[8] Socially-conscious filmmaker Stanley Kramer (Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg) made an impact early in his directing career with this dramatic chase story of two escaped convicts evading authorities while chained together at the wrists. The twist? One prisoner’s white and the other’s black. This poetic plot point allows The Defiant Ones to address racism in America while also delivering as a tense cat …
[8] Adrien Brody (The Pianist, The Thin Red Line) plays a ’50s Hollywood detective investigating the mysterious death of actor George Reeves, played by Ben Affleck (Gone Girl, The Town). Hollywoodland is based on the true story of Reeves, who struggled to claim fame on the big screen but ended up finding it as the star of television’s The Adventures of Superman. Brody and Affleck …
[8] Teresa Wright (Mrs. Miniver) plays a bored teenager who’s over-joyed when her favorite Uncle (The Third Man‘s Joseph Cotton) comes to stay with her family. But the warmth of family reunion soon gives way to cold suspicion when Cotton starts hiding things from her. Could he be the infamous ‘Merry Widow’ murderer? Alfred Hitchcock said Shadow of a Doubt was his favorite film he …
[8] Writer/director Alex Garland (The Beach, Sunshine) casts Natalie Portman as a biologist who joins a team of other female scientists into a mysterious, growing dome called ‘the shimmer’. Inside they quickly learn that the phenomenon is altering the DNA of flora and fauna — including themselves. They head to the source of the mystery, a lighthouse where a meteor crashed years ago. Will they …
[8] Writer/director Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt) takes us on a trip through California wine country with two middle-aged college buddies in Sideways, based on a novel by Rex Pickett. Paul Giamatti plays a divorced junior high school teacher suffering from depression and anxiety whose dream of becoming a published author is about the only thing keeping him going. Thomas Haden Church is a somewhat …
[8] Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck star in this lively screwball comedy from director Howard Hawks. Cooper is working on a new encyclopedia with seven other scholars when he realizes the group is woefully uneducated in the world of contemporary slang. So he hits the streets to research and stumbles upon a wisecracking lounge singer named Sugarpuss O’Shea, played by Stanwyck. He invites her to …
[8] Naomi Watts and Laura Harring star in this dreamy David Lynch film that almost defies summary, but I’ll do my best. Watts plays a young actress fresh in Hollywood who meets Harring, a woman who just escaped a car crash and has amnesia. Trying to figure out Harring’s identity, the two uncover an unsettling mystery and fall in love. Meanwhile, Justin Theroux plays a …
[8] Julie Andrews stars as a magical nanny who swoops into a turn-of-the-century London family’s home to help two neglected children (Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber) reconnect with their busy-body parents. Mary Poppins is often regarded the best of Walt Disney’s live-action efforts, thanks to an effervescent combination of music and fantasy, and charismatic performances from Andrews and co-star Dick Van Dyke, who plays a …
[8] The Brave Little Toaster bares the title of an innocuous children’s cartoon, but there’s more to this gem than may initially meet the eye. First, know that Pixar Animation founder John Lasseter originally pitched this movie as his first computer-animated feature, an honor that later went to the similarly-themed Toy Story. Many of the top talent from The Brave Little Toaster went on to …
[8] William Wellman directs Clark Gable in this loose adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel. While the book is entirely from the point-of-view of Buck, a weathered sled dog, this film version focuses more on human characters. Gable and his comedic sidekick (Jack Oakie) are on a quest for gold in the Yukon when they stumble across a lone woman (Loretta Young) fighting off wolves. …
Copyright © 2025 | Theme by MH Themes