Films featuring
Tony Shaloub

Men in Black

Did anything about that seem odd to you?

The success of this movie, creatively as much as commercially, is down to a triumph of casting. Of course, they had Will Smith, fresh off his breakthrough role in Independence Day, but that coup carries some hazards. Smith’s high-energy presence can dominate and unbalance a movie if allowed, requiring an actor of equal weight and with a complementary presence to even the scales. Thus, pairing Smith with the deadpan Tommy Lee Jones is half the key to the success of Men in Black.

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1408

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1408 seems to prove the existing axiom that, when adapting Stephen King to the screen, restraint trumps excess almost every time. The best adaptations of the author’s work, The Dead Zone, Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, eschew raw grand guignol gore for the rich characterizations that exemplify King’s best writing. Ninety-percent of the disposable films bearing his name are guilty of the same crime, namely tossing overboard the elements that raise even mediocre King stories above the genre’s normally low standards.

1408

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The Siege

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Viewed through a post-9/11 prism, Edward Zwick’s The Siege seems at times both impossibly naïve and uncomfortably prescient. Ultimately, however, this movie is more effective as postulation than it is as a narrative, smarter about its subject matter than about its story. Whatever points it scores are undermined by shallow, clichéd characters and a stock, predictable ending.

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Galaxy Quest

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Original Star Trek cast member George Takei has allegedly said that Galaxy Quest is more true to the spirit of the TV show than any of the other theatrical movies based on the 60s TV series. While I wouldn’t hold it up against Wrath of Khan, this affectionate 1999 spoof is definitely a better Trek film than any of the odd-numbered entries in the franchise.

Galaxy Quest fits a spot-on satire of virtually the entire Trek phenomenon, from the show itself to the actors and the fans, into a tight 102-minute running time. The designs of the ships, the costumes and the sets veers just far enough from the source material for the filmmakers to avoid being eaten alive by a horde of ravenous Paramount lawyers.

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Quick Change

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Quick Change is probably the least famous of the good Bill Murray movies. This is a grown-up, more cynical version of the Murray characters from movies like Stripes and Ghostbusters. He’s Grimm, a fed-up city planner for New York City and he’s decided to get out of town with his girlfriend, Phyllis (Geena Davis), and best friend, Loomis (Randy Quaid). First, however, he’s going to rob a bank.

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