[5] Tyrone Power (The Black Swan) takes a dark turn in this flick about a carnival mentalist whose ambitions get the better of him. At first his character uses his powers for good, like tricking the police into letting his carnival family out of public indecency accusations. But he soon leaves the carnival for a more swanky nightshow act, and later teams up with a …
[8] Angelina Jolie stars in this gripping true story about a woman in 1920s Los Angeles whose young son vanishes without a trace one afternoon. When the L.A.P.D. notify her they’ve found him, she’s shocked to discover the returned boy is not her son. Despite teachers and doctors agreeing with her about the new boy’s mistaken identity, the police won’t continue the search for her …
[3] Elizabeth Taylor plays the powerful and sexy Egyptian queen who fends off Roman conquest while falling in love with its leaders — first Rex Harrison’s Caesar, and then Richard Burton’s Antony. First I’ll be nice to Cleopatra. The sets are sprawling, opulent, and sometime jaw-dropping. Richard Burton gives a powerful, remorseful monologue near the end, and Roddy McDowall gives one of the best performances …
[6] Don Ameche stars as a small-town pharmacist who learns his son has died during combat in WWII. Sent into an emotional tailspin, the ghost of his late grandfather (Harry Carey) comes to his rescue. Grandfather and grandson take a trip down memory lane, revisiting all the expected high and low points of life, while we the audience get to know the young man who …
[7] Mickey Rooney headlines this slice-of-life picture about a New York town maintaining the home front during WWII. Rooney plays a highschooler working as a telegram delivery boy to help provide for his family while his older brother is in service. James Craig (The Devil and Daniel Webster) plays Rooney’s employer, who is also a surrogate father to Rooney’s character. (Rooney’s deceased father actually narrates …
[5] Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, and Robert Montgomery star in this drama/thriller about two men in love with the same woman. One (Montgomery) is suicidal, and when he can’t have her, he frames the other (Sanders) for his own death. The film ends with a courtroom trial and Bergman’s character trying find evidence of Sanders’ innocence. You have some sympathy for all three leading characters …
[6] Greer Garson, Richard Hart, and Robert Mitchum star in this twisted romantic drama about a woman who learns of her husband’s death from his visiting WWII buddy. She and the man then strike up their own romantic relationship, but everything unravels when the deceased husband shows up in town still very much alive. Desire Me was plagued with production problems, not the least of …
[8] James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan star in this fluffy romantic comedy from director Ernst Lubitsch. Stewart and Sullavan play clerks at a Hungarian general store during Christmastime. Both are courting anonymous, romantic pen pals, with no idea that the love of their life is actually the person they argue with at work all the time. (If the plot sounds familiar, this movie has been …
[7] Writer/director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men) continues his exploration of the dark side of the gender divide in Your Friends & Neighbors. Ben Stiller, Catherine Keener, Aaron Eckhart, and Amy Brenneman play married people in unfulfilling relationships. Stiller and Brenneman’s characters begin an extra-marital affair with each other while Keener starts seeing a woman (Nastassja Kinski) from an art gallery. All the …
[4] John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis star in this bungled, misbegotten movie about a Rolling Stone reporter who joins an L.A. fitness center to research the aerobics boom that happened in the late ’70s and early ’80s. There he meets Curtis, who is reluctant to be interviewed because of a past experience with journalists that nearly wrecked her life. But since Travolta is so …
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