[8] This is an underrated comic book adaptation with slick, period production design and top-notch action choreography from director Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, October Sky). There’s a gee-whiz ebullience about The Rocketeer that I find utterly charming. Bill Campbell and Jennifer Connelly (future Oscar-winner for A Beautiful Mind) are attractive leads, even if their archetypal characters are somewhat shallow. Timothy Dalton’s villainous …
[8] Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption) stars as an unwitting mail room clerk thrust into the office of CEO at a mythical uber-corporation when the board members decide to send the company’s stocks into a nose dive. But the board, headed by a coolly evil Paul Newman, doesn’t count on their newly anointed dim-wit to invent the next materialistic rage — the hula hoop. Under …
[8] Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) directs this lavishly mounted fantasy film that’s high on style but low on action. The sets are jaw-dropping, whether it’s the huge, scintillating fairy forest or the fiery underground dungeons of hell. Makeup artist Rob Bottin (The Howling, The Thing) showcases some spectacular Oscar-nominated work. Just look at Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s Dr. Frank-N-Furter) as Darkness, …
[8] At an idyllic lakeshore cruising spot for gay men, Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) hopes to find a romantic partner. After searching for days at the clothing-optional oasis, he befriends a frumpy loner named Henri (Patrick d’Assumçao). The two strike up a platonic relationship and engage in deeper conversations than what’s normally had at a hook-up. But then a rugged-looking swimmer named Michel (Christophe Paou) catches …
[8] Director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) continues his knack for combining violence, gore, dark humor and social commentary in this loose adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s serialized novel about humankind’s future war against a race of insect-like aliens. I can almost enjoy the movie for the action alone. It escalates beautifully, with plenty of exciting sequences and spectacular visual effects. But it’s the satirical …
[8] In pre-World War II Florence, a group of elitist British dames and a garish American art collector take in a small boy and raise him. When Britain and America enter the war several years later, the young man returns the favor by looking after the women when they’re interned by the Italian police — and helping to smuggle one of them out of the …
[8] A Face in the Crowd is a surprisingly relevant movie, despite the fact that it’s now over 50 years old. Andy Griffith stars as “Lonesome” Rhodes, a country singer who becomes a media sensation. As the public fawns over him, Rhodes becomes drunk with power and soon sets his sights on the political ring, forcing an ex-lover (Patricia Neal) to attempt revealing to the …
[8] Franco Nero stars as a coffin-dragging vigilante who fights his way out between a gang of Mexican bandits and a militia of white supremacists in Django, one of the most famous of the spaghetti westerns. While director Sergio Corbucci certainly tries to emulate the style of Sergio Leone, Django is nonetheless a tight, well-paced, grittily entertaining piece of B-cinema. Franco Nero carries the movie …
[8] Spike Lee explores racism from multiple angles in Do the Right Thing, a provocative but entertaining ‘day in the life’ flick set in a Brooklyn community on the hottest day of the summer. Films that deal with racism tend to be either maudlin or one-sided, so I was glad to see Lee present the issue as the complicated one that it is. Scenes between …
[8] George Cukor directs from the play by Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story), giving Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant a chance to shine in this screwball romance. There’s not a Hepburn/Grant pairing I don’t like, and this one comes with a great supporting performance by Lew Ayres as Hepburn’s sobriety-impaired brother. Grant plays a somewhat Bohemian man who falls in love with a rich socialite …
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