[6] Charlton Heston headlines an ensemble cast in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. We’re talking, of course, about the Circus — and the lives of the people who put it on. Heston plays the owner and manager of the sprawling, traveling outfit. Betty Hutton is the love interest he has no time for, while Cornel Wilde plays the hunky trapeze artist who …
[8] Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) directs this adaptation of David Ebershoff’s novel, based loosely on the life of Lili Elbe, one of the first people ever to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) is outstanding as, at first, Einar Wegener, and later as Lili. Redmayne’s transformation is a beguiling one, capturing all the seduction and trepidation a life-altering revelation should …
[5] This early Best Picture Oscar winner is a three-hour mix of song, dance, and narrative, much like Broadway Melody before it. I was expecting a real stinker, especially when the opening credits revealed “Fashion Parades by Adrian”. But apart from being overly long and anachronistic, it wasn’t so bad. The narrative is fashioned loosely around the life of Broadway’s legendary Florenz Ziegfeld Jr (the …
[4] For its racist stereotypes and sugar-coated depiction of plantation life in the post-Civil War South, Disney has locked away Song of the South from the public since its last re-release in 1986. I don’t think the film is any more offensive than countless others made before desegregation (Gone with the Wind among them). In fact, putting its social infractions in historical context is probably …
[7] Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley) adapts Charles Frazier’s book about a Civil War deserter trying to get back to his lover. The film goes back and forth between the soldier’s story and the sweetheart’s story. My main issue with Cold Mountain is that these two characters, played by Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, barely know each other at all before they …
[6] A British diplomat in Kenya tries to solve the mystery of his activist wife’s murder, only to get in over his head with the culprits — a pharmaceutical company that is intentionally poisoning and killing people. The first third of the film belongs to Rachel Weisz, who plays the deceased wife in a series of flashbacks. Weisz took home the Oscar for best supporting …
[8] A surprisingly effective blend of romance, comedy, and supernatural horror, Ghost stars Patrick Swayze as a murdered man who works through a flim-flam psychic (Whoopi Goldberg) to save the life of his endangered girlfriend (Demi Moore). Ghost became so popular, I think a lot of us take it for granted today. But in the summer of 1990, full of sequels and overproduced action pics, …
[7] Warren Beatty made his screen debut alongside Natalie Wood in this Elia Kazan film about sexual repression in 1920s middle-America. Beatty and Wood play Bud and Deanie, high school lovers who plan to get married and consummate their growing sexual urges. But their parents and their own conflicted emotions end up tearing them apart, with Bud wandering aimlessly and Deanie landing in psychiatric care. …
[7] George Clooney stars in this thriller about a lawyer who gets called in by a major corporation to “fix” a potential whistle-blower who is losing his mind the longer he keeps his secret. I never thought I would enjoy this movie because the marketing made it look so drab and dreadful, but it’s actually a solid little thriller where one wrong move or some …
[8] George Miller has stopped making talking pig and dancing penguin movies (Babe, Happy Feet) long enough to give us another installment in his seminal apocalyptic Mad Max series. The result is probably one of the greatest non-stop action movies ever made. Tom Hardy takes the reigns from Mel Gibson as the title character, but gets to sink his teeth into the role quite a …
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