My blood ran cold at a screening at a New York multiplex on a recent evening, when I spotted a poster for a movie marked “Coming Soon.”

I recognized the top half of Steve Martin’s face, then realized he was peeking out of a footprint – a panther’s footprint – make that a pink panther’s footprint.

“Pink Panther 2”? Arrgh. My heart sank. Steve, what were you thinking?

On second thought, I know exactly what he was thinking: “$$$$$$$$.”

Which occasioned thoughts of the generation of stand-up comics of which Martin was a part – and just what a crashing disappointment each of them has been when it comes to their motion-picture output.

I put Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy in the same category as Martin. All three burst forth as comedians, who used TV as a launching pad in the late 1970s and early 1980s. All three had early big hits. And all three have subsequently built movie careers that are long on huge paydays and far too short on huge laughs.  (More…)

I want to stage a film series devoted to nonfiction films about the Iraq war, and here’s why.

Every time a movie that deals with the Iraq war – or even terrorism in the Middle East in general – opens and flops (latest examples: “The Lucky Ones,” “Body of Lies”), someone inevitably writes a story about the fact that virtually all movies that have anything to do with – or are perceived to have something to do with – the Iraq war have been box-office failures.

Somehow, that gets translated into the vague notion that this war isn’t really important. But it’s still going on and it’s still an issue in the upcoming presidential election. And it’s still a wrong war.

Yet the box-office verdict seems to let people off the hook.

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The headline popped up on my homepage, out of the Hollywood Reporter:

“Republicans in Hollywood feel bullied”

The story, dated Monday night, went on to talk about how conservatives and McCain/Palin supporters who work in Hollywood are feeling picked on: “Being outnumbered is one thing,” wrote reporter Paul Bond, “but being bullied by your liberal co-workers into keeping your opinions to yourself is quite another.”

And I thought, “Boo-freakin’-hoo.”

Irony’s a bitch, right? It’s a little like John McCain whining that the Obama campaign is being too mean to him in its TV commercials. (More…)

I’m not a huge fan of “The Secret Life of Bees.” In my review, I praised the performances of Queen Latifah and the other black women in the cast but felt as though Dakota Fanning had been badly directed.

But I see that the film is being tarred with the same brush as Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor” from earlier this year: that it somehow wrongs its black characters by allowing the white characters to learn from them. (More…)

As we begin the sprint through the season when awards-focused movies start dropping from the trees like apples in a windstorm, here’s an overview of what, for me, have been the highlights – and lowlights – of this year’s films so far.

And really – does anyone really think any of the movies really matter before, oh, say, Oct. 1? Sure, it’s all well and good to tout “WALL-E” as a best picture candidate – in June. Because, in June, it probably was the best picture of the year at that point. The same with all this silliness about Heath Ledger and a posthumous Oscar for the drastically overrated “The Dark Knight,” a movie that bears virtually no resemblance to the Frank Miller comic book that introduced the term as a synonym for Batman. Sure, Ledger was good; hell, given Warner Bros.’ willingness to relaunch the film in theaters at the end of the year to hype Heath, he may even score that nomination. (I love Phil Hoffman in “Capote” but Ledger got jobbed when he didn’t win for “Brokeback Mountain.”)
But here, briefly, is a wrap-up of what’s been out there from the start of the year through the beginning of October. (More…)