The Great Outdoors (1988)

The Great Outdoors (1988)

[6] John Candy and Dan Aykroyd costar as prickly brothers-in-law who try their best to get along after Aykroyd unceremoniously crashes Candy's planned family vacation. The Great Outdoors was spawned from the ever-prolific pen of John Hughes, coming off a…
1917 (2019)

1917 (2019)

[8] Writer/director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall) and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns bring us back to the trenches of World War I with the harrowing journey of two British officers tasked with traversing enemy territory to deliver a message that will…
Passengers (2016)

Passengers (2016)

[7] Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence star as passengers of an enormous spaceship en route to a new colonial planet. They're two of five thousand, all in hibernation for their 120-year voyage. But when asteroids damage the ship and cause…
Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

[7] Once they're displaced from their dorm by the college's alpha-male fraternity, a bunch of science geeks take it upon themselves to create a new fraternity and challenge the college's preferential treatment of jocks. Revenge of the Nerds contains its…
Skyfall (2012)

Skyfall (2012)

[8] It's so refreshing to watch heroes and villains who are over the age of 40. Skyfall repeatedly suggests that sometimes older is better, and I couldn't agree more. Daniel Craig's third turn as James Bond is at least as…
The Good German (2006)

The Good German (2006)

[5] George Clooney and Cate Blanchett star in Steven Soderbergh's homage to war-time film noir, right down to the black and white 4x3 Academy aspect ratio. Clooney plays an American military journalist who tries to figure out who shot his…
Spectre (2015)

Spectre (2015)

[7] James Bond returns for the 24th official time in Spectre. Know right away that this is not Skyfall. We were lucky to get a Skyfall -- shit like that comes around in a franchise once a decade or two…
American Beauty (1999)

American Beauty (1999)

[5]

SPOILER REVIEW

I really liked American Beauty when it was first released. Maybe I was wooed by its quirky introspection and aesthetic achievments. Or maybe it was screenwriter Alan Ball’s fresh new way of blending the real with the surreal. Or even the meditative lilt of Thomas Newman’s trend-setting score. But whatever the reason(s), watching the film ten years later, I realize — American Beauty ain’t all that. It’s kinda whack.

WALL-E (2008)

WALL-E (2008)

[9]

My favorite Pixar film features two robots who say little more than each others’ names, but somehow, as if by magic, WALL-E manages to convey more emotion than films that try twice as hard to do so.  There’s a charming purity in the characters of WALL-E and EVE, who to differing degrees struggle against their ‘directives’ to form a bond.  The fact that these two odd ‘bots end up protecting the last sliver of life on Earth — a tiny plant — could have been cloying, but Pixar knows how to handle the material.  When WALL-E finds the fragile vine, he simply collects it in an old shoe and places it on a shelf with other artifacts of a bygone era. 

Threesome (1994)

Threesome (1994)

[9] One girl. Two guys. Three possibilities... Josh Charles (Dead Poets Society), Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin Peaks), and Stephen Baldwin star in this college romp about three co-eds who wander into a sexual threesome of sorts and survive to tell…