Ellen Barkin

This Boy’s Life (1993)

[6] This film, along with What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, both released the same year, made young Leonardo DiCaprio a star. DiCaprio holds his own against the formidable Robert DeNiro, here playing an abusive step-father. The performances are good, but the story (based on the memoir of author Tobias Wolff) is predictable and protracted. Ellen Barkin is good in a thankless role. Look for Tobey Maguire, …

The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai (1984)

[2] This movie is just too silly and disjointed for me. I hate it and I always have. It’s a boring, cheap, un-inventive waste of time and talent. I truly don’t get its appeal. The plot is beyond me, and why are all the aliens Jamaican? Why is Jeff Goldblum dressed like a cowboy? Why can’t the amazing John Lithgow rescue me from this torture? …

Daniel (1983)

[6] Sidney Lumet directs this fictionalized account of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple who were accused of being Soviet spies and executed in the midst of 1950s’ McCarthyism hysteria. Lumet cuts back and forth in time throughout the movie, balancing flashbacks with Julius and Ethel, played by Mandy Patinkin and Lindsay Crouse, with the story of their children ten or fifteen years after …