[4] Debra Winger plays a federal investigator on the trail of a ‘black widow,’ a woman (Theresa Russell) who marries and murders one rich man after another, collecting inheritances as she goes. It’s great to see Debra Winger in anything, even if she’s under-utilized. Under-utilization is actually a recurring theme in the making of Black Widow. Russell’s mysterious character is also under-written. Supporting players the …
[6] In this dream-like film from director Juan López Moctezuma, a teenaged girl named Justine goes to live at a convent after the death of her parents. Unfortunately, her nun roommate, Alucarda, turns out to be a satanic lesbian with slightly vampiric tendencies. How the nuns missed the warning signs, we’ll never know. But after Alucarda takes Justine to a devil orgy in the woods …
[7] Jakob M. Erwa directs his own adaptation of Andreas Steinhöfel’s novel about a 17-year-old who returns from summer camp to find his hedonistic mother and twin sister have become uncomfortably distant. At the same time, he enters into his first romantic relationship with the new boy at school and seeks the aid of close family friends and his mother’s latest boyfriend to help him figure …
[5] Sylvia Sidney (Madame Butterfly, Sabotage) plays a rich girl smitten with a drunkard. Fredric March co-stars as her somewhat charming but sobriety-challenged lover, effectively doing a dry-run for the type of role for which he’d receive an Oscar nomination five years later with A Star is Born. Despite the warnings of her father (George Irving) and friends, Sidney marries March and things go as …
[8] Chameleon master craftsman Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend) staked a name for himself and elevated low-budget film noir to new levels of respectability with his Hitchcockian suspense yarn Double Indemnity. The film, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, stars Fred MacMurray as an L.A. insurance salesman who conspires with an unhappy housewife, played by Barbara Stanwyck, to collect a massive insurance payout …
[4] Ten years before he picked up Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Richard Gere played a ho himself in American Gigolo. As a male ‘chauffeur’, Gere’s plenty pretty to look at, aided by an array of Armani suits and moody cinematography by John Bailey. He even gives us a sustained full-frontal shot. But the fantasy fulfillment element of American Gigolo quickly dissolves into a tedious, …
[8] Indie maverick John Cassavetes examines a family under the stress of mental illness in A Woman Under the Influence. Cassavetes regulars Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands (his real-life wife) star as the parents of three children whose family is put to the test when Falk has Rowlands institutionalized for insanity. After six months of therapy and shock treatment, the matriarch returns — but will …
[7] Two years after his wife Gillian (Michelle Pfeiffer) died in a boating accident, David (Peter Gallagher) keeps her alive in his imagination through nightly frolics and conversations on the beach at night. As family and friends come together to celebrate what would have been Gillian’s 37th birthday, David’s sister-in-law (Kathy Baker) says she’ll seek legal custody of his worried teenaged daughter (Claire Danes) if …
[8] Jimmy Stewart gives a career-defining performance in this Frank Capra classic about a celebrated boy scout leader (Stewart) who gets chosen to fill a deceased senator’s seat in the U.S. congress. His party assumes Stewart will be a doting yes-man, seriously underestimating his sense of duty and patriotism. When he introduces legislation that conflicts with a corrupt land deal, the party tries to take …
[7] Christina Ricci definitively sheds her child-star persona in The Opposite of Sex, playing a snarky teen who runs away from mother and crashes with her older gay half-brother (Martin Donovan). After she seduces his naïve young lover (Ivan Sergei) and becomes pregnant, she hits the road with her baby daddy, forcing the half-brother and his bitter sister-in-law (Lisa Kudrow) into hot pursuit. The Opposite …
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