[7] After his young son is murdered by a sadistic British officer, a peaceful colonial farmer forms a militia to exact vengeance during the American Revolution. Armed with a strong, emotionally potent screenplay by Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, Fly Away Home), often-ridiculous director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Moonfall) delivers his least ridiculous film to date with The Patriot. Mel Gibson stars as the farmer-turned-rogue …
[6] Christian Bale (Empire of the Sun) plays a homicidal Wall Street playboy in this Bret Easton Ellis adaptation directed by Mary Harron. By day, Bale’s character, Patrick Bateman, engages in banal chit-chat with other yuppies. They compare dicks — I mean, business cards — and brag about elusive dinner reservations. But by night, Bateman one-ups them all in the contest to determine who’s the …
[6] Elisabeth Shue (Adventures in Babysitting) stars as a scientist working on an invisibility experiment for the U.S. military in this thriller from director Paul Verhoeven (Spetters, RoboCop). Things are looking good until her brilliant cohort and ex-boyfriend, played by Kevin Bacon, decides to be the first human subject. He successfully becomes invisible, but the transformation also weakens his state of mind and moral grounding. …
[7] Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro headline this ‘comedy of errors’ flick about a male nurse seeking permission from an ex-CIA agent to take his daughter’s hand in marriage. Formula comedies usually fail or succeed on the strength of casting. To that end, Stiller and DeNiro carry Meet the Parents over the finish line. The screenplay conjures up a handful of memorable moments — including …
[7] Mike White (The Good Girl, Orange County) wrote and stars in this disturbing but poignant drama about an emotionally stunted young man named Buck who develops an obsession for an old childhood friend named Chuck (Chris Weitz). After Buck’s mother dies, the two men are reunited after years of estrangement and you can immediately tell Chuck is uncomfortable with old pal. While he and …
[7] Leonardo DiCaprio stars as an American tourist in Thailand who follows a secret map to an island where a small community has gone off the grid in an island paradise. Of course, all paradises are destined to become lost ones. Romantic jealousy, need for medical supplies, and armed marijuana growers pose threats to the Utopian society, which is led by one of its founders …
[6] Sam Neill headlines this true story about a small Australian community that played a key role in the 1969 Apollo moon landing. Neill plays the manager of the Parkes radio satellite observatory, home of the largest steerable parabolic antennae in the southern hemisphere. The small team at Parkes worked with NASA to receive television signals from the moon and distribute that signal across the …
[2] James Spader and Keanu Reeves star in this tired, busily boring, and wretchedly made thriller about a serial killer who likes to play games with the FBI agent on his trail. I can’t fault Spader for doing his best here as the agent, now retired and in psychotherapy with Marisa Tomei. Tomei, who I think is underrated, has precious little to do. It’s clear …
[7] Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane star in this stylish and darkly comic story about a retired safecracker (Winstone) whose former mentor (Kingsley) shows up demanding that they team up for one more hit. Kingsley steals the show here in a role that earned him an Oscar nomination. His character is manic, alternating between threatening calm and almost laughable violent energy. Since I …
[6] James Woods stars as the museum director taken to court when photographs from Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1990 exhibit were accused of being obscene in Cincinnati, Ohio. Diana Scarwid and Craig T. Nelson also star in this made-for-cable movie that incorporates Mapplethrope’s photos and interviews with political pundits and people who knew and worked with Mapplethorpe. I enjoyed the artist’s photos and the documentary interview bits, …
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