[5] Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart star in this overly-talky stage play adaptation about disparate characters whose lives intersect when a notorious criminal on the lam (Bogart) takes them all hostage at a gas station diner in the middle of the desert. Director Archie Mayo conjures terrific ambience with the dust-blown stage set, especially during the climactic shoot-out when the only light source …
[6] Innovative producer/directors Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper (King Kong, Dr Cyclops) tackle a religious parable that ends in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius with The Last Days of Pompeii. Preston Foster stars as a poor blacksmith hardened by misfortune who turns to the Gladiatorial arena, slavery, and other shady deeds to acquire vast wealth. His life intersects with those of Jesus Christ …
[5] Character actor Frank Morgan (The Wizard of Oz) gets a leading role in this warped melodrama from director James Whale (The Old Dark House). Morgan plays an attorney defending a friend who murdered his wife after catching her in the arms of another man. When Morgan discovers his own wife (Hot Saturday‘s Nancy Carroll) is also having an affair, he plans to follow in …
[5] Director François Ozon (8 Women, Swimming Pool) adapts a French young adult novel (Aiden Chambers’ Dance on My Grave) about a sixteen-year-old boy who falls in love with a slightly older boy who rescues him when his sailboat capsizes off the shores of Normandy in summer, 1985. Summer of 85 begins by warning us that the older boy will be dead by tale’s end, …
[7] The same year she won an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, Marisa Tomei also made an immeasurable contribution to this romantic drama about a Minneapolis waitress who falls in love with a shy, quiet bus boy (Christian Slater) who rescues her from an assault. The two are an odd couple, but seem to make sense together. Unfortunately, the specter of tragedy hangs over them, …
[8] Katie Holmes and Patricia Clarkson lead an ensemble cast in this quaint but compelling drama/comedy about a ‘black sheep’ daughter (Holmes) who tries like Hell to host Thanksgiving dinner for her visiting family. Neither Holmes nor her estranged family really want to share the holiday together, except that the mother (Clarkson) is terminally ill — and this could very well be their last holiday …
[5] Harrison Ford returns as Jack Ryan in his second Tom Clancy adaptation, Clear and Present Danger. The story this time puts Ryan in the middle of a secret war between the U.S. government and a Colombian drug cartel. The plot is long and winding, with in-fighting on both sides of the battle line, culminating in a showdown of sorts between Ryan and the highest …
[8] Norma Shearer (The Divorcee) fronts an all-star, all-female cast in George Cukor’s adaptation of Clare Boothe Luce’s The Women. Shearer plays a happily married woman of privilege who learns through the gossipy grapevine that her husband is having an affair with another woman, played by Joan Crawford. Shearer struggles under the dueling influences of her mother (Lucile Watson) and her so-called ‘friends’, which include …
[7] Director Adam McKay (Vice, Don’t Look Up) adapts Michael Lewis’ bestselling novel about the men who predicted the 2008 mortgage implosion and near-collapse of the world economy. If this sounds like dreary, heady, political stuff, that’s because it is. But McKay tackles the material with enough irreverence and off-beat humor to make it palatable… or as palatable as the triumph of capitalist greed can …
[8] Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg star as brothers working on different sides of the law in this crime drama from writer/director James Gray (Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z). Wahlberg’s character follows in the footsteps of their father (Robert Duvall), recently being promoted to captain within the New York police. Phoenix is a nightclub manager who is reluctant to help his dad and …
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