[7] Bette Davis plays Queen Elizabeth the first, in love with Errol Flynn’s Earl of Essex, in this period technicolor drama from director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood). Both stars conjure the necessary pathos of their characters’ doomed relationship. His love is tainted by his thirst for power, while hers is hindered by her royal standing and social responsibilities. The film’s finale …
[5] Two volatile sisters reunite for the younger one’s wedding, causing secrets to be revealed and relationships to fray. This Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale) flick is very character-centered as you might expect — a good vehicle for Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the two sisters. Newcomer Zane Pais, as Kidman’s awkward teenaged son, gets as much screen …
[6] It’s mawkish, awkward, and in need of a subtlety injection, but I like Making Love anyway. As one of the earliest big studio mainstream films to feature openly gay characters who are neither serial killers nor flaming queens, I have to give the flick some cred. Michael Ontkean (Twin Peaks) and Kate Jackson (Charlie’s Angels) play best-friend newlyweds whose relationship begins to deteriorate when …
[4] Cary Grant stars in this post-war feel-good flick about three beleaguered naval officers whose precious 4-day shore leave is threatened at every turn. At first, it’s disappointing to see Grant slumming it in a party movie, but then there’s a little anti-war sentiment that threatens to elevate the material… before ultimately sinking it. Kiss Them For Me is ultimately an overbearing message movie, with …
[6] Gravity is so harrowing, I’m tempted to call it crisis porn. The movie stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts stranded in orbit over Earth after debris destroys their spacecraft. Director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, A Little Princess) warns us from the get-go with some on-screen text that life in space is impossible, and then proceeds to throw everything you can imagine …
[6] Cary Grant and Loretta Young star in this pre-Code drama about a devious mother and her young son who feign injury to fleece a wealthy businessman after a minor car accident. Hollywood is known for neat and tidy little narratives, but if you dig into the years before the Hayes Code took effect, you can find some offbeat gems. You certainly wouldn’t see a …
[7] Against a backdrop of the Bangkok underground fighting scene, a reticent drug smuggler (Ryan Gosling) is caught in a vicious cycle of brutal revenge after his brother is murdered for committing rape. Only God Forgives plays out like a fever dream, a far more operatic and surreal effort from writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn than his earlier mainstream hit, Drive. There is precious little dialogue, …
[7] Michael J. Fox stars in this Vietnam War flick from Brian DePalma, but combat isn’t the focus here. Fox plays a soldier who puts his life on the line when he tries to free a young Vietnamese woman that his patrol has kidnapped and raped. Even after the woman’s suffering is over, Fox’s character still has to keep a watchful eye for ‘freak accidents’ …
[8] At an idyllic lakeshore cruising spot for gay men, Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) hopes to find a romantic partner. After searching for days at the clothing-optional oasis, he befriends a frumpy loner named Henri (Patrick d’Assumçao). The two strike up a platonic relationship and engage in deeper conversations than what’s normally had at a hook-up. But then a rugged-looking swimmer named Michel (Christophe Paou) catches …
[6] The sixth entry in the Rocky franchise is far better than it has any right to be. Sylvester Stallone is back in the writing and directing chairs, presenting a melancholy portrait of a hero fighting against decline. At the film’s start, we see the Italian Stallion still reeling from the death of his beloved Adrian two years prior, while trying to maintain a relationship …
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