fingers. What I can divulge is this: "24" returns with all the heart-pounding, anxiety-inducing urgency of... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/rocky-answers-the-final-bell/45496/ Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST If you buy a ticket to "Rocky Balboa," the fifth sequel to 1976's classic, oft-parodied underdog flick, and you find yourself loathing this tale of an over-the-hill pugilist getting in the ring for one last fight, then it's your own fault for buying the ticket. After all, unless you've spent the last 30 years meditating atop a Himalayan mountain, you know what to expect: a noble doofus defying the odds, drinking raw eggs, training to Bill Conti's discoage anthem "Gonna Fly Now." The only... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/cinemas-oldest-good-guy-is-bad-again/43708/ Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:00:00 EST In their reviews for the new James Bond prequel, "Casino Royale," hack critics will no doubt write that Bond is back. But not this hack critic, no sir: Bond is, in fact, better than he's ever been. Ian Fleming's love letter to Cold War British hooliganism has finally been realized in a movie that offers up a 007 utterly faithful to the author's intent. As the new Bond, Daniel Craig is a thuggish gorilla trained to wear a tuxedo and chomp caviar so he can infiltrate high society with a Walther... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/everything-new-is-old-again/43494/ Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:00:00 EST Thomas Wolfe may have felt strongly about never being able to go home again, but to filmmakers and Hollywood executives there is creative and box office salvation in returning to the beginnings of a popular movie franchise. In the neverending quest to sell tickets, the movie "prequel" (a word that somehow never sounds right) is becoming a box office force — a trend that seems to please popcorn junkies and showbiz suits looking for a safe bet. Just ask 007, who simultaneously returns to theaters... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/stupid-human-tricks/40147/ Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST Groucho Marx once said: "Comedy is when you slip on a banana peel; tragedy is when I slip on a banana peel." If Groucho were alive today, he might have revised that statement to read: "Comedy is when Johnny Knoxville gets gored by a rampaging bull; tragedy is when I get gored by a rampaging bull." The "number two" in "Jackass: Number Two" refers to it being a sequel to 2002's gross-out Grand Guignol, as well as a warning that a certain fecal substance that is the high-water mark of adolescent... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/cops-and-killers-battle-in-baltimore/39344/ Fri, 8 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST The fourth season of HBO's cop drama "The Wire" is, simply, television at its best. And that statement isn't just hack critic boilerplate: Television is now minting hour-long dramas of such unusual quality, you'd think the lunatics had finally taken over the asylum. Luckily for couch jockeys, the lunatics in question appear to be a generation's worth of writers, directors, actors, and producers who treat the medium like an art form; it's by the grace of their talent that we can flee the sallow... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/ferrell-satisfies-his-need-for-speed/37334/ Fri, 4 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST If the new Will Ferrell NASCAR mashup movie "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" were a drinking game in which a sip is taken for every flashing product placement, and a guzzle for every lingering one, inebriation would set in around the half-hour mark. But even without buckets of laugh-enabling alcohol, it's a movie with enough genuine chuckles that the cacophony of consumerism is almost muted. Essentially a public relations campaign for NASCAR masquerading as a late-summer event... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/have-a-nice-day/36462/ Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST New Jersey should try to secure Kevin Smith as its state mascot and spokesman. In a little over a decade of making movies, in his move from indie darling to broadcasting mini-mogul, Mr. Smith has staked Jersey as his Lake Wobegon, his Yoknapatawpha County. In "Clerks II" — the rude, hilarious sequel to 1994's "Clerks" — Mr. Smith suggests that in Jersey's suburbia, thou shalt find salvation. Mr. Smith has bookended his career thus far with the scrappy indie hit "Clerks" and now the craven... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/life-quixotic-with-owen-wilson/36088/ Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST In the new flick "You, Me, and Dupree," the shaggy haired blond and one-time indie movie icon Owen Wilson stars as a charming yet frustrating man-child with a Zen-like heart. Down on his luck, this free spirit imposes himself on his best friend, Carl (Matt Dillon), and his new wife, Molly (Kate Hudson), prompting all manner of alleged hilarity. Will devil-may-care Dupree loosen the uptight newlyweds? The question is answered, of course, but by the time the credits roll, the film feels like the... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/masquerading-as-mexicans/34541/ Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST In "Nacho Libre," rotund comic Jack Black plays a Mexican monk with a secret passion for Lucha Libre, a brand of wrestling that makes its American counterpart seem bland. Of course, Mr. Black is Caucasian, but hipster director Jared Hess pays some penance by casting the rest of the flick with Latino actors of all shapes and sizes. Being a Texan with a Mexican-American mother, I wasn't as upset as I thought I'd be that a well-known gringo was attacked with shoe polish in the film. The movie's... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/killing-off-the-mutants/33411/ Fri, 26 May 2006 00:00:00 EST Hollywood often seems to encourage mediocrity in it's effects-laden blockbusters. But even if X-Men: The Last Stand doesn't live up to the standards of what went before it, Brett Ratner's new production does earn a gold star for "average." The concluding chapter in the operatic mutant trilogy bellows and thunders, but without any arias or crescendos, it's just a lot of noise. And normally, that's all that one can reasonably expect from a summer movie. Unfortunately, the first two movies in this... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/resuscitating-cruise/32195/ Fri, 5 May 2006 00:00:00 EST It was an impossible mission indeed: to rescue Hollywood's most bankable marquee name from the tabloid wilderness. And "Mission: Impossible III" does return a little luster to Tom Cruise's falling star. But it takes a lot of spit and polish to put the shine back, and no expense was spared. This is a major studio pulling out all the stops, hell-bent on making you thank them for putting on the show at the cheap, cheap price of $10.50 a ticket. A budget that must match the GDP of a third world... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/secret-agents-shouldnt-have-secrets/31377/ Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST The new political thriller "The Sentinel" is a taut, twisty, and gloriously improbable flick. It won't win any Oscars, but this cross between "In the Line of Fire" and "The Fugitive" will entertain a grown-up crowd. The star-studded cast is led by Michael Douglas, who plays secret agent Pete Garrison. Wrongly accused of plotting to assassinate the president, Garrison also happens to be fooling around with the first lady, played by Kim Basinger. "The Sentinel" opens with an inside peek at how... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/sincerest-form-of-flattery/30599/ Fri, 7 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST A movie that casts Morgan Freeman and Sir Ben Kingsley as rival mob bosses can't be all bad. And the new slapstick noir film "Lucky Number Slevin" isn't all bad; it just happens to be not all that good, either. As long as your expectations aren't too high, this movie won't disappoint. And there is a lot of good, especially if you like your whodunits sexy, quirky, and ultra-violent. "Slevin" has a fantastic ensemble, and not just its Academy Award winners, Messrs. Freeman and Kingsley. Granted... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/going-the-distance/28531/ Fri, 3 Mar 2006 00:00:00 EST The new urban cop drama "16 Blocks" is the smartest Hollywood buddy film in a long time. Directed by big budget veteran Richard Donner - of "Lethal Weapon" fame - it's not as taut as it wants to be, but it also doesn't try to lull the audience with lazy action movie conceits. Instead it tries to win the audience over with a gritty morality tale presented intensely by an inspired Mos Def and top-notch Bruce Willis. The movie's plot is simple, in keeping with its "Serpico"-like story of police... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/astounding-king-kong-thats-bigger-than-life/24339/ Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST Let's get this out of the way: Peter Jackson's remake of the groundbreaking 1933 classic "King Kong" has embarrassingly bad dialogue, questionable character development, and moments of laugh-out-loud preposterousness. It's basically "Titanic" for teenage boys. But like that film, it's a three-hour epic stuffed to the gills with spectacle, emotion, and special effects that will seize you and make you believe the fantasy flickering on screen. This "King Kong" is a lot of movie. It's hardly ever... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/family-matters-in-the-wild-west/22218/ Fri, 28 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST "The Mask of Zorro" was a worthy addition to the post-"Raiders of the Lost Ark" genre of pseudo-serials, which also includes movies like "The Mummy" and last year's underrated "Sahara." "The Legend of Zorro" doesn't live up to its predecessor, but it does deliver, on a significantly reduced budget, the memory of what made it such a pleasing Hollywood bauble: grandiose Southwestern landscapes, evil villains, preposterous derring-do, and seductively cheesy star power. After all, it was the... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/die-hard-with-a-ninja/10462/ Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST The new thriller "Hostage" tries so hard to please, you'll end up forgiving its many contrivances and general preposterousness. You can practically see the filmmakers sweating in every reel, hoping the ticket holder will be pleased. And, in the end, it is hard to dislike a movie that pulls out all the stops to tell the story of a former LAPD cop, fallen from grace, who battles hoodlums and a shadowy corporation/crime syndicate to save not one, but two, imperiled families. A production of the... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/cheery-crew-of-cartoons-made-flesh/6768/ Fri, 24 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST None of the current generation of youngsters who will see the big-budget movie adaptation of "Fat Albert" would be able to recognize the zaftig North Philly hero, chances are. Yet the children I saw it with were interested in the group of inner-city misfits. Bill Cosby's appeal is timeless, it seems, and even though this film is sometimes unbearably precious, and unforgivably corny, it has an earnest sweetness about it that is ultimately charming. One irony of Mr. Cosby's vast and successful... John DeVore http://www.nysun.com/arts/true-american-masterpiece/6492/ Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Let's get this out of the way: Martin Scorsese deserves an Oscar - and not one of those Lifetime Achievement ones, when Hollywood sheepishly thanks a giant of cinema retroactively, embarrassed that they had neither the imagination nor the courage celebrate them in their prime. And so, members of the Academy please give Martin Scorsese the best director award this year for "The Aviator", a powerfully entertaining film that everything a Hollywood movie should be. Mr. Scorsese is the last... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/bringing-back-scary/6441/ Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST When I was 7, I had a guinea pig named "Ms. Brownie" whom I left in a box under the summer sun because I thought she could use some air. When I found her baked like a biscuit, I was distraught, inconsolable. My older brother cooed, "Don't worry, John. We'll just buy you a new one." This was my first exposure to death and life's cruelties, and I dealt with it. Somewhere between that moment in the mid-1980s and today, the world seems to have been shrink-wrapped to protect children against life's... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/subtraction-by-addition/6138/ Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Sitting through "Ocean's Twelve" is like watching a star-studded, globe-hopping, $85 million party from behind an electrified velvet rope. Less a cohesive film than a celebrity picture book, Steven Soderbergh's sequel to his remake of the fluffy 1960 Rat Pack film "Ocean's 11" swaps plot for glamour and glitz. While that's not a bad thing - "Ocean's Twelve" can be intoxicating, like a sugar rush to the head - it's a steep step down from the, er, original. In "Ocean's 11" Mr. Soderbergh and crew... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/keeping-up-with-the-scrooges/5364/ Wed, 24 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST The Christmas film is a genre as old as screwball or noir, and it has given us some of the finest moments in cinema - from George Bailey giddily running down a snow-lined street in "It's a Wonderful Life," to the hero of "A Christmas Story" shooting his eye out with a prized gift. But for every treasured classic, there are dozens of crass train wrecks like "Christmas With the Kranks," a new film that should make Scrooges of even the most die-hard Yuletide junkies. Based on John Grisham's novel... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/now-just-where-did-those-masons-put-that-money/5118/ Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Jerry Bruckheimer's newest family friendly action romp, "National Treasure," is a gilded treat, the equivalent of chocolate gold coins. It's hardly the high-end Bruckheimer booty that "Pirates of the Caribbean" - a surprise hit, but a deserving one - was. But it might satisfy fans anxiously awaiting "The Da Vinci Code's" big screen de but. And it will keep the attention of cynical tweens, and make parents feel that they'd played a hand in making history fun. Even if none of it is true. Like the... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/diamonds-in-the-rough/4743/ Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Don't be put off by the cable-movie title or the cheesy marketing that sells it as an oversexed cops and robbers flick. "After the Sunset" (or as I like to call it: "Night") is a romantic comedy, a buddy picture, and a classy heist flick, all mixed up and served with umbrellas in a coconut shell. Pierce Brosnan always looks happiest when he's not burdened by 007's increasingly ludicrous CGI stunts, and in "After the Sunset" the hirsute Irishman (also acting as producer) has a ball playing one... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/neo-neo-realism/4555/ Wed, 10 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Once my parents assured me that I'd still be receiving presents, I got over the whole Santa thing pretty quickly. So it was with a cynic's attitude that I saw "The Polar Express," the new computer-animated Christmas phantasmagoria directed by Robert Zemeckis. And while it's certainly not a Yuletide film for the ages, it's winning enough to satisfy children and parents for at least this season. Chances are, you know "The Polar Express" as a children's book that's been read to you, or that you've... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/familiar-frightening-ring/3659/ Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST The new fright film "The Grudge" is exactly like "The Ring" - not to mention that film's Japanese original, "Ringu," and its sequel, "Ringu 2." "The Grudge" is also, naturally, very much like it's own Japanese original, "Ju-On: The Grudge," not to mention that film's sequel, "Ju-On: The Grudge 2." And you know what? That's a good thing. Unlike American horror movies, moralizing affairs with a blood fetish that celebrate killers and luxuriates in the terror of a put-upon female, this breed of... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/another-soggy-situation-youve-gotten-us-into/2572/ Fri, 1 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST "Finding Nemo" it ain't. After strutting its stuff this summer with the smart and rambunctious anti-fairy tale "Shrek 2," Dream-Works Animation now serves up "Shark Tale," and it smells like, well, yesterday's catch. The studio, which plans to go public, better revise that prospectus. An uninspired, undersea romp with jokes that could have been written by Jay Leno's gag men a decade ago, "Shark Tale" seems cynically conceived to hook children who love Pixar's "Nemo" but can't wait another month... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/creeping-out-the-breeders/2246/ Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Sitting through the thriller "The Forgotten," it's hard for a critic not to compose the pithy quote: "'The Forgotten' is forgettable!" It's always a plus when movies write their own reviews. But the truth is, while "The Forgotten" is little more than an extended episode of the "X-Files," it's an excellent episode deserving of an Emmy. Cast in the mold of high-end spooky movies like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Ring," "The Forgotten" is a scary story designed to creep out parents. It asks the... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/corny-enduring-unforgettable/1858/ Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST The first image you see in the utterly bizarre retro fantasy epic "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is of the fictional Hindenburg III. The spectral zeppelin coasts through a forest of searchlights towards the Empire State Building, to moor there. The dreamy visual is both familiar and alien - the designers of the famed skyscraper actually did include a mooring mast for just such a purpose - and it succeeds in conjuring a time when the future was a nearby frontier filled with hope... JOHN DEVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/noirs-back-on-form/1567/ Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST 'Criminal," a sun-drenched noir with a circuitous plot from first-time director Gregory Jacobs, is another example of a low-budget movie that's worth the price of regular admission. Like the well-crafted teen drama "Mean Creek," "Criminal" is surprising for many reasons - number one being that late-summer indie flicks usually fail to deliver on their promise and potential. These anti-blockbusters are marked by casts of up-and-coming or overlooked Hollywood talent, feature first time directors... JOHN DeVORE http://www.nysun.com/arts/two-new-takes-on-a-familiar-film-genre/600/ Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST You might expect "Mean Creek" to be the usual sub-par teenage romp that pops up at the end of the summer blockbuster season, full of scatological jokes, borderline chaste titillation, and actors in their 20s acting like teenagers. Expect to be surprised. Directed by first-timer Jacob Estes, "Mean Creek" is an award decorated indie about a group of teenagers in the American Gothic backwoods who commit a terrible crime, then try to deal with the guilt and consequences. It's a reinvention of...