[10] It doesn’t matter whether you think Oswald acted alone or not. Oliver Stone’s JFK is stunning in its craftsmanship and enthralling in its narrative construction. If you’re only casually familiar with the people and events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination and the conspiracy theories about it, brace yourself for a fast-paced, provocative, emotionally compelling story that is sure to make you drop your jaw and raise …
[9] Here we have a horror film so classy, it won the Oscar for Best Picture. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster each deliver career-defining performances as Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, the central characters in author Thomas Harris’ perverse contemporary retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The screenplay balances their provocative banter with a well-constructed mystery surrounding the identity and whereabouts of a serial killer …
[10] Kevin Costner’s ambitious ode to the American frontier is grand, romantic storytelling at its best. And talk about an underdog. People were calling it ‘Kevin’s Gate’ months prior to release — and why shouldn’t they? A three-hour long western with most of its dialogue in Lakota Sioux? How could such a movie find an audience, much less sweep the Academy Awards?
[9] It’s hard to believe we once lived in a time when superhero movies didn’t monopolize the multiplexes. Such a time was the summer of 1989, when Warner Brothers’ very first big-screen version of Batman was due to be released. Many declared the film a folly. Indeed, a superhero film hadn’t been successful since Superman II nearly ten years earlier and most of the world …
[10] In the not-so-distant future, a Detroit policeman is murdered by a vicious cop-killer, only to be resurrected as the ultimate cyborg law enforcer. But will RoboCop have free will, or will he be slave to the corporation that facilitated his rebirth? On one level, RoboCop is an action film sprinkled with generous amounts of extreme violence and gore. But the movie also has unexpected …
[10] James Cameron accomplishes a rare feat with a sequel that doesn’t shame the original and succeeds on its own merits. Aliens is so different in tone than the original Alien, I think of it as a sequel only in name (this goes for all the Alien movies). In a smart move, Cameron decided not to compete with Ridley Scott in the areas of horror …
[10] High schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is accidentally sent thirty years into the past where he unwittingly threatens his own existence by interfering with his parents’ introduction to one another. With the help of crack-pot scientist Doc Brown, (Christopher Lloyd), Marty must introduce his parents and make sure they fall in love before attempting a daring return trip to the future. Back to …
[10] Straight biographies rarely make great film, but by filtering the subject through another man’s envy, director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) delivers one of the best bio-films I’ve ever seen. This isn’t a film about a composer and his music (how boring would that be?) — it’s a film about an insanely jealous contemporary named Salieri. Salieri, played brilliantly by F. …
[9] Compared to the previous two episodes in the original Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi comes up a bit short in character and drama. Richard Marquand’s direction isn’t as elegant or purposeful as Irvin Kershner’s (who directed The Empire Strikes Back so gorgeously). But the third film wraps up story threads more than adequately and gives us quite a few spectacular action set pieces, from the …
[10] In Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster classic, a young boy named Elliot (Henry Thomas) takes care of a stranded alien, helping him send a message into space for the mother ship to return and rescue him. E.T. is about loneliness and friendship. While E.T. has been physically left behind, Elliot and his family — Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore play siblings and Dee Wallace plays the …
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