[8] Director Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) brings to life the true-life story of Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who is kidnapped and sold into Southern slavery. Northup endures two different owners and many harrowing experiences before attempting to reach out for help from his friends in the North. McQueen succeeds in making very palpable the fear and danger that comes in …
[9] Birdman swoops into cineplexes offering the antidote to superhero hysteria, CGI migraines, and Hollywood’s usual hackneyed, formulaic bullshit. It’s goddamned original, a showcase for skill and craft, and a breath of fresh fucking air. Michael Keaton turns in a career-best performance as a one-time popular film actor who is risking it all to put on a Broadway play. In the span of hours leading …
[7] Paul Muni stars as Emile Zola, the famous French author whose critical writings brought the scorn of the French government, especially when he came out in support of a wrongfully-condemned army officer. The first half of this film, directed by William Dieterle (The Devil and Daniel Webster), offers a high level overview of Zola’s penniless beginnings and his breakthrough success with the novel Nana. …
[4] Around the World in 80 Days is a three-hour-long, episodic adventure that’s high on spectacle and low on story or character. I wager it played better to a 1950s audience interested in seeing a cliche-ridden “It’s a Small World”-like pastiche of world cultures. I wish leading actor David Niven had more to do in his role — it could have really helped the film …
[5] On one hand, I like that Total Recall reminds me of an old-fashioned sci-fi yarn from the ’50s. On the other hand, it’s not quite cheesy enough for me to fully embrace that way. I don’t like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role. He does the film no favors, and I can imagine dozens of other actors who might have helped the movie find …
[8] Christopher Nolan (Inception, Memento) co-writes and directs this emotional sci-fi adventure about a farmer (Matthew McConaughey) who leaves his family during the last generation of human life on Earth, hoping to find a new planet for the species to call home. With the help of a secret rag-tag team of NASA scientists, he makes a two-year voyage to Saturn where a wormhole makes the …
[3] What a shitty Best Picture winner Gigi is. It’s a musical about an unhappy playboy (Louis Jourdan) and an unhappy debutante (Leslie Caron) who fall in love, but then out of love, and back in love, and out, and finally in again. Apparently neither one feels right playing by the rules of Parisian upper-crust society and doing what is expected of them, so they …
[5] Earthquake is one of many disaster films that came out in the early ’70s — the kind where a rag-tag team of waning celebrities band together to get thrown around for a couple of hours. In this one, Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner headline as a married couple on the outs. She’s a pill popper and he’s seeing a young widow (Genevieve Bujold) on …
[4] The third-ever Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ went to this somewhat clunky, melodramatic story spanning three decades in the lives of two British families — one upstairs aristocrats, the other downstairs servants. It may have been one of the most popular films of 1933, but it’s not one to which the passage of time has been particularly kind. Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook play …
[6] Steve McQueen stars as a San Francisco cop charged with protecting a mobster who is about to squeal for a US senator. When the witness is killed, McQueen works around the clock to discern the identity of the killers before the senator has his head. First off, I have to say that was one of the hardest synopses I’ve ever done. Bullitt is a …
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