1998

[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 …

[5] Paul Newman stars in this L.A. detective story from director Robert Benton (Kramer vs Kramer), about a down-on-his-luck P.I. who lives with two movie stars (Susan Sarandon and Gene Hackman) who are married to each other. Newman starts to get suspicious, though, when Hackman sends him to deliver money to someone, only to discover a murder has taken place. The murder leads to clues …

[5] Modern-day pirates try to rob a cruise ship at sea only to discover that tentacles creatures from the ocean depths have already claimed the ship’s crew. Deep Rising is a shake-and-bake assembly of Alien and The Poseidon Adventure that pales in comparison to either of those greater movies, but if you’re hard up for some genre thrills, it might do the trick for you. …

[5] A New York city social worker becomes pregnant and decides she’d rather raise the baby with her gay best friend than with the baby’s father. But when their romantic desires begin to undercut their family goals, frustration gets the better of both of them. I almost like The Object of My Affection. Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd star in it, and they are both …

[8] Warren Beatty co-wrote, directed, and stars in this dark comedy about a suicidal politician who puts a hit out on his own life before ending his political campaign with a blunt truth-telling tour that enrages his donors but thrills the general public. When he changes his mind about dying, he spends the weekend evading his anonymous assassin by hiding out in dangerous neighborhoods, all …

[7] Ben Silverstone and Brad Gorton star as closeted gay teens at a British high school. One is a journalism nerd and the other is a star athlete. They discover each other though an anonymous encounter in a public restroom and develop a secret romance. But while Silverstone’s character becomes more confident in his identity and comes out in a scandalous school paper article, Gorton’s …

[7] Writer/director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men) continues his exploration of the dark side of the gender divide in Your Friends & Neighbors. Ben Stiller, Catherine Keener, Aaron Eckhart, and Amy Brenneman play married people in unfulfilling relationships. Stiller and Brenneman’s characters begin an extra-marital affair with each other while Keener starts seeing a woman (Nastassja Kinski) from an art gallery. All the …

[4] Tommy Lee Jones reprises his Oscar-winning role from The Fugitive, once again tracking down a man on the run. And once again that man happens to be innocent. Jones doesn’t know that, but we do. You’d think maybe this time the guy could be guilty. Just to shake things up a bit. Oh, well. Instead of Harrison Ford as the innocent accused, this time …

[2] A giant radioactive lizard terrorizes New York City. There are probably at least 100 different ways this could have been more interesting and exciting, but producers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) instead opt to make their Godzilla movie two hours and twenty minutes of  implausible, joyless tedium. The characters (if you could call them that) have no spunk, no personality, nothing to …

[7] Insurrection is a safe, unremarkable entry in the Next Generation film series that doesn’t aspire to anything greater than what the TV show accomplished week after week. The storyline, featuring a planet of eternal youth and a conspiracy to relocate its inhabitants, may not have feature film scope and scale, but Insurrection still succeeds in letting us spend some time with the beloved characters …

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