[7] Naomi Watts and Robin Wright play childhood friends who grew up together and are practically inseparable, even in their 40s. Their young adult sons, played by Xavier Samuel (The Loved Ones) and James Frecheville, are also best friends. The four spend a lot of time together. Their world is kinda claustrophobic, but in the best, most beautiful kind of way living on the ocean …
[7] James Cagney makes his breakthrough performance as a Chicago street kid who becomes a successful gangster during prohibition. I don’t usually like gangster movies, but director William Wellman (Wings, The Ox-Bow Incident) frames The Public Enemy as a cautionary tale with a moral ending — it doesn’t glamorize the lifestyle like so many more modern movies do. And while I may not relate with …
[7] Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon headline this taut, engaging thriller from screenwriter Christopher Crowe (Last of the Mohicans) and director James Foley (After Dark My Sweet, Glengarry Glen Ross). Witherspoon plays a high schooler who falls head over heels for the sexy-as-fuck Wahlberg, a former underwear model who is introduced in this movie wearing a shirt pulled so tight across his chiseled body it’s …
[6] Nick Stahl (Carnivale, Terminator 3) and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Conjuring) star in this intimate, slightly bizarre character drama from writer/director Carlos Brooks. Stahl plays a wheelchair-bound New York City radio reporter researching a subculture of “paraplegic wannabes,” people who pretend to be wheelchair bound or even go so far as to pay doctors to remove healthy limbs. Quid Pro Quo isn’t …
[5] Dustin Hoffman directs this tepid comedy/drama based on Ronald Harwood’s play about geriatrics putting on a concert at a home for retired muscians. Maggie Smith stars as the facility’s newest resident. She’s nervous about seeing an old flame (Tom Courtenay) and former compadres (Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins), all of whom try to coax her out of retirement to sing once more at the concert. …
[6] Kevin Costner stars as a Navy officer who gets enlisted by the Secretary of Defense (Gene Hackman) to get secret information from the CIA about a new Russian submarine project. Both men are sleeping with the same woman (Sean Young), but only Costner knows it. When the Secretary murders Young in a fit of rage, he tries to use Costner to help him cover up …
[8] Just when I thought good old fashioned escapist adventure storytelling was dead, along comes The Lost City of Z. This movie renewed my faith in movies. I was beginning to think I’d seen the end of grand, romantic films like those directed by Peter Weir or David Lean, but James Gray (The Yards, We Own the Night) picks up the mantle and delivers a film …
[6] In this period piece set in 1950s New England, Brendan Fraser stars as a high school quarterback who gets recruited to a prestigious preparatory school where he must hide the fact that he’s Jewish. School Ties feels desperate to cash in on the unexpected success of Dead Poets Society (they even hired the same composer), but it’s earnest enough to stand on its own, even if …
[7] Tim Burton reunites with Ed Wood scribes Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for arguably his best film since 1999’s Sleepy Hollow. Amy Adams stars in the true story of Margaret Keane, the kitschy but iconic painter of the so-called “big eyes” painting series that became popular in the 1950s and 60s. Margaret was convinced to let her husband Walter (Christoph Waltz) take the credit for her paintings, …
[5] While I’d rather Terrence Malick make a live-action Pocahontas movie than Disney, the results are still far from amazing… and a wee bit boring. Malick focuses on a love triangle between our girl Poca (Q’orianka Kilcher), John Smith (Colin Farrell), and John Rolfe (Christian Bale). The first half of the movie is like Malick’s Days of Heaven, with Kilcher and Farrell running around in …
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