 Pulse: The Internet is populated by ghosts. Their presence on the network helps make human beings, who have turned to the net for the illusion of community and companionship that it offers, even more isolated and aware of their fundamental solitude in the universe. People are disappearing from Tokyo, leaving Hiroshima shadows as vestiges of their loneliness. And the world as we know it may be crashing, hacked from within the network by the lonesome spirits of all those who are already dead. B
 Shaolin Soccer: Shaolin Soccer is a great title for a movie, while Kung Fu Soccer, as Miramax has decided to rechristen it for the U.S. market, is pretty lame. However, with something more than the usual perfunctory marketing campaign, this could wind up being a cult success by any name. B+
The Mothman Prophecies: The American way of dying.C+
ON DVD: Fudoh: A simple, even clichéd, gangster yarn thats peppered with enough deviant sex and graphic violence to nonetheless qualify as a singular experience. B+
ON DVD: City of Lost Souls: A well-dressed crime drama with an undercurrent of profound sadness. B+
 Storytelling: The level of self-consciousness on display is overwhelming and ingratiating. The issue here is how a filmmaker treats his subjects, and whether its possible to make a movie with the best intentions yet still come across as condescending in the end. Director Todd Solondz has made a movie about critical reaction to his two previous movies, and about his responsibility to the characters that he creates. B
 Shiri: The title of the film refers to a type of fish that lives only in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, and indeed Shiri qualifies as a political thriller. But it boasts an uncharacteristic amount of sentiment and even sweetness for a thriller; it seems to take cues from John Woo, who has a similar knack for infusing hard-boiled action with bald melodrama. B-
 Birthday Girl: Nicole Kidman holds the film together with a supremely kittenish performance that gradually accumulates more layers. Its not a meaty role to play, but Kidman consummates it. You may not even stop to wonder if it wouldnt have been better to hire an actual Russian to play a Russian, rather than this ubiquitous Australian. B-
 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: A marvel. Director Peter Jackson’s exuberance is evident in nearly every frame. He invests the film with a kind of gravity that's vanished from Hollywood filmmaking over the past years, eschewing anachronistic wisecracks and knowing nods at the audience and placing his faith in the timelessness of a story well told. A-
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Press Clips (Updated 10/14/01)
"At a certain point, you realize you're in with the wrong people. Their thinking process is very foreign to me. They like a fast pace and a linear story, but you want your creations to come out of you, and be distinctive. I feel it's possibly true that there are aliens on earth, and they work in television."
David Lynch, on ABC abandoning Mulholland Dr.
Quoted in "Creative Differences" by Tad Friend
The New Yorker, August 30, 2024
 
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