[7] Katharine Hepburn had never acted with Henry Fonda before, and Fonda had never acted with his daughter Jane. On Golden Pond united the three screen legends for their first and only film together. Hepburn and the elder Fonda play an old couple vacationing at a rustic lake cabin. Fonda has had heart problems and is preoccupied with his own mortality, while Hepburn enjoys picking …
[5] Edward Norton (Fight Club) plays a reformed neo-nazi trying to stop his younger brother (Terminator 2‘s Edward Furlong) from following in his ugly footsteps in American History X. But breaking free from the skinheads who idolize him turns out to be a bigger challenge than expected. Norton shows commitment and range in a flashy role that earned him an Oscar nomination, but I can’t …
[7] A group of teenaged computer ‘hackers’ are blamed for unleashing a virus that will capsize oil tankers. Before they’re all captured by police, they band together and seek the aid of hackers worldwide to help unmask the real bad guys — a pair of corporate embezzlers working from inside the company. The premise of Hackers requires a hefty suspension of disbelief regarding what teenagers …
[7] One of the ultimate ‘little movies that could,’ Dirty Dancing is a low-budget sleeper sensation that is arguably the most popular and enduring movie released in its year. Set in a Catskills resort in 1963, the film is a coming-of-age story for Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman (Jennifer Grey) as she wanders from the family-friendly on-site entertainment into the staff’s secluded after-hours parties. There the cha-cha …
[5] Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall) directs this yuppie ‘windy city’ romance starring brat-packers Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. It’s your typical boy-meets-girl story. They have sex, they fall in love, they move in together, they fight, they make up, they fight, they make up… and in the end we’re all reminded how much men suck. (No, really.) In lesser hands, this sort …
[6] Ruth Chatterton (Frisco Jenny) stars as a powerful automobile executive who plucks young men out of her workforce to have sex with and vows never to marry. But when a rival businessman (George Brent) refuses her advances, she begins to wonder whether the busy, working life is really meant for her. Chatterton does a fine job with Female, a film remembered for its notorious …
[5] Rosanna Arquette stars as a bored New Jersey housewife who becomes infatuated with Susan (Madonna), a nomadic woman she’s never met who uses the newspaper personal ads to keep up with her boyfriend. When one of the ads mentions a time and place to meet up, Arquette spies on them and ends up being mistaken for Susan after hitting her head and getting amnesia. …
[8] Hollywood often waters down characters and storylines to make them universally appealing. Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson with Licorice Pizza, or David O. Russell with Joy and The Fighter, are challenging that notion with stories of tremendous specificity — specificity of character, location, obstacle, and endeavor — that find universal appeal without dilution. In pursuit of that specificity, Anderson casts two unknown actors as …
[7] Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood) won his third Oscar for his convincing portrait of America’s 16th president during the final months of the Civil War. Lincoln is a decades-long pet project for director Steven Spielberg, who chose Angels in America scribe Tony Kushner to make Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln the foundation …
[7] Thirteen-year-old aspiring writer Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) accuses her older sister’s lover of a crime he didn’t commit, effectively condemning him to years of prison and compulsory military service. The lovers (Keira Knightley and James McAvoy) stay connected through letter-writing, but the unfolding tragedies of World War II keep them ever apart. Years later, Briony wants to atone for the sin that tore her …
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