Joe Pantoliano

Cats & Dogs is ridiculous and harmless, a Mission: Impossible for the animal world. For years, a secret high-tech espionage war has been waged between the feline and canine races, right under the noses of ignorant humans. The spark of this high-tech war came about as the result of the dog race overthrowing the then-dominating cat race during ancient Egyptian times (they even ruled the human race). Man's best friend re-established the humans as the dominant race and has protected that balance for years. And a breakthrough for dogs is approaching, as one human, Professor Brody (Jeff Goldblum), is on the verge of discovering an allergy vaccine which will enable all humans and dogs to co-exist in peace. The only problem is that the diabolic Mr. Tinkle (voiced by Sean Hayes), a furry white Persian with the attitude of Richard Grant's character from Hudson Hawk, and his small army of pesky felines have "cat-knapped" the family dog Buddy, who has been guarding the Professor and his family from the tuna-breathed fiends. The bodyguard job then falls on the shoulders of a Beagle pup named Lou (voiced by Toby Maguire) -- who is mistaken as a secret agent dog by an Anatolian Shepard named Butch (voiced by Alec Baldwin).

Continue reading: Cats & Dogs Review

The hardest thing about an outsider trying to infiltrate a subculture and explain it to the masses is that the truth is often lost in the translation. Toback throws together a huge canvas of characters and actors in attempt to create a clear picture of why white kids are motivated to impersonate black rappers' lifestyles and why rich whit guys treat black rappers like Arnold and Willis from Diff'rent Strokes.

Continue reading: Black And White (1999) Review

Christian Bale stars as Jim, a British kid born in Shanghai, the son of upper crust expatriates who feel the rising tide of Japanese-Chinese aggression will never reach there strata. Of course it does, and as the Japanese overtake Shanghai, Jim's family is torn asunder, scattering in the chaos. But eventually, like Ben-Hur, Jim returns home to discover his house in ruins and his loved ones gone, so he does the only thing he can think of -- surrender to the Japanese. Only the Japanese don't even want the worthless kid, until finally, after hooking up with a seedy scam artist named Basie (John Malkovich) and his flunkie (Joe Pantoliano), does he manage to get himself arrested and thrown into an internment camp where at least there is the promise of a daily potato and some gruel.

Continue reading: Empire Of The Sun Review

About half way through "The Matrix," the ostensibly intellectualand certainly expensive virtual reality sci-fi thriller starring KeanuReeves as a genius hacker, the movie turns suddenly simple, as if a WarnerBros. exec showed up on the set and said "I don't get it. You're gonnahave to dumb this down for me."

The writing-directing team of brothers Larry and Andy Wachowskicomplied, and once the movie peels away the mystery of the world in whichit takes place -- which happens about 40 minutes into the story -- it becomeslittle more than wildly over-produced string of action sequences, pausingonly for the obligatory smarmy remarks made between barrages of fancy weaponsfire.

Continue reading: Matrix Review

David Arquette's escaped-lunitic-on-a-double-espresso style of nitwit comedy is an aquired taste. Or at least I assume it is since I don't find him funny but movie directors continue to cast him and AT&T saw fit to make them their collect-calling spokesman.

He's a one-note Jim Carrey wannabe with a Jerry Lewis IQ and two facial expressions: Half-asleep stoner and vein-popping screaming mimi. He's also a front-runner for Least Convincing Actor Alive, as he frequently seems to be looking desperately toward the camera for approval of over-the-top his antics.

David Arquette is also the star of "Ready To Rumble," a slow-pitch comedy about professional wrestling fans, seemingly made for some niche market of moviegoers that find Pauly Shore pictures too intellectually taxing.

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An unremarkably routine superhero movie based on the cult-favorite comic book about a satanically-costumed blind vigilante, "Daredevil" plays like a C-grade grad project for a night school course called Superhero Filmmaking 101.

Faithful to his inspiration -- the era of "Daredevil" issues written by "Batman" revitalizer Frank Miller and comic-crazy film director Kevin Smith -- in several important details, writer-director Mark Steven Johnson's one stroke of true genius comes in the pulses of fluid, misty, ghostly imagery he uses to depict the sightless crime fighter's enhanced ability to "see" through sound waves and smells.

But most of the picture apes its action style -- and many whole fight scenes -- from last year's "Spider-Man." It has the same ineffectual opening voice-over, the same unconvincingly CGI-assisted rooftop leaping and building-swinging (Daredevil uses a grappling-hook-modified walking cane instead of spider-webbing) and its hero has the same slow-mo back-flip method of dodging weapons thrown by villains.

Continue reading: Daredevil Review