[10] I love road movies and ensemble pieces, but Little Miss Sunshine goes one step further by saying something we all need to hear from time to time: it’s okay to fall short of ambition. The film throws six disparate personalities, all family, into a Volkswagen bus for a weekend road trip so that the youngest of them can compete in a junior beauty pageant. …
[10] Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, The Frighteners) embraces the Herculean task of bringing Tolkien’s supreme fantasy to the silver screen, and hits a home run. The Fellowship of the Ring gets the trilogy off to a strong start, as Frodo Baggins and his companions set off to destroy the One Ring. Jackson is faithful to the source material while masterfully balancing action, horror, heart, and …
[9] A racist, alcoholic prison guard finds himself falling in love with an African-American woman who just happens to be the widow of a man he helped to execute in this film from Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland). Halle Berry is stunning in her Oscar-winning performance, but so is the rest of the cast, including Billy Bob Thornton as the prison guard, Heath …
[10] Michael Douglas gives a career highlight performance as a fifty-year-old college professor worried about following up a sensational debut novel in this warm, character-driven comedy from Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile) and author Michael Chabon. I was quickly hooked on each of the movie’s ensemble of anxious, quirky characters, all grappling with their own life-changing dilemmas. Tobey Maguire is excellent as the sullen …
[9] A terrific script and loveable characters send Toy Story soaring. At the heart of the simple storyline are two toys with character arcs as compelling as any of their live-action counterparts. Woody (Tom Hanks) is a pull-string cowboy who’s afraid of being replaced as his owner’s favorite, and Buzz (Tim Allen) is the new, gadget-enhanced astronaut who doesn’t accept the fact that he’s a …
[10] I doubt Tim Burton will ever make a finer film. Armed with a powerhouse screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs Larry Flynt), Burton turns the biography of Hollywood’s most infamously bad director into a poignant and hilarious film about never giving up… no matter how much you might suck. The film is admittedly white-washed, concentrating and embellishing upon Ed Wood’s …
[10] A breath of cinematic fresh air that magically dignifies exploitation and elevates dialgoue to an art form. Writer/director Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) assembles a stellar cast highlighted by the return of John Travolta, previously languishing in talking baby movie exile. In the chaptered non-linear screenplay, he’s paired with Samuel L. Jackson playing two hit men who wax philosophic between jobs. Bruce Willis …
[10] Holly Hunter picked up an Academy Award for her performance as Ada, a rebellious mute who finds solace and a means of expression only with her beloved piano in Jane Campion’s gorgeously crafted and erotically charged The Piano. Ada is married off to Stewart (Sam Neill), a sexually repressed land developer in Victorian New Zealand. When she and her young daughter (Anna Paquin) first …
[10] Jeff Bridges stars as Jack, a shock radio host who inadvertently encourages a mad man to go on a killing spree. Guilt ridden, he teeters on the brink of self-annihilation before an eccentric homeless person named Parry (Robin Williams) helps him see the light. At its heart, The Fisher King is a reluctant buddy movie, but it’s so much more. The Oscar-nominated script by …
[10] “You get what you settle for.” It’s a potent little theme that asks all of us to take stock of our lives. It probably helps that I saw Thelma & Louise at a time when, like the title characters, I was searching for escape and freedom, determined to become my own person and follow what I knew with all my heart was my calling …
Copyright © 2024 | Theme by MH Themes