[4] On the barren moors of Yorkshire, a young girl befriends an orphan boy her father brings home from a trip to Liverpool. The friendship turns romantic, but when the girl’s father dies, her nasty blood brother becomes master of the estate and forces her adopted brother into the role of stable boy. Eventually, the young woman marries a wealthy neighbor and the stable boy …
[7] Gregory Peck stars as a widowed magazine reporter who spends six months pretending to be Jewish while researching for an article about anti-semitism. He’s startled to discover the ways bigotry manifests in his undercover life — openly at ‘restricted’ clubs and secretly in hiring practices, coming from bullies in his son’s schoolyard and even from other Jews who don’t want to draw attention to …
[8] Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis star as young lovers trying to forge their own way in life by opening a successful laundromat in London. Warnecke’s character rails against the old-world expectations of his Pakistani father and uncle (Roshan Seth and Saeed Jaffrey), while Day-Lewis tries to break free from the influence of his skinhead friends. Somehow, the two make it work, and begin to …
[4] Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck star in this story of a midget car racer (Gable) whose treacherous tactics get exposed by a prying news reporter (Stanwyck). After he’s blamed for causing the death of another driver, Gable’s racing career implodes. Stanwyck finds him doing daredevil stunts for a circus. Despite the obvious animosity he has for her, the two fall for each other. As …
[7] Jason Patric stars as an alcoholic drifter with a troubled past who wanders into a kidnapping/ransom plot with a widow and her uncle, played by Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern. While Dern’s character does much of the planning, Patric and Ward develop a lustful relationship. But does she really love him? And can either of them trust Dern’s character? Under the direction of James …
[3] Sylvia Sidney and Cary Grant star in this iteration of Madame Butterfly, the shitty-ass story of a geisha who marries an American Navy officer who leaves her and never comes back. The concept, alone, makes me cringe. Granted, this may be excellent fodder for opera, but stripped of music and left as a bare-bones narrative, this Madame Butterfly is almost torturous for most of …
[8] Barbara Stanwyck plays a lonely librarian who falls in love with Adolph Menjou on a cruise, but her joy is short-lived in this tragic love story directed by Frank Capra. Stanwyck finds out her beau is already married (to an invalid, no less) and ends their relationship, keeping her pregnancy a secret to save his political career. But when a newspaper reporter (Ralph Bellamy) …
[7] F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most required reading is faithfully script-adapted by Francis Ford Coppola, with Jack Clayton directing a production as lavish as required for the story of the uber-wealthy but mysterious Jay Gatsby. We enter into Gatsby’s opulent world through the eyes of Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway. Robert Redford is superbly cast as the reticent but disarming Gatsby, who ends up roping Carraway …
[6] Robert Redford and Natalie Wood headline this Tennessee Williams tale adapted by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Sydney Pollack. Redford plays a railroad representative who comes to a small Mississippi town during the Great Depression to lay off several of the company’s workers. Despite being the bearer of bad news, Redford develops feelings for the local innkeeper’s daughter (Wood), whose mother is essentially …
[7] Writer/director Alice Wu tells us in the beginning of The Half of It that none of the characters will get what they want, and she’s not lying. But that won’t stop you from rooting for all three characters in this love triangle. Leah Lewis plays Ellie, a Chinese-American who writes love letters for a jock named Paul (Daniel Diemer) to help him woo Aster …
Copyright © 2024 | Theme by MH Themes