Eric Bana plays a pro-poker player hoping to buy into the World Series. When he meets waitress Drew Barrymore, it’s an excuse for a dreary tutorial on the devil’s picture book and a million poker-as-life metaphors.
Phwoaarrr! Cor! Cop a load of the melons on that! This, at any rate, would seem to be the reaction Charlie’s Angels is intended to provoke among its target audience
Evidently not scripted with Oscar glory in mind, Full Throttle is a frivolous, harmless and profoundly lightweight piece of work chiefly recommended to horny 15-year-old boys
The three leading ladies, display acceptable comic timing and gymnastic prowess, and while the film is undeniably dumb and nonsensical, it clearly has no pretensions otherwise.
Tabloid fame came knocking for Audio Fiction when their drummer rescued Drew Barrymore from a New York bar brawl. Their smokey indie-dance is worth making fuss over too.
He loves Natasha Bedingfield and Charlotte Hatherley, but has no time for Franz Ferdinand, Donnie Darko and hammock-sized bras. Lisa Coen wakes Ian McCulloch from his slumbers and finds the Echo & The Bunnymen legend in wonderfully morose form.
Absolutely pathetic on any number of levels, there is still a playfully awful je ne sais quoi about the film, which somehow compels you to take it to your heart.
This film's crap: let's remake it and score the soundtrack! Belfast production maverick and film buff David Holmes hits Tinseltown on the wave of Ocean's 11
Renowned for his elaborately-posed images of nude figures in public settings, artist Spencer Tunick is hoping Irish people will strip off for him when he visits these shores in June.
It was the hottest ticket in Manhattan – and no wonder. With Goldfrapp, The Strokes, Carl Cox and Kanye West on the bill, this was a gig for people of impeccable taste – all the more so since it was brought together by Hennessy cognac.
Tara Reid shot to fame as amoral trophy wife bunny in The Big Lebowski. Since then she’s become one of the USA’s best-known young female actors, yet her reputation as a party girl has led to some rough treatment at the hands of the press
"There's Denzel Washington behind me with Ethan Hawke beside him, and behind them are Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Connelly. I look to my left and there's David Lynch." Yep, it's just a typical day in the life of an oscar nominee. Brown Bag Films' Darragh O'Connell who, along with Cathal Gaffney, received a nomination for the animated short Give Up Yer Aul Sins, shares his Oscars diary exclusively with hotpress
Can you see the Forrest for the Gump? Can you explain the cultural phenomenon of Steven Seagal in English plain enough for Seagal himself to understand? Did you recognise any of the actors hiding beneath moustaches in Wyatt Earp, Tombstone and Gettysburg? Are you ready for the fourth annual X-mas rated Blow Up Movie Quiz?
Oh, well, give it a go anyway. Now we separate the movie buffs from the people who have got something more interesting to do than spend all day hanging around cinemas and reading Hot Press. Answers can be found on page 99 but anyone caught peeking will have to live with the knowledge that they are a dirty, rotten, good for nothing, low down cheat. Good luck. And remember, this quiz is just like a box of chocolates . . . you’ll feel sick when you’ve finished.
Twelve years since he retired his blood-stained Die Hard vest, Bruce Willis is back for another bite at the franchise. He talks about his see-saw acting career and why he and ex-wife Demi Moore will always be friends.
A chick-flick with attitude, a delicious comedy that’s become a phenomenon in the States, and a journey into the hellish world of teen girl bullying – there are plenty of good reasons why Mean Girls is one of the movies of the year.
DAVID HOLMES is about to leave his native Belfast for New York City, where he will record his third album. STUART BAILIE took a final opportunity to speak to the artist also known as Homer. On the agenda: Hollywood soundtracks, rumours of brawling, past glories and future plans.
Pics: MICHAEL TAYLOR.
This genre-bending film is simultaneously a coming-of-age fairy-tale, a time-travel sci-fi epic, an apocalyptic re-working of Back To The Future, a scathing attack on New American Puritanism and a seething side-swipe at suburban mores
In between stifling yawns at the relentlessly flashy edits, one can expect mucho macho angst, and a Christian allegory so fixated on salvation it could be authored by Mel Gibson’s Free-Presbyterian equivalent.
