More Articles By Ed Hulse

• A Lawyer Walks into a Bar
  INDICAN Street: March 22 Prebook: now > Highly entertaining commentary on lawyers and the legal profession. Although this documentary principally follows six law-school graduates preparing to take their bar exams, it’s laced with seriocomic observations about the legal profession from a variety of commentators: comic actor Michael Ian Black, TV lawyer/journalists Catherine Crier and N... More
  
• Westinghouse
  INECOM Street: April 8 Prebook: March 11 > Unusually absorbing documentary is a must-see for students and history buffs. This fascinating documentary about tycoon George Westinghouse describes his fabulous career at considerable length, going into detail about his partnership with electrical genius Nikola Tesla and his legal wrangling with Thomas Edison. More
  
• P2
  SUMMIT/UNIVERSAL Street: April 8 Prebook: now > Parking plaza stalk-and-torture flick should attract genre fans. An inexpensive, high-concept thriller, P2 offers a rare starring role for American Beauty’s Wes Bentley, playing a psychopathic parking garage attendant who kidnaps a young businesswoman (Rachel Nichols) on Christmas Eve and holds her prisoner in anticipation of some holida... More
  
• Lions for Lambs
  MGM/FOX Street: April 8 Prebook: March 12 > Polemical but lackluster film plays like a star-studded episode of Hardball. A near total embarrassment for producer/director/co-star Robert Redford, this polemical anti-war opus managed to alienate critics and consumers alike during its brief theatrical run. More
  
• Skid Row
  SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: March 25 Prebook: Feb. 26 > A hard-edged doc about L.A.’s meanest street, starring hip-hopper Pras Michel. Hip-hop star Pras Michel (late of The Fugees) takes viewers on a harrowing tour of downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row, which he traverses while disguised as a homeless person. More
  
• Bad Meat
  ARTS ALLIANCE AMERICA Street: March 25 Prebook: Feb. 19 > Gross-out premise isn’t quite enough to put across this so-so comedy. Knucklehead losers Buddy (Lance Barber) and Earl (Billie Worley) kidnap a U.S. Congressman (Chevy Chase, unrecognizable in a toupee and oversized dentures) and hold him for ransom. More
  
• The Living and the Dead
  TLA Street: March 25 Prebook: Feb. 26 > Disturbing thriller convincingly depicts the results of dementia. This film initially promises to be a straightforward, if self-consciously arty exercise in psychological horror, but turns unexpectedly into something more ambiguous. Facing bankruptcy, desperate Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd-Pack) conducts business outside his English estate, unaware... More
  
• The Unseen
  WELL GO USA Street: March 18 Prebook: now > Sincere exploration of human nature’s dark side lacks punch. Though this earnest drama set in the semi-rural South employs some unfortunate stereotypes and trite situations, it remains sufficiently compelling entertainment. The story revolves around African-American teacher Roy Clemens (Steve Harris), who returns to his small Georgia hometow... More
  
• The Sasquatch Gang
  SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: March 18 Prebook: Feb. 19 > Lowbrow comedy will appeal to young male viewers but has little potential outside that niche. In the woods near his house, geeky teen Gavin (Jeremy Sumpter) finds a mammoth footprint that sparks a media frenzy when a famous “Sasquatch” hunter (Carl Weathers) comes to investigate. More
  
• Wristcutters: A Love Story
  LIONSGATE Street: March 25 Prebook: Feb. 27 > Wry black comedy about suicide gives new meaning to the term 'deadpan humor.’ Rom-com conventions are tossed to the winds in this offbeat opus, which finds recent suicide victim Zia (Patrick Fugit) cast into an afterlife that is bleaker than the life he has just departed. More
  
• The Mist: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition
  WEINSTEIN/GENIUS Street: March 25 Prebook: now > King/Darabont’s film on civilization’s cracking veneer would have worked better as a straight monster movie. The collaboration of horror icon Stephen King and writer/director Frank Darabont, which has produced such felicitous results in The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, hits a bit of a bump with this bloated but diverti... More
  
• To Kill a King
  UNION STATION/ANCHOR BAY Street: Feb. 26 Prebook: now > Neatly acted, engrossing period drama from Britain. This talky but powerful period drama plays out against the backdrop of Britain’s 17th century civil war, as Sir Thomas Fairfax (Dougray Scott) works with deputy general Oliver Cromwell (Tim Roth) to dethrone King Charles I (Rupert Everett) but later comes to regret their alliance. More
  
• Alpha Male
  THINKFILM Street: March 18 Prebook: Feb. 21 > Substantive, mature drama is appealing but not easy to follow. Ambitious arthouse fare, Alpha Male deals with the dissolution of seemingly strong family ties following the unexpected death of a charismatic patriarch. Jim Ferris (Danny Huston) is just such a man: a warm, loving husband and father whose wife (Jennifer Ehle) and grown children (Mar... More
  
• B. L. Stryker: The Complete First Season
  ARTS ALLIANCE AMERICA Street: Feb. 26 Prebook: now > Fans of vintage Burt Reynolds should find this appealing. Burt Reynolds returned to network TV for the first time in more than a decade as the star of this 1989-90 series tailored for his style and personality. He plays an ex-New Orleans cop who returns to his native Florida as a private detective, aided by his recently widowed ex-wife (R... More
  
• The Inner Life of Martin Frost
  NEW YORKER Street: Feb. 19 Prebook: now > Self-conscious and unnecessarily confusing film for those who appreciate the offbeat. Novelist Paul Auster wrote and directed this occasionally enticing but generally pretentious reflection on the creative process. David Thewlis plays a burnt out writer who retires to a country home for some much needed R&R, only to wake up the next morning to a... More
  
• Hotel Babylon: Season One
  BBC/WARNER Street: Feb. 12 Prebook: now > This BBC series maintains a level of excellence sure to please fans of Brit TV. Behind-the-scenes chicanery at a posh London hotel animates this BBC series, which premiered in January 2006 and almost immediately acquired a devoted fan base. Most American viewers won’t recognize the regular cast members—Max Beesley, Tamzin Outhwaite and N... More
  
• The Front Line
  BFS Street: Feb. 12 Prebook: now > Well-made, well-acted thriller offers gripping unpredictability. African immigrant Joe Yumba (Eriq Ebouaney), working as a security guard for a Dublin bank, is forced to help psychotic gangster Eddie Gilroy (James Frain), who plans a daring raid on the institution and has kidnapped Joe’s fellow Congolese refugees to ensure his cooperation. More
  
• The Aristocats: Special Edition
  DISNEY Street: Feb. 5 Prebook: now > Entertaining Disney feature doesn’t have the profile of earlier animated classics. Among the last of the classic animated Disney films, Aristocats certainly can’t compare to Snow White, Pinocchio or even 101 Dalmatians, but it still holds up as better-than-average kiddie entertainment. More
  
• The Good Humor Man
  MONARCH Street: Feb. 19 Prebook: Jan. 28 > ’70s-era stoners giggle and then get serious in this dramedy. An offbeat, awkward attempt to emulate Richard Linklater’s teen-angst movies, The Good Humor Man has some good moments but doesn’t entirely click. Nathan Stevens and Lost’s Jorge Garcia play pot-smoking underachievers whose Watergate-era high times come to a scree... More
  
• Poor Boy's Game
  THINKFILM Street: Feb. 19 Prebook: Jan. 24 > A refreshingly offbeat revenge drama with a boxing background. After serving a lengthy prison term for administering a racially motivated beating that left an African-American boy impaired for life, Donnie Rose (Rossif Sutherland) returns to his home town and accepts a challenge from a brutally tough boxer (Flex Alexander) sponsored by his victim... More