[8] Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis star as young lovers trying to forge their own way in life by opening a successful laundromat in London. Warnecke’s character rails against the old-world expectations of his Pakistani father and uncle (Roshan Seth and Saeed Jaffrey), while Day-Lewis tries to break free from the influence of his skinhead friends. Somehow, the two make it work, and begin to …
[8] Barbara Stanwyck stars as Lily Powers, the poor daughter of a speakeasy owner, who takes an old philosopher’s advice to start using her feminine wiles (or ‘lily power’) to get ahead in life. After her nasty father dies in a distillery fire, Lily moves to New York City and literally sleeps her way, floor by floor, to the top of a banking company. She …
[4] Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck star in this story of a midget car racer (Gable) whose treacherous tactics get exposed by a prying news reporter (Stanwyck). After he’s blamed for causing the death of another driver, Gable’s racing career implodes. Stanwyck finds him doing daredevil stunts for a circus. Despite the obvious animosity he has for her, the two fall for each other. As …
[7] Jason Patric stars as an alcoholic drifter with a troubled past who wanders into a kidnapping/ransom plot with a widow and her uncle, played by Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern. While Dern’s character does much of the planning, Patric and Ward develop a lustful relationship. But does she really love him? And can either of them trust Dern’s character? Under the direction of James …
[3] Sylvia Sidney and Cary Grant star in this iteration of Madame Butterfly, the shitty-ass story of a geisha who marries an American Navy officer who leaves her and never comes back. The concept, alone, makes me cringe. Granted, this may be excellent fodder for opera, but stripped of music and left as a bare-bones narrative, this Madame Butterfly is almost torturous for most of …
[8] Barbara Stanwyck plays a lonely librarian who falls in love with Adolph Menjou on a cruise, but her joy is short-lived in this tragic love story directed by Frank Capra. Stanwyck finds out her beau is already married (to an invalid, no less) and ends their relationship, keeping her pregnancy a secret to save his political career. But when a newspaper reporter (Ralph Bellamy) …
[4] Cliff Robertson stars as Charly, a mentally disabled man who agrees to have an experimental operation that makes him more intelligent. But just as the experiment’s success is announced to the scientific world, Charly learns he will soon regress to his original state. Robertson gives an fairly effective performance here, but Charly, based on the required junior high school reading title, Flowers for Algernon, …
[5] I watched this movie several weeks ago and I still don’t quite know how to review it. An assault on the senses? Psychotic in tone? Punishingly serendipitous? Insane?… Yes, it’s all those things. But it’s also a riveting in its own kind of way — completely bonkers, but I simply couldn’t turn away. Paul Walker is a thug (I guess?) who hides in his …
[7] [This review is of the Director’s Cut of the film, not the original theatrical release.] Kevin Costner falls in love with his boss’s wife and lives to suffer the consequences in this brutal but stylish action/drama from director Tony Scott (True Romance, Top Gun). The script sets up a friendly, almost father-and-son relationship between Costner and his boss, played by Anthony Quinn. The relationship …
[8] Colin Firth and Hart Bochner star in this bold drama/thriller from writer/director Martin Donovan and co-screenwriter David Koepp (who teamed together a few years later on Death Becomes Her). Firth stars as a movie theater manager in Buenos Aires who welcomes Hart Bochner as a new roommate in an apartment building full of nosey neighbors. As his roomie wins over the favor of the …
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