Email Author Manohla Dargis

1998 Stories by Manohla Dargis

• Days of Hell

  published December 31, 1998

  Photo by Merie W. WallaceThe Thin Red Line opens with the image of a crocodile slithering into the water and closes with a still life of... More >>

• The Storyteller

  published December 31, 1998

  Photo by Kathleen ClarkPaul Schrader once said that his script for Taxi Driver "jumped out of my head like an animal." Then as now, you... More >>

• Holy Moses!

  published December 24, 1998

  Courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. This is a tough one for any Mammon-driven Hollywood studio,... More >>

• The Delicate Delinquent

  published December 17, 1998

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• Blood Brothers

  published December 10, 1998

  Photo by Melissa MoseleyTwo small-town brothers and one of their friends find a bag full of money in the woods and decide to keep it. No small... More >>

• Whatever

  published December 3, 1998

  Photo by Robert ZuckermanMore and more, American cinema seems populated with either saints or sinners; what’s missing is any sense that movi... More >>

• They Lost it at the Movies

  published November 26, 1998

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• Skin Deep

  published November 5, 1998

  Currently moviegoers can either indulge in the Holocaust kitsch of Life Is Beautiful or take in a Stephen King lesson in Nazi venality in Apt... More >>

• Over the Rainbow

  published October 29, 1998

  In writer-director Gary Ross' Pleasantville, a teenage boy and his sluttish twin sister are transported - by Don Knotts, wearing a TV repairman's... More >>

• The Atrocity Exhibition

  published October 22, 1998

  Part One: By now, even if you've never heard of Todd Solondz or his well-received first feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse, you may be aware that... More >>

• What Makes Ben Stiller?

  published October 15, 1998

  It is three weeks before the Permanent Midnight opening, two weeks before the MTV awards show. This morning, Stiller flew solo at a 10 a.m.... More >>

• What Makes Ben Stiller?

  published October 15, 1998

  One weekend last month, while in Toronto to publicize his latest movie, Permanent Midnight, Ben Stiller gave 35 television interviews and five... More >>

• Hypeless in Toronto

  published September 24, 1998

  TORONTO, SEPTEMBER 14 - Midway through the 23rd Toronto International Film Festival, the big news is just how little genuine news, modest or... More >>

• No Easy Pieces

  published August 27, 1998

  When did American movies get so sexless? In movie after movie, it's the same: a man, a woman, discreet lighting, no bad angles; as with happy... More >>

• What Makes Stella Run?

  published August 20, 1998

  In How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Angela Bassett flips her braids and keeps her poise as Whoopi Goldberg all but steals the movie out from... More >>

• De Palma

  published August 13, 1998

  For the first 14 minutes or so of Brian De Palma's new movie, Snake Eyes, the camera swoops uninterrupted through a cavernous boxing arena,... More >>

• Adrian Lyne:

  published July 30, 1998

  Nearly three years after it was completed, and some 10 months after it premiered in European movie theaters, Adrian Lyne's Lolita arrives on... More >>

• Idiots Delight

  published July 23, 1998

  Recently, a publicist who works at a movie studio asked me if I would fax her a quote. Earlier in the day, I'd left her an enthusiastic phone... More >>

• Falling Rock

  published July 9, 1998

  Calibrated for maximum impact, the action movie has become Hollywood's answer to extreme sports. Apparently, it is no longer enough to put the... More >>

• With a Bullet

  published July 2, 1998

  Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight is a sexy, funny, cool breeze of a film, the kind of effortless Hollywood entertainment we haven't seen much of... More >>

• The Truth Is Out There

  published June 25, 1998

  There's a scene in the big-screen version of the television show The X-Files when Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), the good-looking FBI agent with a... More >>

• Female Trouble

  published June 11, 1998

  Surely one of the most bizarre dispatches from Hollywood recently was the news that director Gus Van Sant is planning to re-make Alfred... More >>

• A Blow to the Head

  published June 4, 1998

  One of the easily foretold truths about the Festival International du Film, as the Cannes film festival is properly called, is that at any time of... More >>

• Head Trip

  published May 14, 1998

  "The hierarchy of hell is tremendously important," a woman remarks casually in the second installment of Lars von Trier's medical burlesque,... More >>

• Hard Times

  published May 7, 1998

  PUBLIC HOUSINGDirected, edited and produced by FREDERICK WISEMANPhotographed by JOHN DAVEYFilmForum at... More >>