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573,964 | 4,532,636 | 32,455 | 7 | Before the Little Mermaid , There Was This | Fascinating as an experiment in film animation , but you're forgiven if you find yourself fidgeting after half an hour or so . The most famous segment of this film is not surprisingly the one that bears the most striking resemblance to other Disney animated films , the " Sorcerer's Apprentice " portion that finds Mickey Mouse trying to corral an army of mischievous broomsticks . That segment is the most satisfying for audiences who want a narrative to follow , but many of the other segments - - particularly a very Gothic , sort of scary segment set to " Night on Bald Mountain " - - are more visually interesting . Not the most engaging Disney film , but remember that we probably wouldn't have " Beauty and the Beast " or " Aladdin " now if we hadn't had " Fantasia " first . |
573,721 | 4,532,636 | 32,976 | 7 | Renowned Hitchcock Film Is a Bit of Bore | I was expecting big things from " Rebecca , " Alfred Hitchcock's Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1940 , and I was disappointed . Give me " Foreign Correspondent , " Hitchcock's other 1940 release and fellow Best Picture nominee , any day . " Rebecca " starts out promisingly enough , as a Gothic ghost story about a naive young woman ( Joan Fontaine ) recently married to a wealthy aristocrat ( Laurence Olivier ) who finds herself competing with his dead wife , a woman whom Fontaine mentally builds into an image of female perfection until the memory of her almost becomes a physical presence in the house . But the mystery departs the film around the three-quarters mark , and the enigmatic spell of the movie goes with it . Fontaine and Olivier are two limp noodles at the film's center , and it falls to Judith Anderson , playing the mysterious and creepy housekeeper who fostered an irrational love of her former mistress , to keep things alive . The production design and black and white cinematography look stylish , but the film doesn't give Hitchcock the opportunity to impose any of his playful directorial signatures on it . As a result , it's a bit of a bore . |
573,846 | 4,532,636 | 120,616 | 7 | Take That , Boris Karloff | Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz save the world from the undead in this special effects extravaganza . Though reputedly based on the 1932 Universal Pictures classic of the same name that starred Boris Karloff , this movie shares almost nothing in common with the original except for the fact that it features , well , a mummy . Actually , this is much better than the original . It doesn't attempt to be remotely scary , opting instead for a goofy , wise-cracking tone reminiscent of the Indiana Jones movies . Of course , it's nowhere near as good as those - - it's not as light on its feet and it's burdened by a hefty load of not very impressive digital effects . But it's not a bad way to spend an evening . |
574,279 | 4,532,636 | 43,459 | 7 | Earnest WWII Drama Falls Just Short | A WWII yarn about a German prisoner ( Oskar Werner ) who volunteers himself for spy work in the front lines during the waning days of the European conflict . He's sent off on a mission that also involves another German spy and an American radio man ( Richard Basehart ) . While carrying it out , he suffers a crisis of conscience , torn between his allegiance to his home country and his belief that the best way to help his people is to help the Americans wipe out Hitler's regime . " Decision Before Dawn " is an entertaining spy thriller that benefits from its authentic , on location shooting amid bombed out European villages . But it could have been a much more interesting film had its moral conflicts been given more air time . It then would have been like something from Graham Greene . Unfortunately , Werner's crisis isn't shown to us as much as it's told to us in a few moments of voice over . Werner himself gives a good performance with the material he's given to work with , but it's tough to shake off the feeling of missed opportunity that surrounds the role . Speaking of Graham Greene , the film's finale is a chase through the rubble of a German town , and it's reminiscent of " The Third Man , " but this one feels slightly dogged when compared to that other film's sense of funhouse excitement . Also starring Gary Merrill as the leader of the American mission , and Hildegard Knef in a brief but memorable role as a possible romantic complication for Werner . |
574,081 | 4,532,636 | 80,855 | 7 | Unfairly Maligned | Michael Cimino's " Heaven's Gate " is certainly not without its problems , but it's hard to believe , now that the historical context in which the film was released is long past , that it received such a rough drubbing when it came out 25 years ago . It's quite an interesting film and even a very well made one . It bears many similarities to Cimino's earlier success , " The Deer Hunter " : a focus on male solidarity and conflict , man returning to a more primitive state , a narrative structure that has the protagonist moving from civilization to a barbaric world and then back to a civilization that will be changed forever by preceding events . Like " The Deer Hunter , " this films deals in images more than words . Unlike " The Deer Hunter , " however , and this film's biggest failing , is the lack of a cast of the same strength that graced Cimino's earlier film . " The Deer Hunter " had Robert De Niro , Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken . " Heaven's Gate " gets Christopher Walken , but in a role for which he is ill suited , and instead of De Niro and Streep we get Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert . I don't know what possessed Cimino to think Kristofferson could carry a film of this magnitude , but it's a dire miscalculation on his part . Kristofferson isn't necessarily a horrible actor , but he's certainly not strong enough to retain an audience's interest over the course of a 219 minute film . Isabelle Huppert is bland as well . The result is long scenes with little or no dialogue , in which feelings are supposedly being expressed in the faces of the actors ; but since the actors aren't very strong , nothing is getting expressed . That's what makes " Heaven's Gate " much longer than it needs to be . There's really only a wisp of a story , so if we're not fully engaged in the characters , what exactly are we supposed to be engaged in ? However , the weak cast and writing aside , " Heaven's Gate " is still a remarkable achievement in its own way , and a much better film than a new generation of movie lovers has been led to believe . Cimino may stumble with actors , but he's got a iron-clad grasp of visuals , and puts some stunning and memorable images on the screen . The film feels much more like a 70's film than it does an 80's film . At various times , it reminded me of " Little Big Man , " " McCabe and Mrs . Miller , " and " The Wild Bunch . " If that esteemed company doesn't serve as an endorsement of this film , I don't know what does . |
573,642 | 4,532,636 | 54,997 | 7 | Well Made , But VERY Depressing | A stark , downbeat film , proof that Hollywood produced more in the late 1950s / early 1960s than just colorful Biblical spectacles and musicals . Paul Newman stars as Fast Eddie Felsen , one of the roles that made him famous and for which he would win an Oscar when he reprised it over twenty years later in Martin Scorsese's " The Color of Money . " We think of Newman as making his name playing romantic leads , but look at this body of work during this time period : " Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , " " The Hustler , " " Hud , " " Cool Hand Luke . " He actually excelled at playing renegades on the fringe , and he very often took on roles in which he was far from likable . Piper Laurie ( Oscar nominated ) plays the doomed love interest . She wouldn't appear in a film again until 1976's " Carrie , " for which she would also be nominated for an Oscar ( that has to be some sort of obscure record ) . Standout performances come from Jackie Gleason , breaking his Ralph Cramden persona to play a slick rival pool hustler , and most notably George C . Scott , as Newman's oily manager . Robert Rossen directs in the same gritty , sweaty style he brought to " All the King's Men , " a style that works well for the milieu . The movie is very good , but it's such a downer that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth when it's over . |
573,872 | 4,532,636 | 286,499 | 7 | No Big Deal , But Utterly Enjoyable | Bend It Like Beckham reminds me of the best of those 80's teeny-bopper movies directed by John Hughes . Everything takes place in a bubble-gum colored world where everyone is attractive , there are some easily-resolved conflicts that occasionally take away from the mostly happy proceedings , and vast amounts of plot are summarized by montages set to bouncy pop tunes . Nothing wrong with this , however . " Bend It Like Beckham " is an absolute treat from beginning to end . My wife and I found ourselves totally won over by the cornball cheesiness even as we were making fun of it , and at the end , as embarrassing as this is to admit , we applauded ( and we saw this , by the way , in our living room , not in a theatre ) . Watch this movie and enjoy . |
573,887 | 4,532,636 | 87,469 | 7 | Hokier Than " Raiders , " But Still a Good Time | Hokier and jokier than its predecessor , " Raiders of the Lost Ark , " " Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom " gives us a pretty good idea of what Steven Spielberg would be like if he were hopped up on amphetamines . " Raiders " felt like it was full of non-stop action until you see this movie , which barely pauses to catch its breath . It's not as good as " Raiders , " but I always enjoy it . Kate Capshaw is the film's biggest liability - - in the scene where she's being lowered into a fiery pit and Indiana is trying to save her , I always root for the fire . But the film has dazzling set pieces , some of them , like a breakneck race through a mine shaft , that rival or even outdo those in " Raiders . " |
573,786 | 4,532,636 | 102,511 | 7 | A Surprisingly Touching Nightmare | After preparing myself for a completely inaccessible movie experience , I was surprised to find myself quite moved by a strange and sad film about the urges that drive one tortured soul . The movie makes some very interesting parallels between the urge to destructive behavior ( drink , for example ) and the urge to create art . In the surreal world of this film , these are two parts of the same instinct , and it's sad to see a man with so much creative potential simultaneously destroying himself . Director David Cronenberg gives us a bizarre , dream-like world that nevertheless has a distinct logic of its own . Peter Weller is terrific in the lead role ; this couldn't have been an easy performance to create , as he has to serve as an anchor for the audience and establish some sanity in an insane world . Judy Davis is also memorable as his love interest . It's not an easy film , but then what Cronenberg movie ever is ? It didn't leave me as cold as many of his other films , and I thought this one overcame the chilly cerebral intellectualism that ruined movies like " Dead Ringers " or " Crash " ( 1996 ) . |
573,816 | 4,532,636 | 89,385 | 7 | Don't Remember Very Well , But Remember Liking It | I barely feel qualified to write a comment on this forgotten Disney live-action film from the mid-1980s , since I've only seen it once , and that was back when it first came out . But I do remember liking it , and it's probably worth a re-watch for those who saw it back in the day , and a first watch for those who've never seen it . It's notable for featuring a very young John Cusack , before anyone knew who he was . It seems to me that Disney had a pretty good track record of live action films during that decade ( " Never Cry Wolf " is another forgotten one ) but that few of them have had any staying power . |
573,997 | 4,532,636 | 93,773 | 7 | An Oddly Appealing Sci-Fi Horror Film | What is it about this sci-fi horror film that's so appealing ? All I know is that every time I come across it on cable , I almost have to stop what I'm doing and watch it . Governor Arnold leads a platoon of commandos into the jungle to face off against a malicious alien . There's your plot . It's an even more uber-macho version of the previous year's " Aliens " , the only difference being the location and the particular characteristics of the alien . This one has dred locks and can make itself invisible - - all you can see is a sort of ripple in the air when it wants to make itself unseen . It picks off the platoon members one by one in increasingly grisly fashion , until Arnie flexes his pecs and nukes the place . To be followed by numerous sequels , none of which I've seen , and all of which I'm sure were unnecessary . |
574,090 | 4,532,636 | 111,161 | 7 | Entertaining Prison Movie Isn't Nearly as Good as Its Rabid Fan Base Would Lead You to Believe | I'm utterly mystified at the cult of idolatry that has developed around this solid but not overly memorable prison film based on a Stephen King short story . " The Shawshank Redemption " came out of nowhere in 1994 to be nominated for 7 Academy Awards , and I have to believe that it's the film's underdog story that has helped it to develop such a following over the years as much as it is the quality of the film itself . There's nothing egregiously wrong with it , but it's overly-sentimental and obvious film-making from a director who has done nothing but make too serious film adaptations of Stephen King novels . I think it's become apparent over the years that Morgan Freeman is a one-trick pony when it comes to acting , but at the time he wasn't quite as well known , so the wise sage role he plays here seemed good enough to get him an Oscar nomination . However , it's Tim Robbins who really deserves the most praise as the man wrongly imprisoned . The less said about the actors who play the various prison personnel , the better - - they're all played as horrorshow goons . The original Stephen King story was an entertaining bit of pulp , but Frank Darabont tries to turn it into something that the story just isn't - - namely , an epic story about one man's struggle to free his soul . As a result , where the story felt sleek and satisfying , the film feels sanctimonious and bloated . |
574,102 | 4,532,636 | 91,867 | 7 | It's a Good Movie If You Can Stay Awake Through It | I'm pretty sure I've seen " A Room with a View " from beginning to end , but I can't say with any certainty that I've done so sequentially . See , my wife loves this movie , but every time she puts it in it lulls me instantly to sleep . It's like an adult version of a " Mr . Rogers " episode . This Merchant / Ivory production is typically polished and oh-so-tasteful , but like all of their movies it feels like the cinematic equivalent of one of those museum dioramas . It's not very lively , even if it is painstakingly accurate in its period detail . Maggie Smith and Denholm Elliott were awarded Oscar nominations , but the standout actors are Daniel Day-Lewis , playing a hopelessly uptight and ridiculous suitor , and Judi Dench , who plays an adventurous novelist who's far more exciting than any other character in the film . |
574,415 | 4,532,636 | 107,290 | 7 | Landmark Film for the Art of Visual Effects | Steven Spielberg's " what if " movie set in a theme park where dinosaurs have come back to life holds up remarkably well today . This is Spielberg at his best , taking us on a fun house ride and making us feel like we're eight years old again . The visual effects in this movie were absolutely AMAZING at the time , and still look great today . " Jurassic Park " is one of those landmark films - - there were visual effects before it and there are visual effects after it , and it's clear that this film changed the course of the art form forever . " Jurassic Park " is also the movie that inspired a short-lived crush on Laura Dern for me . I think it was watching her run around in those cargo shorts . |
573,993 | 4,532,636 | 33,717 | 7 | Bogie Heads to the Hills | The majority of this Raoul Walsh crime thriller is standard issue , but it does boast a knockout finale set in the gorges of the Sierra Nevada mountains . Bogart plays a brooding thug " rushin ' toward death , " who's hitched himself to one last scheme - - knocking off a ritzy hotel - - that will allow him to rest easy for a while . But this is a film noir , and the life of relative normalcy that Bogie's character chases remains just outside of his grasp , and fate has other plans for him . One circumstance after another intervenes to prevent his having a happy ending , and he meets his tragic fate in a climactic shoot out while his girlfriend ( Ida Lupino ) looks on . A good part of the film's narrative concerns a rural family who Bogart befriends , and in particular the young woman ( an annoying Joan Leslie ) who Bogie sees as a path to domestic happiness . I understand the significance of this plot line , but it slows the film down considerably , and makes it feel longer than it even is . On the other hand , there's an inventive and memorable subplot about a dog who may be a harbinger of doom . The mountains themselves are used to tremendous effect , representing both figuratively and literally the insurmountable environmental factors that will always hold Bogie down . |
574,012 | 4,532,636 | 871,426 | 7 | A Buddy Comedy with a Healthy Dose of Estrogen | Tina Fey and Amy Poehler prove that buddy comedies need not be the exclusive domain of naughty boys . " Baby Mama " is no comic masterpiece , but it's at least as good as any number of formulaic comedies churned out by Hollywood and much better than many others . Fey is the uptight career woman who hears her biological clock ticking at 37 and wants to have a baby before it's too late . Poehler is the low-class , free-wheeling blonde who agrees to be her surrogate mother for a hefty fee . The usual odd-couple conflicts ensue , maternal instincts kick in , and in traditional sitcom style , everyone gets what they want in the end . The movie is mostly an excuse to give Fey and Poehler the chance to riff off of one another , and they do it well . Poehler especially displays the ability to carry a movie , something most SNL veterans aren't able to do . She's funny , but she's also able to embody an actual character rather than simply do skit-T . V . schtick . Just watch her horrified face the first time she tastes water ; or the hilarious scene when Fey wrestles her into the shower and begins to scrub the hair dye off of her head in a scene that spoofs " Silkwood . " Also starring Greg Kinnear as a smoothie store owner , and a whacked out Steve Martin as Fey's new age boss . |
574,298 | 4,532,636 | 804,522 | 7 | The Sum Is Better Than the Parts | I came out of " Rendition " with a list of flaws a mile long , so how is it that my overall impression is that it was a pretty decent movie ? It's definitely a film whose sum is better than its parts . Those parts include a cast of big name stars , not one of them giving a memorable performance ( Omar Metwally , a relative unknown , is the one you'll remember ) ; serviceable if undistinguished direction ; and a screenplay that's both too complicated and too simplistic at the same time . Metwally is an Egyptian-born American citizen who gets kidnapped by the U . S . government's rendition program , otherwise known as the process by which America tortures suspected terrorists into confessing information whether or not it's remotely true . Reese Witherspoon plays his pregnant wife , who calls in the favor of an old college friend ( Peter Saarsgard ) , who works for a senator ( Alan Arkin ) and helps to track her husband down . Meryl Streep plays the head of the rendition program ; Jake Gyllenhaal is a young agent assigned to the interrogation and whose conscience gets in the way . Meanwhile , a whole parallel storyline follows the daughter of a top Egyptian official who is allied to the American rendition program and her boyfriend , who's in training to become a suicide bomber . Ay-yi-yi that's a lot of plot to pack into a two-hour movie , and I was about to wash my hands of the whole thing , especially the Egyptian Romeo and Juliet subplot that felt like nothing more than a distraction . But then near the film's finale , a twist of chronology brings all of the plot strands together in a way that makes you want to reassess everything you thought you knew about the motivations of the various characters , and makes " Rendition " a much more interesting movie than it seems like it's going to be . Witherspoon , Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard all look like high school students playing adults twenty years older than they actually are - - Gyllenhaal in particular , usually a fine actor , looks so bored that you wonder if he's going to muster the energy to deliver his lines . And the screenwriter should be arrested for having an actress as good as Meryl Streep at his disposal and giving her nothing more to work with than this one-dimensional dragon lady . The movie of course strives for relevancy , but instead of addressing the tangled web of arguments surrounding the national security issue , it charges right down the middle of the debate in a predictable fashion . There are moments when you think maybe the film will veer off in an interesting direction - - what if Witherspoon did actually begin to doubt her husband's past , for instance ? What if Metwally actually had been in contact with terrorists , as his interrogators accuse ? But no , the movie takes the path of least resistance . But , like I said upfront , I recommend this movie . I know I've done nothing but list a bunch of its faults , but it's got its head in the right place , and it is entertaining , or at least as as entertaining as a movie about torture and interrogation can be . |
574,126 | 4,532,636 | 54,885 | 7 | Frothy and Enjoyable Minor R & H Musical | Popular consensus holds that " Flower Drum Song " is a weak link in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon , and that's mostly true . It doesn't have as important a story to tell , and since it's not a period piece it's the most badly dated . And certainly , in cinematic terms alone , the film version is one of the worst of the stage-to-screen R & H adaptations . But all of that aside , there's something about this film that utterly charms me . A great deal of that charm resides in Nancy Kwan , who looks sexy and gorgeous in this and played a large role in many an adolescent fantasy as a result of her appearance in this film . But beyond her , there's much to like about the movie . It tells a sweet , simple story that may not be profound , but is certainly harmless enough . The score , while not R & H's best , is still full of enjoyable and hummable tunes . And there are a couple of truly memorable production numbers , like the " Sunday " sequence , or the lengthy and trippy ballet in the middle of the film , that stops the show even if it feels somewhat out of place . All in all , you could do much worse . |
573,769 | 4,532,636 | 65,724 | 7 | A Fine Character Study | Jack Nicholson delivers a wonderful performance - - back when he was still playing characters other than Jack Nicholson - - in this well done but awfully gloomy film from Bob Rafelson . Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea , a worker on an oil rig with decidedly anti-social tendencies , who returns home to make peace with his dying father . Once there , he's confronted with the cushy , privileged life he left behind , and we learn that he turned away from a promising career as a concert pianist . What I like most about " Five Easy Pieces " is its ambivalence toward its main character . The film does not try to turn Bobby into some sort of noble hero , who shuns the establishment in order to uphold his own principles . He seems much more like a spoiled rich kid who can afford to be a slacker because he's never lived without a safety net . He fails to pursue a musical career , but more because he's lazy than because of anything that career would represent for him . And his treatment of his girlfriend , played heart breakingly by Karen Black in one of her many fascinating performances , is unnecessarily cruel . She's so dumbly loyal that mistreating her is the equivalent of mistreating a dog . But still , Nicholson is able to make us like Bobby , and to understand at some level where his anti-social behavior comes from . He is unable to tolerate the arbitrary rules and restrictions of bourgeois life , and a famous scene in a diner when he tries to order a tuna fish sandwich with toasted bread and ends up in a complicated argument with the waitress provides just one illustration of how Bobby perceives the world from which he is running . |
574,140 | 4,532,636 | 427,944 | 7 | Smoke ' Em If You Got ' Em | Thank You for Smoking isn't especially meaty , and it likely won't give you much to chew on after viewing it , but as a funny , clever 90-minute diversion , you could do much worse . The chameleon actor Aaron Eckhart is perfect casting as a gifted spin doctor working on behalf of big tobacco companies . The film is effective in that it makes the motives of every other faction in the smoking debate ( awareness groups , liberal campaigners , Hollywood , journalists ) so questionable that you have no choice but to root for Eckhart's character , however morally repugnant you may find him to be . There is some validity in his arguments for speaking out for cigarette companies ; after all , at some point American consumers have to take responsibility and conclude on their own that smoking is an awful habit . We can't allow brow-beating consumer awareness groups or agenda-pushing Democrats or scary labels stuck on cigarette packages to make up peoples ' minds for them . If people , knowing everything they know about the dangers of smoking , are going to be stupid enough to continue supporting the cigarette industry , then why shouldn't corporations try to take advantage of that ? After all , that's the American way ; every company and politician does the same thing . This film is reminiscent of " Election " in its satirical tone and its style . If you liked that film , you'll probably like this one . A fine supporting cast is assembled , including Maria Bello , Katie Holmes , William H . Macy and an underused Robert Duvall . But the movie sticks pretty closely to Eckhart and doesn't give anyone else much to do . It's glib and superficial , but enjoyable . |
573,818 | 4,532,636 | 78,841 | 7 | Has a Cult Following That Doesn't Include Me | This movie just didn't click with me . I very much like Hal Ashby's films , and I like this one as well , but the love it has received as a cult classic gives me that uncomfortable feeling I sometimes get about movies that I've missed something obvious everyone else can see . Ashby's tone for the film is quiet , gentle and whimsical - - much like the main character played by Peter Sellers - - but that's the problem : it's all TOO quiet , gentle and whimsical , and I found myself fighting drooping eyelids . But I have the nagging suspicion that this is a film I should revisit and would probably build an appreciation for on subsequent viewings . |
573,880 | 4,532,636 | 264,761 | 7 | A Cute Performance from Westfeldt | This charming , lightweight comedy about sexual orientation and experimentation stars the adorable , funny Jennifer Westfeldt as a good Jewish girl who decides that maybe the whole heterosexual dating thing isn't working for her , so she's going to play for the other team for a while . She begins a timid " romance " with a girl in much the same boat , with the exception that Westfeldt never really takes to lesbianism and the other girl does . Though the lesson she learns - - the problem in connecting with men lies in her own inability to sustain an intimate connection with another human being , not in any hidden homosexual tendencies - - is obvious , it's well told , and the director manages to keep the film from seeming glib or trendy . Westfeldt is a lovable actress , and she navigates the iffy terrain between cute and annoying very well . |
573,927 | 4,532,636 | 111,257 | 7 | One Bus That Doesn't Make Any of Its Stops | Keanu Reeves has the uncanny ability to pop up in a legitimately good movie just often enough to keep people convinced that he may not be a completely worthless actor after all . " Speed " became a big hit in 1994 against all expectations . It was meant to be a disposable genre film and instead became a blockbuster . It's the ultimate high-concept movie : a bus will blow up if it's not kept moving above a certain speed . You can imagine the results . Reeves is fine , as is Dennis Hopper , hamming it up as the villain , but the reason for the film's success is mostly due to Sandra Bullock ( this may have been her debut ? ) as the plucky bus driver . Bullock is such a pleasing presence on film that even if the movie around her sucks , you keep watching just for her . Fortunately for us , the movie around her is pretty good too . |
573,879 | 4,532,636 | 50,976 | 7 | Again with the Meaning of Life Thing - - Enough Already | The Seventh Seal would strike me as a better film today had Ingmar Bergman not gone on to remake virtually the same film countless times over the rest of his career . In " Seal , " Max von Sydow sits down to a game of chess with the Grim Reaper and seeks answers to the meaning of life , existence of God , and so on and so forth . If you've seen one Bergman film , you've seen them all . The poor man put a lot of effort into exploring life's BIG issues but never seemed to get any closer to an answer about any of them . As I've become a more sophisticated movie watcher , I find Bergman's style nearly intolerable . His films are airless and stifling , and hopelessly pretentious . It's been a long time since I've seen " The Seventh Seal , " and maybe I would have a better opinion of it on a second viewing , but frankly , I would rather watch " Snakes on a Plane " than watch this film again . One of the famous images in this film is the shot of the Reaper leading a dance of death across a stark hillside . Woody Allen aped it in his 1975 film " Love and Death . " |
573,354 | 4,532,636 | 435,625 | 7 | Scared the Hell Out of Me | The Descent is like " Steel Magnolias " crossed with " Deliverance , " with a healthy dash of " Alien " and " The Blair Witch Project " thrown in for good measure . What a truly creepy , scary movie this is , and what a nice surprise to find that good horror movies are still being made . This movie isn't for those with a weak stomach , as it's pretty gory . Yet it doesn't rely on gore for its scares . The director creates a claustrophobic atmosphere that would have been scary enough had the party of female cave explorers had nothing out of the ordinary to contend with . But throw in a batch of icky psycho tunnel dwellers and this movie becomes a nice blend of psychological and visceral horror . It's also a movie that stuck with me for a long time after seeing it . It made me feel really bad , but in kind of a good way if that makes any sense . I felt after seeing it much like I felt after " The Blair Witch Project . " This is one definitely worth hunting down ( pun intended ) . |
573,343 | 4,532,636 | 53,125 | 7 | Not One of My Favorite Hitchcock Films | I've found this admittedly classic Hitchcock entry a bit tough to warm up to on multiple viewings . I enjoyed it very much the first time I saw it , but I don't want to revisit it the way I like revisiting " Rear Window , " " Psycho " or " The Birds . " Almost every Hitchcock film has at least one classic set piece that everyone remembers , and this film has at least two : the crop duster sequence , in which Cary Grant is pursued across an empty field by a sinister plane ( very creepy ) and the breathtaking climax on Mt . Rushmore . Eva Marie Saint plays the Hitchcock blonde in this one , but you'll be hard pressed to even remember that she's in the movie . |
573,735 | 4,532,636 | 65,777 | 7 | In the Garden of the Elite | Director Vittorio De Sica eschews the neo-realism that defined his earliest work and takes a more poetic approach with this story about a wealthy , privileged family who shut themselves away from the encroaching threat of fascism in the early days of WWII Italy . They ultimately find that their elite status does not protect them from the fascist threat , and the quietly devastating ending shows the family being separated , perhaps forever , as they are rounded up and herded into lines like so much cattle . The ending makes this film memorable , but everything proceeding it struck me as rather lightweight , given the subject matter . This isn't a movie I think back on as a masterpiece , and I think its reputation rests somewhat on the fact that De Sica , a respected master , directed it . |
574,378 | 4,532,636 | 765,443 | 7 | Cronenberg's Latest Feels Less Important Than " A History of Violence " | I have a love / hate relationship with David Cronenberg , or maybe more aptly a like / hate relationship with him . I liked " Naked Lunch " and " The Fly . " I hated " Crash . " I loved " A History of Violence , " and on the strength of that film , and the fact that he was re-teaming with Viggo Mortensen , came into " Eastern Promises " with high hopes . So did I like " Eastern Promises ? " Yes . Did I love it ? No . It's the kind of movie that feels haunting while you're watching it , but it left me surprisingly unmoved after it was finished , and nothing about it really lingered in my head , which was not the case with " Violence . " I think maybe the difference is that " A History of Violence " felt completely of a piece with the current cultural climate ; it felt resonant . " Eastern Promises " tells a much more contained and , in my mind , contrived story that doesn't have much to say about anything outside of the world of the film . That's not to say that the film itself doesn't tell an interesting story , but I'm not sure it tells a very important one . Mortensen plays the driver of a Russian mafia crime boss ( Armin Mueller-Stahl in a sinister , mesmerizing performance ) who crosses paths with a young and pretty nurse ( Naomi Watts ) when she gains possession of a diary left behind by an immigrant prostitute who dies giving birth . Watts becomes the protector of the young girl's baby , for reasons of her own , and becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about the girl's death and holding those responsible for it accountable ( " those " happen to be the very Russian mafia that Mortensen works for ) . Stahl's attempts to " deal " with the situation are foiled unbeknownst to him by Mortensen , for reasons that we don't fully understand until the film's final moments . All of this sounds juicy enough , and at times the film is quite an effective little thriller , but on screen the whole story is just a little too scripted to ever be believable . I also thought Cronenberg resorted to cheap tricks at the end , when he puts a baby in danger to create a race-against-time finale ; it felt desperate , like the product of a screenwriter who didn't know how else to end the movie . Watts is wasted in her role ; her character's not especially vivid . Mortensen gives a very good performance , but his character's not as interesting as he first appears . The more we learn about him , the more we realize that any complexity given to his character is a result more of plot twists than of psychological motivation . Cronenberg brings a highly homoerotic charge to the film - - much of the film's action is driven by the fact that Stahl is embarrassed by his gay son , who isn't man enough for the role he needs to fill . And in the film's most memorable scene , a completely nude Mortensen fights savagely to the death in a Turkish bath . I commend Cronenberg for this scene - - in our movie culture , it's been completely acceptable for ages to juxtapose naked female flesh to violence , but when the same is done with a male body , people sit up and take notice . My biggest complaint with the film is Cronenberg's use of shock violence . Like so many violent films , this one makes us ask the question : at what point does graphic violence stop making a point and merely become a fetish of the director ? Would the scene in the bath have been any less effective had it not ended with a close-up of Mortensen stabbing a man in the eye with his blade ? Unfortunately , that appeared to the be the film's money shot , if the young college boys next to me whooping it up at that point were any indication . I just felt that moments like that cheapened the overall effect of the movie . So , Cronenberg didn't knock this one out of the park for me . It's definitely a movie I'm glad I saw , and it's bound to be a conversation starter , but I don't think it's a movie I'll remember as one of this year's best . |
573,529 | 4,532,636 | 87,277 | 7 | Gotta Cut Loose for Kevin Bacon | Aw , come on IMDb'ers , why the low rating ? Where's your sense of loyalty ? I can't hear that Kenny Loggins title song and see those pairs of dancing feet during the opening credits without sitting down to watch this whole movie . And even if it's largely to make fun of it , I still love it for old times ' sake . Kevin Bacon is the tough city kid stuck in some podunk Midwest town where dancing has been outlawed . John Lithgow is the preacher who serves as Bacon's arch nemesis ; Lori Singer is the preacher's daughter who has a hankering for the new dangerous kid . Dianne Wiest is the reasonable mom who acts as referee between dad and daughter . The whole thing is sillier than an episode of " Laugh-In , " but many of the actors ( particularly Lithgow , Wiest and Bacon ) are good enough to actually sell the material . And come on , admit it , you know you like the music . |
573,462 | 4,532,636 | 1,129,442 | 7 | Statham Strips and Kicks Ass ( Sometimes at the Same Time ) | More fast and furious action from Jason Statham , directed in this outing by Olivier Megaton ( is that name for real ? ) The " Transporter " series is the bargain bin version of the James Bond films , but I enjoyed this film way more than the latest Bond , " Quantum of Solace . " This installment exists as nothing more than a Jason Statham fetish movie . We see him kicking ass shirtless while the female in peril this time around ogles him . She later makes him perform a striptease much to her delight and - - let's be honest - - the audience's . You don't have to be female or gay to admit that Statham is a fine specimen of a man ; most guys would kill to look like him . And as someone who's follicly challenged myself , it's nice to see someone bringing sexy back to bald . |
573,852 | 4,532,636 | 57,193 | 7 | The Screen Comedy Goes Epic | Hollywood insulted our brains and our backsides with any number of " serious " epics in the 1950s and 60s , like " Ben-Hur , " " Cleopatra " and " How the West Was Won . " It also gave us the not-so-serious but no less boring " cameo " pseudo-adventure pics like " Around the World in 80 Days , " which existed mainly as celebrity-spotting exercises for the movie audiences , and which I guess were supposed to tickle people silly by giving them a chance to recognize obsolete and creaky film stars popping up in bit roles as chauffeurs , doormen , organ grinders , etc . So it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would give us a new mutation of the formula : the epic " cameo " comedy . " It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World " is of course ridiculously long , grotesquely overblown and as overstuffed as a Thanksgiving turkey , but it also happens to work a sort of charm on its audience . Anyone who was anyone in the world of film comedy appears in the picture , either in a lead or cameo role , and the results are nearly frightening : any single member of the cast could ( and did ) carry films on their own , so when you throw them all together , it's like a shark feeding frenzy , with each actor trying his or her damnedest to shout down the others in an attempt to steal the scene . Some , like Ethel Merman for example , are better suited for this than others , and they're the ones that you'll remember later . If watched in a certain frame of mind , " . . . Mad World " is grim and grueling , working over time to wring laughs out of its high-concept premise . But if you sit back and ease into the ride , it's almost impossible not to be won over , mostly because it would take superhuman stamina to hold out against this cast of Tasmanian devils , and it's just plain easier to give in . |
573,365 | 4,532,636 | 58,557 | 7 | A Deeply Unnerving Film with Two Tremendous Lead Performances | Kim Stanley delivers a tremendously affecting performance as a sad English suburban housewife who desperately wants to prove her validity as a medium and will go to criminal means to do so in this chilly and chilling drama . Critics heaped praise upon Stanley , always known as more of a stage actress than a movie actress , and the Academy awarded her a best actress nomination for her work in this film , and rightly so . At a time when movie acting could still be superficial , when Hollywood starlets were cast in ill-fitting roles because they looked better and would sell more tickets , Stanley gave a performance that distinguished itself in sheer commitment to character . It was rare then and still rare now to see a performance in which the actress creates a living , breathing human being before your very eyes . But in the interest of fairness , one must also mention the equally strong work of Richard Attenborough , who gets a less showy but as important role as Stanley's beleaguered husband , who will do anything to keep his wife happy , even after he begins to suspect that she may be ill . Attenborough creates the image of a middle-aged man who suspects that he was lucky to get the wife he has , and who wants more than anything to live a normal , family-oriented life that seems to always remain just beyond his grasp . " Seance on a Wet Afternoon " is not a masterpiece , but it is a subtly and intensely disquieting film , the kind that lingers in your head long after you've seen it . |
573,555 | 4,532,636 | 829,482 | 7 | A Tame Dirty Comedy | Boys behaving badly is the subject of this pretty funny adolescent comedy . Three uber-geeky high school seniors are invited to a party they otherwise would never get invited to because they promise to bring the booze . Their struggles to actually get to the party comprise most of the film's action . End of story . " Superbad " is plenty naughty , but it's actually fairly tame for the genre . Even " Porky's " from more than twenty years ago felt more adult than this movie . The film's R rating comes almost entirely from its rough language , of which there is plenty , but there's little else to offend . This comedy is in the tradition of the recent spate of " sensitive " adult comedies like " The 40-Year-Old-Virgin " and " Knocked Up " in which guys learn to treat women with respect and maturity is something other than a four-letter word . I had two major complaints with " Superbad " : one is that I can't stand the actor Jonah Hill , who unfortunately gets the bulk of the movie's screen time ; the other is that I'm also tiring quickly of Seth Rogan , and his and Bill Hader's antics as the most irresponsible cops in the world provide the movie with its least funny moments , and serve only as a distraction from the much funnier and actually sort of sweet story about three teenagers ' coming of age . |
573,476 | 4,532,636 | 27,977 | 7 | Individual Parts Greater Than the Whole | One of this movie's most famous images - - Chaplin sliding around inside the gears and cogs of a monstrous machine - - provides a handy visual to go along with my opinion of the film in general : there are individual cogs that I remember as being brilliant , but when put together they don't make a totally satisfying machine . Unlike " City Lights " or " The Gold Rush " before , or " The Great Dictator " after , I didn't get caught up in the narrative of " Modern Times , " and I felt there were longer gaps between the funny bits . However , some of the set pieces in this are hilarious , most notably the scene where Chaplin finds himself strapped into an automatic feeding machine that goes berserk ; and a nimble scene on roller skates that showcases his athleticism . Sadly , " Modern Times " was an all too applicable metaphor for Chaplin's place in the film industry . New technologies were beginning to make his artistry obsolete , and the sadness of that is palpable in the film's final shot . I'm recommending " Modern Times " because it's a very good movie . I just didn't think it was as good as some of Chaplin's other well-known projects . |
574,294 | 4,532,636 | 95,953 | 7 | Road Trippin ' with Hoffman and Cruise | Barry Levinson mostly resists the urge to give in to the rampant sentimentality that this story begs for , but the end result is still rather treacly and weepy . Tom Cruise plays a selfish hot head who ends up having to care for his autistic brother ( Dustin Hoffman ) . It's a road trip movie , the kind where you just know Cruise is going to discover all sorts of goodness about himself before it's all over ; meanwhile , Hoffman acts up a storm , delivering the kind of performance that wins awards left and right ( which is what happened ) . I don't mind this movie , but something about it just feels soft and gauzy , like all of Levinson's films . It's got no TEETH . |
574,517 | 4,532,636 | 27,969 | 7 | Harold Lloyd , Middle-Weight Boxing Champ of the World | In this very solid Harold Lloyd screwball comedy , Lloyd plays an unassuming milk delivery man who finds himself on the front pages when he's credited with knocking out the world middle-weight boxing champion , Speed McFarland , in a street brawl . The negative publicity this news generates for McFarland comes much to the dismay of McFarland's manager , the slick Adolphe Menjou , who instantly plans a damage-control scheme . Lloyd will go up against a number of other boxers and win in fixed fights , building anticipation for a rematch against McFarland , in which McFarland will clobber him in the first round , since Lloyd doesn't really know how to fight . Of course , nothing plays out as simply as it should , and all manner of hijinks and supporting characters find themselves mixed up in this zany plot . I was impressed by the tight screenplay for " The Milky Way . " It's classic 30s screwball , which means the script doesn't have to make a lot of sense , but even so the scriptwriters flesh out little details in the action - - like a thug who can't read , or Lloyd's affection for his milk cart horse , Agnes - - that play a role later in the plot . And the film is filled with all manner of sight gags and one-liners . Some of my favorite set pieces are the ones in which Menjou's sardonic girlfriend , played like a champ by Verree Teasdale , an actress I've never heard of , teaches Lloyd how to box by turning his training into a dance lesson ; and a hilarious bit that finds Lloyd racing to his big match with McFarland while lugging around a colt , offspring of the beloved Agnes . Director Leo McCarey knows how to stage physical comedy , and the frame at any given time is stuffed with all manner of characters doing or saying something completely separate from what everybody else is doing or saying , so that the reigning visual style of the film is controlled chaos . " The Milky Way " may not be in the same league as some of its screwball contemporaries , like " My Man Godfrey " or " Bringing Up Baby , " but I guarantee it will put a smile on your face . |
573,615 | 4,532,636 | 98,384 | 7 | Well Acted Soap Opera | The material in " Steel Magnolias " teeters dangerously on the brink of " Terms of Endearment " territory - - maudlin , gloopy and shamelessly tearjerky . But it's saved by its cast , who are able to keep things palatable . The most praise must go to Sally Field , who's perfectly suited to play the tough-as-nails Southern mom who must face losing her daughter , and her breakdown scene in the cemetery after they bury her is a small tour-de-force . Field refuses to let the sentimentality of the script overshadow her performance - - it's a terrific piece of acting . The film also features that tireless work horse , Tom Skerritt , hopelessly under-appreciated as an actor , along with a female cast that includes Shirley MacLaine , Olympia Dukakis , Dolly Parton , Daryl Hannah and Julia Roberts , Oscar-nominated for her performance as Field's sick daughter . |
574,262 | 4,532,636 | 27,996 | 7 | Dress Rehearsal for " Mr . Smith Goes to Washington " | It's funny how common it was for directors in the 30s to remake their own movies , sometimes no more than a few years after they made the original . " Mr . Smith Goes to Washington " isn't exactly a remake of " Mr . Deeds , " but it sure bears more than a merely striking resemblance to Capra's earlier film . The idea of an idealistic everyman standing up to a bullying bureaucracy is central to both films , but " Mr . Smith " is the darker and more bitter of the two . As a result , " Mr . Deeds " is sunnier and more fun , but also feels less substantial . Nothing wrong with the actors though . Jean Arthur is one of my favorite actresses from this time period . She was cute and flirty , but never in a self-conscious or cloying way . And Gary Cooper , despite his towering presence and good looks , excels at playing an everyday Joe who doesn't want a life of complicated wealth thrust on him when a rich relative dies and leaves him his inheritance . Frank Capra wasn't a very versatile director , and he was rather obsessed with one theme that he revisited time and again , but what he chose to do he did very well . |
573,834 | 4,532,636 | 418,279 | 7 | Uncle Sam Wants You ( to See This Movie ) | I was actually slightly motion sick after leaving this film , so my final impression of it is somewhat marred by that , but overall this was dumb summer fun at its best . I was the right age for the transformer toys , but I never really got into them . However , having played with them is not a prerequisite for enjoying the film . These kind of movies crack me up . They are so obvious in their intentions to traffic in the gut emotions of an audience not used to thinking very critically about what they are watching . This film , like most of Michael Bay's films , is a gussied up military recruitment ad , the kind where all of the soldiers in it are muscled and oily , and where they do a lot of walking toward the camera in emphatic slow motion . There are girls in the film ( two of them , to be exact ) , but they're basically just guys with breasts and nice legs . The government is to be feared and distrusted , because they keep secrets from the American people ( like the fact that the Hoover Dam was really built as a facade to hide alien robots and their belongings ) , while the military is heroic and manly . To make itself feel relevant , the film even throws in some action scenes set in the Middle East . It was refreshing , though , that for once all of the chest-thumping is not reserved solely for the United States , but rather for the human race in general . The message in " Transformers , " other than that geeky teenagers have the stuff soldiers are made of , is that the human race isn't so bad after all , even if we have a lot to learn . |
573,980 | 4,532,636 | 420,223 | 7 | A Creative and New Examination of Old Questions | Harold Crick lives a boring life of dull routine and never seems to entertain the notion that any other kind of life is a possibility . He quietly gets up every morning , catches the same bus to work , spends his day auditing people who hate him ( he's an IRS agent ) , comes home , goes to bed and repeats everything the next day . His life is carefully synchronized by his trusty wristwatch , possibly and sadly Harold's best friend . His daily comings and goings are narrated to us by the pleasant , British accented voice of God , or at least of Emma Thompson . But one day , a seemingly ordinary Wednesday , Harold begins to hear the same narration that we hear , including a passing mention of his impending death . Harold's the main character in a novel , you see , and Emma Thompson is not an omniscient god , but rather the author of the novel . Though , as the movie hints , perhaps they're the same thing . I went into " Stranger Than Fiction " with significant reservations . The movie belongs to the same genre as films like " Adaptation , " " Being John Malkovich " and " The Truman Show , " metaphysical musings on subjects like free will , the act of creation and such , all films which I found to be a bit too clever for their own good and which ultimately could not deliver on the promise of their imaginative concepts . But " Stranger Than Fiction " handles its topic quite well , and it's a very good movie . Once Harold realizes that his creator intends for him to die , he sets out to change the course of events of his life , not sure whether or not such a thing is even possible . He's helped by the fact that he's found something worth living for , that something being a feisty baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal , who brings a tremendous amount to the film through her nimble performance and engaging screen presence , and he enlists the help of a university literature professor cum therapist played by Dustin Hoffman , who helps Harold unravel the mystery of who's writing the book about him . Meanwhile , Thompson enters into a crisis of her own . She can't figure out how to kill off Harold Crick , and just as she comes up with a perfect and poetic way for him to die , she discovers that Harold knows who she is and that she's in control , and suddenly the act of killing him off becomes infinitely complicated by the fact that a real human life is in her hands . There's much about this film that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it for too long . For example , if Harold is a fictional character living in a fictional universe created by an author , then why isn't everyone else he interacts with fictional too ? Also , the death Thompson devises for Harold isn't that original , so one wonders why exactly she had so much trouble coming up with it in the first place . But the questions about the moral responsibility of creators for their creations , and the reverse questions about the freedom of creations to determine their own fate , though not exactly new , are at least given a fresh coating of paint here , and the slick direction by Marc Forster helps the film and its ideas go down easily . It's not as intellectually ambitious as movies like " Adaptation " or " Being John Malkovich , " but in spite of that , or maybe because of it , I enjoyed this film more . |
574,473 | 4,532,636 | 35,567 | 7 | A Hepburn / Tracy Debut | Watching this first pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn , it's easy to see why the two became a legendary screen couple ( and real-life couple for that matter ) . They seem perfectly suited for one another , and you can't imagine either of them with anyone else . But it's hard from a 21st Century sensibility not to be appalled at this WWII-era George Stevens dramedy . Tracy is a sports writer and Hepburn an international reporter for the same newspaper . They meet , marry and fight when she won't abandon her career to settle down into dutiful motherhood . In the end , she gets her comeuppance and realizes that what she wants more than anything is to learn how to separate eggs and make coffee . Try to forgive it its decidedly un-feminist message though . This came out at a time when the culture was particularly threatened by the idea of women supplanting men in areas traditionally reserved for men , and it wouldn't have been good for soldier morale for men to think women back at home could carry on just fine without them . And at the very end , Tracy does come around and tell Hepburn that he doesn't necessarily want a barefoot and pregnant version of a wife any more than he wants a career-oriented wife who will put her work before her home , but rather wishes she could be something in between . As things play out in the film , this comes as too little too late , but it's a sophisticated attitude for the time and makes the movie much more relevant today , when women are being forced to juggle multiple roles . Overall I enjoyed this movie , but I thought it was strangely directed by Stevens . I usually enjoy his 40s comedies , but his instincts feel off here . The way he chooses to shoot scenes many times seem in tone to be at odds with what's actually happening in them , so I wasn't always sure what was supposed to be light-hearted and funny and what wasn't . A striking example of this comes in the scene in which Tracy comes back to Hepburn's apartment after their first date . It's supposed to be an erotic and sexually charged scene , but it's shot like a film noir , with Hepburn silhouetted against brightly lit windows and the room in sinister shadow . There's a ponderousness to Stevens ' direction that serves as a sneak preview of his prevailing style in the 50s , when he started to make socially " important " movies . A solidly made but uneven film . If you're expecting a frothy comedy you will be disappointed . |
573,674 | 4,532,636 | 24,069 | 7 | Legs , Legs and More Legs | Gold Diggers of 1933 is lighter and funnier than " 42nd Street , " released earlier in the same year and the product of much of the same production team . Though at the same time , the Depression is more constantly present in " Gold Diggers " than it was in " 42nd Street , " and the film culminates ( and ends rather abruptly ) with a dark and critical social comment . Present again are the elaborate and bizarre choreographic creations of Busby Berkeley , designed to showcase lots of female skin . Particularly nonsensical is the " Pettin ' in the Park " number that ends ( I'm not kidding ) with Dick Powell using a can opener on Ruby Keeler . And get a load of those costumes in the " We're in the Money " number ; those strategically placed quarters would never have gotten past the censors had this been released post-code . Overall , it's obvious that the filmmakers were still more used to vaudeville than musical comedy , as the film pretty much stops to allow time for some disjointed musical numbers rather than incorporating them into the action . The aforementioned Powell and Keeler are about as bland as they were in " 42nd Street , " though Keeler is much more palatable without the saccharine , cavity-inducing personality she was asked to don in the earlier movie . And thank God she isn't given more than a few minutes to dance , since she's got the grace of a truck driver . The biggest assets to this film are Joan Blondell , spicy and sexy , and Aline MacMahon , who plays the role Rosalind Russell would be playing if she were in this movie . Ginger Rogers , tremendous screen presence aside , has only a couple of scenes and is pretty much wasted again , though she inexplicably gets to sing some bars of " We're in the Money " in Pig Latin and extreme close-up . A film center in my home city of Chicago is having a Busby Berkeley retrospective , so I've been able to see these two early thirties movies in sequence and note how the art form of musical comedy evolved from one film to the next . " 42nd Street " was like musical comedy without the music or the comedy . " Gold Diggers of 1933 " adds the comedy , but still struggles with what to do with the music . " Gold Diggers of 1935 " is up next , and we'll see what Berkeley and company have learned along the way . |
573,760 | 4,532,636 | 78,346 | 7 | The Man of Steel Is Also a Dork | Some mighty big names lined up to be in this still-most-famous screen version of the comic book series , but a relatively unknown actress , Margot Kidder , manages to steal the show out from everyone in her performance as the spunky Lois Lane , and it's her that I remember most now . Richard Donner's direction is as square and dorky as Christopher Reeves , who plays the man of steel and looks like a plastic action figure of himself . Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty yuck it up as Lex Luthor and his right-hand man ; Valerie Perrine , an Oscar-nominated actress for God's sake , lends nothing really more than her boobs to the picture as Luthor's girlfriend . The movie climaxes with a spectacular earthquake that decimates Southern California and offered what were for the time some pretty dazzling special effects . In this age of dark , angst-ridden superhero flicks , " Superman's " cheezy aw-shucksness is rather refreshing . It's much more " Fantastic Four " than it is Tim Burton's " Batman . " |
573,599 | 4,532,636 | 57,129 | 7 | A Good Old-Fashioned Ghost Story | Robert Wise was never an especially artistic director . You never sensed that he was really trying to push the limits of film as an art form with the movies he made . Yet he had a knack for creating especially well-made films . They weren't fancy , but they were far beyond merely competent . With " The Haunting , " Wise gives us a truly creepy ghost story , about four characters spending time in a notorious haunted house , trying to uncover its secrets . It's reminiscent of Jack Clayton's " The Innocents " ( 1961 ) - - though it's inferior to that film - - in that the movie revolves around one emotionally unstable female , played by Julie Harris here . Because our perspective of what's happening is filtered through her mind , we can never be totally sure that we're receiving a reliable version of events . Julie Harris does well with a role that Sandy Dennis would have been cast in had this movie been made ten years later . Voice over narration giving us a constant stream of her thoughts seems overused and silly at first , but becomes more and more effective as her mental stability begins to reach its breaking point . There are overt lesbian overtones between her and the other female character ( played by Claire Bloom ) , and Russ Tamblyn , who played Riff in Wise's 1961 film version of " West Side Story , " makes an appearance as the lone skeptic of the bunch . " The Haunting " is yet one more example of how bad today's horror movies are . Any director now would have filled this film with any number of cheesy CGI effects ( and probably did - - I haven't seen the 1999 remake ) , but Wise creates an incredibly scary film using some sound effects and fancy camera angles . Tension builds so effectively that the only true " effect " in the film ( a breathing door ) becomes more frightening than any CGI effect could have been . The film is marred by a clunky , ham-fisted ending , but the rest of the film is so exquisitely creepy that by the time it comes the movie has had its effect on you , regardless of how it ends . A great film to watch during the Halloween season . This and " The Innocents " would actually make a terrific double feature . |
574,154 | 4,532,636 | 319,343 | 7 | A Modern Holiday Classic | Will Ferrell has escaped the curse of most SNL veterans who try to transition to major motion pictures ( at least those who have tried to make the jump in recent years ) and manages to produce the most consistently funny films of probably any of them ( including Mike Myers ) . " Elf " is destined to be a holiday classic , one of those you watch every year around the holiday season . Ferrell , a human baby adopted by elves ( some scenes of him with his elf dad , played in a dead pan performance by Bob Newhart , provide the film with some of its funniest sight gags ) , goes off in search of his real father , a search that takes him to NYC . The joke of course is that Ferrell , wandering around the streets of New York in his elf costume and eating gum off of subway station railings , doesn't seem out of the ordinary in a place like NY , where people are used to crazies , and where every department store has a troupe of workers dressed as elves anyway . He finds his dad ( played by James Caan ) , falls in love ( with Zooey Deschanel ) and helps save Christmas when Santa's sleigh malfunctions due to a lack of Christmas spirit . It's all very funny and harmless , with a sense of humour that manages to satisfy both those who like their Christmas cheer served warm and those sarcastic cynics ( like me ) who watch " How the Grinch Stole Christmas " and root for the Grinch . Favorite line , delivered when Ferrell gets a job in the mail room of a children's book publishing house : " This reminds me of the North Pole , except that it smells like mushrooms and everyone looks like they want to hurt me . " |
573,692 | 4,532,636 | 74,512 | 7 | Tremendous Fun for Fans of Karen Black or Barbara Harris | Family Plot , Hitchcock's last film , is about as zany as the legendary director would ever get . It's a very fun if lightweight entry in his canon . It holds a special place for me , because it stars two of my favorite actresses , Karen Black and Barbara Harris . I think both of them were underused by Hollywood , maybe because both were just a little too quirky to ever land mainstream roles . Here , Hitchcock doesn't ask them to be mainstream , and they're both delightful , especially Harris in her scenes as a histrionic medium . Good fun . |
573,881 | 4,532,636 | 58,620 | 7 | She Was All Woman . . . And Knew It | And so with those words begins this wacked out slasher film / murder mystery that shows Joan Crawford lopping off the heads of her husband and his girlfriend while they lie in post-coital repose - - and that's before the opening credits have even started ! " Strait-Jacket " has the look and feel of " What Ever Happened to Baby Jane ? " and all of those other exploitative films from the 1960s that put once-great declining actresses in campy schlock and let audiences howl at them . But somehow , this movie doesn't feel exploitative . If Joan Crawford had delivered a bad performance , it would have . But she tackles the role with such seriousness and commitment that she single-handedly ends up selling the film to you , and making you genuinely care about her character and what happens to her . Joan Crawford may have been hell to live and work with in her personal life , but it takes an actress with a unique skill to make a film like this not only competent , but almost fascinating . As for the movie itself , it's laughably predictable . I called the " surprise " ending about fifteen minutes into the film , and then talked myself out of it because I thought it would be too obvious . Well , I should have stuck to my guns , but it didn't much matter - - by the end I was no longer watching the film for the ending - - I was watching it for Joan , which is the only reason ( albeit a damn good one ) for watching this film at all . |
574,426 | 4,532,636 | 434,139 | 7 | Surprisingly Good Relationship Drama | This solidly written and acted relationship dramedy surprised me with its adult approach to material that has been done to death elsewhere . Zach Braff attempts to shed the goofball charm that makes him such an appealing heartthrob to college-age girls who know him primarily for his work on the television show " Scrubs , " and knuckles down to play a man on the cusp of thirty who feels panic-stricken by all the life responsibilities that turning thirty implies . Things aren't helped by the fact that his girlfriend , who he's reluctant to marry , is pregnant . A stupid decision on his part threatens their relationship , and the happy Hollywood ending at least comes with enough uncertainty and bitterness to make it believable . This movie hasn't yet seemed to have found an audience , and I'm not surprised . Braff is at a funny place in his career . The twenty-somethings who like him because of " Scrubs " aren't mature enough to understand this movie - - a group of college girls behind me in the theatre did nothing but giggle through the whole thing and seemed disgruntled at the end that the whole movie was , in their words , " depressing . " But Braff isn't yet old enough to make older audiences believe he has anything to tell them about life experience . This movie is pretty much squarely aimed at people my age - - that is , people just barely on either side of 30 - - despite the presence in the film of Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson , playing a married couple going through a crisis of their own . This film says a lot of honest things about relationships : how both men and women are scared about committing to one another and how each gender reacts to that fear ; how we look to the examples in our lives for clues on how to deal with our own messes ; how 30-year-olds think they know it all because they know more than they did when they were 20 , yet know barely anything compared to those who are 50 and older . It's even a rather complicated film in that no one character is entirely likable or entirely unlikable . Virtually everyone in it makes some mistake at one point or another , but as the film makes crystal clear , to point a finger at someone else's mistakes means pointing a finger at your own . |
574,289 | 4,532,636 | 94,027 | 7 | Edward James Olmos Delivers as a Tough Teacher Taking on the System | The " Blackboard Jungle " of its generation , " Stand and Deliver " kicked off a revival of the tough teacher taking on a troubled class genre , but this remains the best of them . Edward James Olmos delivers a wonderful performance as this film's tough teacher , and the film resists the maudlin sentimentality that the genre falls prey to . There's no scene of the students standing on their desks , cheering for their teacher . It's an uplifting , hopeful film , but it manages to be uplifting and hopeful in a realistic way . Olmos received an Academy Award nomination for his performance ; I can't think of another major role he's had since . |
573,913 | 4,532,636 | 45,555 | 7 | Don't Let Gloria Grahame Make the Coffee | Since I love film noir , I enjoyed " The Big Heat , " but I didn't feel that it distinguished itself from any number of other similar films from the same time period . This surprised me somewhat , as I don't think of Fritz Lang as an anonymous director , and he's usually able to imprint a strong visual style on his films . Not so for this story about a good and honest cop ( Glenn Ford ) who's dragged into the seedy underworld after his wife dies in a booby trap meant for him . Many of the themes common to this genre are present here : the blurred lines between the criminals and the law , the insidious encroachment of the scary city on the peaceful idyll of the wholesome suburb . It also picked up a main theme from " The Asphalt Jungle " : cops and robbers alike have families and lives separate from their work , and this fact makes them more like one another than they might want to admit . This film is most notable for a feisty performance from Gloria Grahame , who plays a gangster's moll who gets tired of being used and abused by her thug of a boyfriend ( a repulsive Lee Marvin ) and gets her scalding revenge . I've always felt that Grahame was never really used to her fullest potential by any film director , but she has such a strong screen presence that she's able to make this film all about her . |
573,385 | 4,532,636 | 104,756 | 7 | Nolte and Sarandon Are the Reasons to See This One | An inspiring true-life account of a husband and wife who , out of desperation , discover a treatment for their son's disease that otherwise had been dismissed by the medical community as untreatable . This is Lifetime movie stuff , and at any number of moments the film threatens to topple over into the overly maudlin and treacly . But it mostly avoids those pitfalls thanks largely to Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon , who play the mom and dad and who make this film worth watching . Sarandon's role is a bit more stock , that of the suffering mother . But Nolte is ferocious as a man with an obsession , literally racing the clock to save his little boy . Will probably never be considered a great film , but is at least a pretty good one . |
574,006 | 4,532,636 | 94,142 | 7 | Refreshingly Nasty | A deliciously nasty black comedy about a middle-aged schlub ( Danny DeVito ) who wants to bump off his mother and hatches a plan to do so with a bitter divorcée , who wants to bump off HIS ex-wife . The movie is completely unapologetic in its cynicism , and gives us no one to like , but for once that works in the movie's favor rather than as a turn off . Anne Ramsey , as DeVito's battle axe mom , steals the show in a grotesquely funny performance . Even though she's a horror , you end up rooting for her , because it seems like she could kick both DeVito's and Crystal's asses at the same time with both hands tied behind her back . |
574,217 | 4,532,636 | 97,937 | 7 | Daniel Day-Lewis Is Why This Movie's Remembered | At the time , " My Left Foot " was the little movie that could . It was hugely popular , and everyone applauded the fact that such a small , independent film could make it all the way to the Oscars . Since then , movies like " My Left Foot " are a dime a dozen , so it might be hard in retrospect to understand what all the fuss was about . It's certainly a well made and competent film , but it's clear that the bulk of its success rests on the shoulders of Daniel Day-Lewis , who immerses himself in the role of Cristy Brown , a man living with cerebral palsy . Day-Lewis pulls off the same bit of stunt acting that had won Dustin Hoffman an Oscar the year before for playing a man with autism in " Rain Man , " and the Academy followed suit by giving Day-Lewis the same honor . The only thing really separating this film from a big budget Hollywood production is just that - - its budget . In every other way it's just as formulaic as any standard product . That's not to say it isn't a good movie , but it's not a masterpiece . |
573,532 | 4,532,636 | 58,385 | 7 | Many Flaws , But Enjoyable Anyway | Not so much a film as a taped version of the stage play , " My Fair Lady " is about as cinematic as a community theatre production , yet it has much to recommend it anyway . For one , the Lerner and Loewe score is timeless , and it sounds great in the film . It's also nice that it's captured in its entirety - - - no songs from the stage version were dropped , not even superfluous numbers like Freddie's reprise of " On the Street Where You Live . " The film also captures the performance of Rex Harrison in the role of Henry Higgins , a role he created on stage . Like Yul Brynner in " The King and I , " Rex Harrison so perfectly embodied Higgins that any actor who's ever attempted to play him since has to pretty much impersonate Harrison or risk the disappointed wrath of audiences . And there are also some colorful character actors who do much with smaller roles , notably Wilfred Hyde-White as Col . Pickering , Stanley Holloway , who gets a couple of showstoppers as Alfred Dolittle , and Gladys Cooper , with maybe five minutes of screen time and no songs , but who nevertheless runs away with a couple of scenes of her own as Higgins ' acerbic mother . The weakest link in this cast , it pains me to say , is Audrey Hepburn . As much as I've liked her in other things , she simply isn't convincing as Eliza Dolittle . And her lip synching is atrocious - - I've never seen such a bad job of pretending to sing in a movie musical . But no one could show off Cecil Beaton's outrageous fashion concoctions to better effect , especially the scene-stealing dress and towering hat Hepburn wears in the Ascot sequence . There are actually many problems with the material itself . It's dramatically inert , for one . The plot is paper thin yet the movie continues on and on for three hours long past the point where the main conflict has been resolved . Everything feels padded ; scenes seem longer than they need to be . The character of Eliza's father , which seems like a very important one on paper , could actually , when you think about it , be excised from the film entirely without in the least affecting the plot . And the musical numbers are lacking a certain vitality - - the blocking consists of people just sort of walking around on sets singing or talking their way through songs , and one craves a rollicking production number here and there . George Cukor doesn't show much imagination in his directing ; however , true to form , the Academy gave Cukor his sole Oscar for this , one of his most anonymous directorial efforts . But despite all of these faults , I still very much like this movie . It's fun , it's mindless , it puts me in mind of spring . It appeals to the Anglophile in me . It's a never less than respectable adaptation of one of the greatest stage musicals of all time . |
574,364 | 4,532,636 | 20,475 | 7 | Sally Bowles Anyone ? | Liza Minelli's character in " Cabaret " ( 1972 ) looks so much like Louise Brooks that you have to wonder if Minelli didn't model her look after the famous silent film star . " Diary of Lost Girl " puts the drama in melodrama . Brooks stars as a young innocent thing who's life goes a bad direction when she's introduced to every vice the world has to offer . Name a vice and it's in here : sex , booze , dance , gambling . It's like a public service message as broadcast by the Christian Coalition . It's a cautionary tale about the evils awaiting innocent souls , and it's pretty hard to take by the time the film has neared the two-hour mark . However , it's redeemed by a finale in which Brooks decides to devote her energies to helping other " lost " girls by truly understanding their plight , rather than cow them with moral fire and brimstone . Brooks is beautiful , but she's not much of an actress , at least not as evidenced by this film . Her Thymian ( what a name ! ) is a blank slate , and Brooks's reaction shots more often than not catch her staring at the camera with little or no expression on her face . Thymian is a girl who just lets things happen to her , so it's hard to muster up the requisite sympathy to really care about her plight . What's more interesting is the peripheral action always going on around her . The middle section of the film , which takes place in a home for wayward girls , captures some of the most entertainingly bizarre moments I've seen in a movie for a long time . The home is run by a butch dominatrix who leers lecherously at the girls while they eat soup and works herself into what appears to be a sexual frenzy when she forces them to perform nightly calisthenics ( which consist of the girls flopping over at the waist and then standing up again quickly , over and over , like fish gasping for oxygen ) . There's also a looming tall bald man who looks like he could have auditioned for the role of Lurch , who we see playing the piano one minute and gripping young girls by the backs of their necks the next . The best scene in the film comes when the girls turn on these two and begin pounding on them to the beat of a drum , making one wonder why the girls didn't do this much sooner , since there are about twenty of them and only two of the caretakers . People not familiar with pre-Code cinema ( and European pre-Code cinema to boot ) may be surprised at the adult subject matter in this film : nudie postcards , lesbian overtones , pre-marital sex , even a shot of a pregnant woman ( gasp ! ) . It's always a reminder of just how straight-laced movies became in the years shortly following the advent of sound . " Diary of a Lost Girl " is longer than it needs to be and doesn't exactly take the subtlest approach in its storytelling , but then what silent film ever did ? If you like silent films you will probably at least enjoy this one . If nothing else , it provides a nice introduction to Louise Brooks and the on-screen charisma that made her a star . |
574,060 | 4,532,636 | 100,395 | 7 | Postcards from Carrie Fisher and Debbie Rey . . . . . er . . . . Merly Streep and Shirley MacLaine | Carrie Fisher adapted her own book about the contentious relationship between a Hollywood mother and daughter - - hmmmm , wonder who this film is about ? " Postcards from the Edge " isn't going to be remembered as a significant contribution to film history , but I do remember enjoying it well enough . It would have to be a terrible movie for Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine not to be able to do SOMETHING with it , and both actresses are in fine form . Mike Nichols directs with his customary light touch . He's never been one to force his hand as a director , but rather lets his actors do the jobs they were hired to do . |
573,439 | 4,532,636 | 464,049 | 7 | Diverting , But Something Must Have Gotten Lost in the Translation | The phenomenally successful and award-winning stage play has been given a modestly entertaining screen treatment , and those of us who didn't see the theatrical version may fail to see why it was so beloved . " The History Boys " features stellar acting and some juicy ideas , but it left me far from overwhelmed by its brilliance . Richard Griffiths does indeed give a marvelous performance , and creates , along with playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett , a truly original character with great reserves of complexity , but I was disappointed at how small a role he actually had , given his Best Actor Tony win for the same role . His Hector , teacher of " general studies " at an English prep school , whose love of knowledge for knowledge's sake is woefully ill-equipped to ready the boys for the rigors of the qualifying exams at the elite universities , dominates the film , and his character is always a presence even when off screen , but Griffiths himself has very little screen time . However , he does deliver the film's most beautiful moment , a soliloquy in which he explains to Posner ( one of Hector's students who , as a result of being Jewish , small and gay , is , in his own words , fed ) the unique experience of reading a work of literature and feeling that the author is speaking directly to you . Anyone who has a love for reading will understand what he's talking about , and understand the glow on his face as he describes it . Stephen Campbell Moore delivers a strong performance as well as Hector's rival , the younger , hipper teacher whose job it is to ready the boys for Oxford , Cambridge , et al . The debate between learning in order to pass a test and learning for learning's sake never becomes as didactic as I thought it might , but neither does it ever become as engrossing as it could . Frances de la Tour , who also received a Tony Award for her performance as a droll , acerbic history teacher , has a wonderful way with comic one-liners , and Bennett uses her lone female perspective to make some points that these men and boys bathing in the glow of their own brilliance in this male dominated world desperately need to hear . As for the boys themselves , they all do terrific work . They're obnoxious whenever they're in a group , which somehow feels right for a group of privileged academics to whom the school itself has handed an intellectual crown . Individually , though , they all do much with the material given them , and even if they fall somewhat into those generalized types that all such movies are prone to - - the jock , the sensitive one , the stud , the fat one - - they do so only on a surface level , and not one of them can be easily categorized . Clive Merrison alone of the actors hits a sour note . His interpretation of the school's headmaster is a fussy , unfunny caricature . Much of what I didn't like about " The History Boys " results from Alan Bennett's preoccupation with homosexual subplots . I know Bennett is a homosexual and that he's entitled to address an issue important to him , and I know everyone will immediately label me a homophobe for criticizing this element of the film , so there's no sense in putting forth the obligatory defense of myself . But in this particular case , I thought the emphasis on homosexuality distracted from the bigger , and more interesting , issues under discussion , and felt like details shoe-horned in by a playwright with an agenda rather than details that felt necessary to the movie's theme . I also didn't like the maudlin ending , which felt tacked on and unnecessary . So , in summary , I would certainly recommend " The History Boys , " but when I think back on the memorable movies of 2006 ( though God knows there haven't been many ) , this movie won't be among them . |
573,513 | 4,532,636 | 884,328 | 7 | Something Wicked This Way Comes . . . . | Just in time for Thanksgiving comes the feel-bad movie of the year . Man , I thought after " Gone Baby Gone " that I'd seen the year's biggest downer ; I shouldn't have jumped the gun . " The Mist " is based on a Stephen King short story and is written and directed by Frank Darabont ( " The Shawshank Redemption , " " The Green Mile " ) , who has created a cottage industry out of adapting Stephen King stories to the screen . This one contains considerably less philosophical babble than the other two films , both of them bloated and self-important in my humble opinion , and is more of an exercise in visceral , grab-at-your-guts horror . The movie focuses on a group of townsfolk in a small Maine community who wind up battling for their lives in a grocery store when a giant fog descends on the town after a night of raging storms . It's not long before all sorts of mighty fake looking creepy crawlies come slithering their way out of the mist , and before the people themselves begin going a bit buggy ( excuse the pun ) . None of them is buggier than a crazy religious fanatic played entirely too well by Marcia Gay Harden , who whips the more susceptible into a terrified frenzy with her doomsday babble and becomes a bigger threat than the giant gnats and spiders buzzing around outside . Another group of more rational folk ally themselves with the square-jawed , perfectly stubbled Thomas Jane , who plays a loving dad whose primary concern is his young son . This is the group I'd want to belong to , and it also includes Frances Sternhagen , who starts chucking cans of peas at Harden , to the applause of the audience I saw this with , and the terrific actor Toby Jones , SPOILERS AHEAD who finally shoots the demented lunatic in the head , again to enthusiastic applause . This wasn't as gratifying to me as seeing her head getting ripped off by a giant octopus would have been , but I guess it's the next best thing . The movie flirts with greater themes , such as the nature of humanity , the existence of God , etc . , but it wisely doesn't veer too far onto any of these paths . Stephen King , despite what Darabont seems to think from his previous films , is not the person to go to for intellectual musings . Darabont makes his film fairly streamlined and sticks to the point , which is to see how and if our merry band of survivors will escape with their lives . I won't ruin the ending for you , but I give the film credit for having the balls to stick with a majorly downbeat ending , even if it did leave me wanting to kill myself . And please heed this movie's R rating - - this is NOT a movie for kids , unless you want your children to be psychologically damaged , in which case go and enjoy . The film's special effects team can't resist the urge to show us the monsters in all of their tentacled and slimy glory , but I couldn't help but think how much more effective the movie would have been had we never actually seen any of the creatures , and instead had let our imaginations do the work for us . |
573,875 | 4,532,636 | 305,206 | 7 | Very Good Biopic | American Splendor is a terrific film , and easily one of the best of 2003 ( though that's not saying much ) . It tells the story of Harvey Pekar , famous in comic book circles for starting the American Splendor series . I didn't know anything about him or the series before I saw this movie , so it might be even more enjoyable for those who do . Or , as so often happens with biopics , an educated viewer might find that the story plays too loosely with facts . I can't answer for that , but I can say that I enjoyed this film very much . Paul Giamatti seems to be born to play Pekar . He's got the perfect hang-dog , born-loser aura about him . Hope Davis is also very good as Pekar's equally strange wife . This film got a lot of attention for its unconventional approach to story telling , using animation and documentary-like clips of the real Harvey Pekar to highlight the fictional portion of the film . For that reason , I was actually expecting this film to be more indie than it feels . As is , it's good , but it's fairly conventional . That's the only thing about it that disappointed me slightly . But still , even if slightly more conventional than I would have wished , it's more intelligent than 95 % of the other conventional films floating around out there . |
573,593 | 4,532,636 | 1,093,824 | 7 | Herzog Heads to the South Pole | Werner Herzog travels to Antarctica to film a colony of scientists going about their work with seals , penguins , volcanoes and the breathtaking sea life of this lesser known part of the world . This film is not the warning about global warming that you might expect , though the topic of global warming and man's future on this planet does come up . Nor do we , the audience , learn much about the scientists ' findings . Herzog traveled to this unpopulated part of the world where people drift when they want to get away from civilization , but the film seems more interested in these recluses than it does the environment to which they devote their time . This isn't that surprising , really . Herzog has always been interested in the human psyche and the motives that drive eccentrics to do the things they do . There's the sense in this film that Herzog has found himself among a batch of kindred spirits , and by learning what makes them tick may learn a little something about himself . The funniest part of the film is Herzog's interview of the taciturn penguin scientist . Watching the man's face as he tries to formulate answers to questions like " Can penguins be gay ? " and " Can penguins go insane ? " is worth the price of admission . |
573,974 | 4,532,636 | 41,090 | 7 | Another Tracy / Hepburn Boxing Match | Another in the long line of him vs . her domestic feuds that made Tracy and Hepburn a famous screen pair . " Adam's Rib " isn't as good as their first pairing , " Woman of the Year , " though its attitudes about women may be a good deal more palatable to a modern day audience . But it's still a fun movie - - it probably wouldn't be much if Tracy and Hepburn weren't in it , but they ARE in it , and they display their usual chemistry . With a small role for Judy Holliday , who would win that year's Best Acress Oscar for a much bigger role , that of Billie Dawn in " Born Yesterday . " |
574,462 | 4,532,636 | 393,109 | 7 | A Fun Experiment That Parodies Film Noir | Brick is a lot of fun if you are familiar with the genre it is parodying . It takes a 1940s film noir - - the kind that would have starred Humphrey Bogart - - and transplants it to an unnamed suburban California high school . A murder takes place , and our anti-hero , who was in love with the murdered girl , sets out to solve the crime , untangling a web of corruption and deceit as he moves along . Rian Johnson has created a visually unique film with a great sense of humour about it . Instead of the sleazy underworld of an American big city , we see instead the sleazy underworld of an American high school , where all the kids talk in the kind of clipped dialogue you would normally find in pulp detective novels , and where they meet for major drug deals in their parents ' basements while the parents themselves serve them apple juice upstairs in the kitchen . If I can't wholeheartedly recommend " Brick , " it's because Johnson sacrifices clarity in his efforts to be clever . The plot is very hard to follow , and much of the time , important information is mumbled so quickly by the actors that you can't understand what they're saying . Therefore , it was hard to get engrossed in the story , and it's hard to completely love any movie when you feel lost while watching it . I greatly appreciated what Johnson was trying to do , but the whole thing felt like more of a stunt than a film . However , it's certainly worth a look , especially for lovers of film noir . |
573,338 | 4,532,636 | 111,503 | 7 | Big Dumb Action Film with Tongue Planted Firmly in Cheek | True Lies is a big action movie extravaganza that falls prey to many of the weaknesses common to James Cameron films : it's bloated , too big , too loud , too long . But what I do like about it is that it doesn't take itself overly seriously , and it spends as much time poking fun of big dumb action films as it does trying to be one . Much of the film's appeal comes from the comic performances of Tom Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis . The film's enormous action sequences won it a Best Visual Effects Oscar nomination , but it lost out to " Forrest Gump . " |
573,345 | 4,532,636 | 52,918 | 7 | Racial Tolerance , Sirk Style | That most shameless of directors Douglas Sirk stops at nothing to wring tears from your eyes in this candy-coloured weepy . Actually , true to form , he manages to deliver a film that's both hopelessly dated and trailblazing at the same time . Here he takes on racial prejudice , told through a story about a young black woman who passes for white , even to the extent of denying dear ol ' ma , only to realize how selfish she's been when dear ol ' ma ( of course ) kicks the bucket in the film's final moments . This is given the 1950s glossy soap opera treatment , as is the film's other central story , in which Lana Turner gets it on with the cleft-chinned and stiff-backed John Gavin ( whose hair is so Brill Cremed that it's actually BLUE ) . As he did with " All That Heaven Allows , " Sirk manages to play up to his audience at the same time that he's lecturing them . Unlike now , when those who most need to see a movie about racial tolerance wouldn't go near one , Sirk's audiences were precisely those whose viewpoints he was trying to influence . |
573,328 | 4,532,636 | 31,971 | 7 | A Society in Microcosm | As every film buff by now surely knows , John Ford's " Stagecoach " is credited with reinventing the western genre . It presents the society in microcosm , as a stagecoach full of traditional types ( the hero , the whore , the puritan , etc . ) travels across the untamed West . What maybe felt vibrant and different at the time now seems obviously schematic , but that's not really the movie's fault - - it's the fault of countless film classes that have turned this film into more of a blueprint than a movie . And of course it no longer feels especially fresh , but that's because it set the pattern for nearly every western that came after . What does stand out now about Ford's film are two things : 1 . ) On a cerebral level , this western feels much more fraught with subtext than other movies of its era ; there's a cloud of anarchy that develops over this group as they get further and further away from the civilization they know , and as their cultural judgements and labels begin to mean less and less ; and 2 . ) On a purely cinematic level , the extended action sequence in which the stagecoach is beset by Indians is a stunner for its time , and it's terrifically exciting . This movie is also credited with making a star out of John Wayne , a crime for which I can never forgive it , no matter what its other redeeming factors are . I'm not a huge fan of westerns , so by extension I'm not a huge fan of this film . But I did enjoy it , and it's one of those movies that's fun to watch from a historical standpoint if for no other reason . |
573,359 | 4,532,636 | 395,251 | 7 | Fun , If Missing the Mel Brooks Touch | I thought the stage musical adapted from Mel Brooks ' classic 1968 film was terrific and if anything even more outrageous than the movie . So it's strange that this movie based on the musical should feel so tame by comparison . It doesn't have that bawdy , let's offend everyone sense of fun that Brooks projects usually have , and it all feels a little lacklustre . Still , if you like the stage version , you'll probably have fun with this movie , as it's a virtual recreation , and the music sounds great . What I appreciate most about this movie is its willingness to be an old-fashioned movie musical . Unlike " Chicago , " which felt the need to justify all of its musical numbers as fantasy sequences taking place in the mind of a principal character , " The Producers " has people just breaking spontaneously into song , no apologies . If you're going to watch it , you have to accept that people are going to sing and dance and get on with it . And since most of the people in the film performed in the original Broadway cast , the songs are sung and danced well . Will Ferrell is new to the material , but he equips himself nicely as neo-Nazi Franz Liebkind and brings a lot of energy to his scenes . I would love to report that Uma Thurman stops the show as Ulla , the Swedish bombshell , but she doesn't . Uma , God love her , doesn't have the chops or the dancing skills to put over Ulla's big number , though the film makers do use her height to humorous advantage . I love the original film , but I don't worship it like some others , so I'm not as averse to playing with the material , and I didn't feel the need to compare Nathan Lane's and Matthew Broderick's performances to those of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder . They don't really reinterpret the material as much as recreate it , but that's o . k . We're not talking about doing a Eugene O'Neill revival here , and Brooks's material has only so much depth to mine . This movie is a fun way to pass a couple of hours . It's never boring , and it was wringing plenty of laughs from the audience I saw it with . |
573,830 | 4,532,636 | 71,746 | 7 | Well Made But Dismally Depressing | This biopic about shock comedian Lenny Bruce was Bob Fosse's followup to his well-received 1972 film " Cabaret . " I'm pretty sure that " Lenny " was a financial bomb , and I'm not surprised . It's a relentlessly depressing and ugly film , despite the stylish polish Fosse gives it . Anyone who has seen Fosse's last film , " Star 80 , " knows just how nihilistic this director could be , and " Lenny " shows evidence of that . It is a fascinating film though , in its own way . Fosse uses a documentary-like approach , complete with black and white photography and a narrative device in which we see Bruce's long-suffering love ( played heartbreakingly by Valerie Perrine , Lex Luthor's bikini-clad girlfriend in " Superman " [ 1978 ] ) telling Bruce's story to a filmmaker while the actual events themselves are played out as flashbacks . Fosse was fond of this confessional type of storytelling and would use it again in " All That Jazz " ( 1979 ) . Dustin Hoffman is simply sensational as Bruce ; he utterly disappears into this caustic character until no trace of Hoffman the actor is left . Technically , everything about the film is highly accomplished , but it's so desolately grim as to be off putting . |
573,853 | 4,532,636 | 57,263 | 7 | Natalie Wood's Best Vehicle | This refreshingly bitter and raw-edged relationship dramedy showcases Natalie Wood in her best screen performance ( and at her most gorgeous , to boot ) . She and Steve McQueen play antagonistic lovers who get pregnant before they know each other very well , and proceed to make a life together , becoming acquainted along the way . Director Robert Mulligan gives the film a gritty and realistic patina - - this is no idealized studio image of New York . It's strong and unique stuff for 1963 , a time of transition in American film from Hollywood gloss to art-house realism . |
573,558 | 4,532,636 | 783,233 | 7 | One Third of " Atonement " Is Brilliant | The first third of " Atonement " is superb . We are introduced to a group of affluent English aristocrats whiling away their summer hours at a massive estate . One of them , Cecilia ( Keira Knightley ) , is nursing a raging case of sexual attraction to her childhood friend and now family gardener , Robbie Turner ( James McAvoy ) , while another , Cecilia's young sister Briony ( Saoirse Ronan ) , spends her day writing a play which she plans to perform for a family gathering later that evening . Everyone is bored and listless in the summer heat . Briony , prey to an overactive imagination , keeps witnessing a series of increasingly serious moments of intimacy between Cecilia and Robbie that she isn't old enough to fully understand , and finally a false accusation by her is responsible for sending Robbie away from the estate in handcuffs . Everything about this part of the film is brilliant . The director Joe Wright ratchets the sexual tension to an almost unbearable pitch , and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen . But then the story and movie switched gears , and it lost some of that narrative momentum it had been so wonderfully building . The second and third acts of the film , while accomplished , do not deliver on the promise set up in the film's first part , and the movie never really succeeded in sucking me back in . When we next see Robbie , he's wandering through the desolate battlefields of WWII France , pining for Cecilia and nursing a chest wound . Wright shows off mightily in this part of the film ; there's an astounding ten-minute tracking shot that depicts the allied forces on the beach of Dunkirk that will have cineastes slobbering . But like Robbie's mind , this part of the film starts to wander aimlessly , and even while I was admiring the sheer planning that went into this amazing shot , I couldn't help but wish that Wright would just get on with it already . Finally , the film circles back to Briony , four years older and working as a nurse tending to the wounded . She's suffering a tremendous amount of guilt for the wrongs she's only now beginning to understand and wants to reach out to Cecilia ( from whom she's now estranged ) and Robbie to offer her apologies . I've not read the Iam McEwan novel on which this film is based , but even I could tell that this is where the screenwriter , Christopher Hampton , had the most trouble adapting the novel to the screen . Much of what " Atonement " is about becomes clear in this last act , as Briony ages into Vanessa Redgrave , a successful novelist who has finally written a novel that works as an outlet for her devastating feelings of guilt . We begin to realize here that " Atonement " isn't as much about the love affair between Cecilia and Robbie as it is about the act of writing and the power of words . Briony learns as a little girl how difficult words are to take back once they've been said ; as an adult , she learns the ability of words to help us deal with regret . One particular scene that takes place between Cecilia , Robbie and Briony is a fiction inserted into their story by Briony the novelist ; it's the story as she wishes it had been rather than as it actually was . Briony the woman can't change the past , but Briony the novelist can . This is a wonderful idea , but unfortunately the screenplay doesn't quite know how to communicate this in cinematic terms , so it's told directly to the audience by Redgrave in a monologue at the film's conclusion . Redgrave is a luminous actress , but her soliloquy feels awkwardly inserted into the film . As for the other actors , they all do fine work . The young actress Saoirse Ronan is especially good , and James McAvoy proves further that he's becoming one of the finest young actors working today . But the screenplay sort of abandons him and Knightley after its first half hour or so to a warmed over version of " The English Patient , " and the strong impact they both make early on dissipates gradually . I admired " Atonement " for how it looked and the ideas it had to express , but I think it's an uneven film that doesn't entirely work . |
574,414 | 4,532,636 | 1,175,491 | 7 | Professional But Unnecessary | So many films based on historical events take place either before I was born or before I was old enough to comprehend those events that watching " W . " carried a certain fascinating appeal . It's interesting to see something you've just lived through and have strong opinions about given shape in the fictitious world of a movie set . You want to see how much they " got right , " how like their real-world counterparts the various actors are . However , while those factors got me through the film , they didn't prevent me from being confused by Oliver Stone's intentions in making it . This is not the vitriolic diatribe against a largely reviled leader that you might expect . If anything , Stone's film treats George W . gently , portraying him as a naive do-gooder , whose heart's in the right place , but who is not equipped for leadership . The film's also not a satire , though it does contain many satiric moments . It doesn't even do what many Stone films do , which is make conjectures about key historical episodes and toy around with suppositions and " what if " scenarios . No , " W . " simply shows us the version of the Bush administration that we all saw playing out on our television sets every night . Every single character in the film comes across exactly as he / she came across in actuality . The only attempt at fleshing out a fuller and richer version of events comes from the relationship George W . has with George senior , that suggests George W . ' s inadequacies as a president were due to rigid paternal expectations . Whether this is based on truth or is a Stone fabrication I have no idea ; either way , it drags down the film . Josh Brolin does quite a good job at playing George W . He doesn't do an imitation , which would feel awkward stretched out over the length of a feature film , but he does nail some of Bush's mannerisms and turns of phrase . Richard Dreyfuss plays Dick Cheney like the devil incarnate , which is exactly how he came across during the entire duration of the Bush administration . Thandie Newton does an SNL-skit spoof of Condoleeza Rice , dead on and funny but rather distracting . Scott Glenn and Jeffrey Wright round out Bush's cabinet as Rumsfeld and Colin Powell , respectively . James Cromwell is seriously miscast as George senior , while Ellen Burstyn plays Barbara Bush as a battle axe - - probably not far from the truth . My ultimate verdict : professional but unnecessary . |
574,342 | 4,532,636 | 37,865 | 7 | Beautifully Shot 40's Corn | Leave Her to Heaven came out during a period when Hollywood was totally jazzed about psychological illness , its effects and its treatment . Two of the Academy Award best picture nominees from 1945 ( the year of " Heaven's " release ) were " The Lost Weekend " and " Spellbound , " both dealing with some sort of mental psychosis . Of course , those movies focused on the ability of their respective protagonists to get better ; " Leave Her to Heaven " includes the looniness , but leaves out the treatment part . Gene Tierney as Ellen comes about as close to serious acting as she ever would during her career , which isn't very close but is passable enough . She has a couple of effective scenes , namely the one in which she coldly watches her brother-in-law drown , but mostly the impact of her character is minimized by her obligation to always be beautiful . The plot is one of those corny , melodramatic 40's concoctions , in which the film goes around the world and back again to provide a happy ending that seems completely out of place . There are some hintings of psycho-babble about Ellen's too close attachment to her father and her tendency to destroy what she loves , but the film knows its limitations enough not to stray too far away from good old-fashioned sordid melodrama . Its ' an enjoyable enough movie if you don't take it too seriously , with absolutely gorgeous cinematography that won the film its lone Oscar . The other actors are negligible : Cornel Wilde looks plastic-y and Jeanne Crain does her pert , wholesome American gal thing . No one else really registers . The score is over-used and makes several scenes unintentionally silly . But , I repeat , an entertaining film if you approach it with the right expectations - - - in other words , don't expect a masterpiece and you'll do just fine . |
573,378 | 4,532,636 | 364,955 | 7 | Unfocused Satire , But Has a Lot of Funny Moments to Recommend It | In " Ghost World , " Terry Zwigoff's wonderful rumination on the awkwardness of adolescence , the main character felt like she didn't belong in a world that cherishes conformity . Her hostility toward others and general unpleasantness was a defense ; she was going to reject others before they had a chance to reject her . You might say that " Art School Confidential " addresses the next phase of life , when the pettinesses of high school are left behind and young adults have a sort of second chance at creating new identities for themselves . But what happens if you don't know what that identity should be ? Meet Jerome ( played with just the right blend of idealism and frustration by the young actor Max Minghella ) , who's determined to become a great artist and enrolls at a dingy New York art school . Like many young and immature artists , he thinks he's the only one who has anything truly original to say , and can't understand why others aren't as impressed with his work as he is himself . He struggles to ease into a comfortable artistic style , something everyone around him seems able to do without a problem . Meanwhile , he pursues a figure model who he thinks is the most beautiful girl in the school and who reminds him of a Picasso painting ; seeks advice from his art teacher ( John Malkovich ) and receives a thinly veiled sexual proposition in return ; and becomes fascinated by a misanthropic recluse ( Jim Broadbent in a wonderfully bizarre and off-kilter performance ) who just may be a serial strangler . As with " Ghost World , " Zwigoff approaches his material with a very funny but very black sense of humour of the slightly queasy variety . But unlike " Ghost World , " he doesn't pull it off as well . " Art School Confidential " remains abstract and glib ; its satire never takes focus . I wasn't sure what Zwigoff's point is ; is he poking fun at the pretensions of modern art ? Is he making a comment about the pretensions of young artists ? Toward the end , he seems to be addressing the arbitrariness of artistic success . But everything comes off as somewhat muddled . There are really good moments , like the aforementioned ones with Jim Broadbent , but then there are other characters and plot lines that do nothing but diffuse the film , like several scenes involving Jerome's roommates and a couple of moments with Anjelica Huston , who plays another art teacher and must have appeared in this film as a favor to someone , given the minuscule amount of screen time she's given . The early parts of the film are the best and funniest ; but Zwigoff gets ambitious with his ending , and it tanks terribly . Still , I enjoyed " Art School Confidential , " and I imagine other liberal arts majors will too . It really captures that feeling of being surrounded by young artist wannabes , all trying to impress and all terrified of being labeled conventional . Ah , days I can look back fondly on but don't think I'd ever want to revisit . . . . . |
573,677 | 4,532,636 | 458,352 | 7 | As Glossy as a Magazine , and About as Substantive | A slick entertainment with a plot someone phoned in and a fairy tale ending in which every conceivable loose end is tied up as neatly and happily as your average network sitcom . I had a lot of fun with the movie , but my expectations were low and would have been sorely disappointed if they'd been any higher . The key to any movie like this is : " Know what you're getting . " Meryl Streep of course gets all of the praise for this film , and indeed she is a riot . She resists the temptation to play the role of Miranda Priestley as a gross caricature , and instead decides to play her as a real person , which gives the movie dimensions it wouldn't have had otherwise . The character of Miranda would have been too unbearable to be fun if someone else had played her , but Streep knows how to deliver a nasty line while letting us know she's in on the joke , and her character is by far the best thing about the movie . Stanley Tucci , that unsung character actor , is also terrific as Nigel , Anne Hathaway's Henry Higgins . Is there anything this guy can't do ? " The Devil Wears Prada " sends an obligatory message about staying true to yourself and your priorities in life , a message the film itself undermines by making the world within the fashion magazine office seem more interesting and glamorous than anything going on outside of it . |
573,744 | 4,532,636 | 90,329 | 7 | When Worlds Collide | This solid thriller stars Harrison Ford , given his first chance to truly act , as a detective who must infiltrate an Amish community in order to protect a little boy who accidentally witnessed a murder . Director Peter Weir and his screenwriter use the story as an opportunity to examine the culture clash between the modern world and the peaceful , insular world of the Amish . Ford's detective brings with him the violence and aggression of the outside world , but he also brings an understanding to the Amish , and especially to the mother of the little boy ( played by Kelly McGillis ) , that at heart he's not much different than they are , even if their cultures are . It's a good if unremarkable film , hampered somewhat by an obligatory and unnecessary love story that merely serves to slow things down . |
574,250 | 4,532,636 | 183,649 | 7 | Hell Has Officially Frozen Over - - A Joel Schumacher Film I Don't Hate | No one wanted to hate " Phone Booth " more than me , since I absolutely despise Joel Schumacher and almost every movie he's ever made . I've actually taken the trouble to think about who my least favorite director of all time is , and Schumacher won the booby prize . So blame it on my incredibly low expectations , but I really liked this movie . I agree with the other people here that the script is weak . No effort is made to develop characters - - it seems as if the screenwriter began to add dimension to Forest Whitaker's cop and then thought better of it . But do you really want a lot of script in a movie like this ? The film makers were wise to keep the running time to a swift 80 minutes , and while I didn't think they were especially clever in the set up or execution , it was competent enough to hold my interest . I was pleasantly surprised by Colin Farrell's performance . He's great , and does much more with what he's given than the material probably warrants . I watched this by myself , but was still slightly embarrassed to find myself moved by his speech in which he confesses all of his sins to the assembled crowd . Even as I'm writing this review , I can't believe I didn't find this display hokier , but I guess I was in the right mood at the time . This movie reminded me of the kind of " B " thriller they might have made in the 40's - - slick , quick and not especially intended to impress . Frequently , because those films aimed low , they scored high , as does " Phone Booth " for me . |
573,472 | 4,532,636 | 42,788 | 7 | Terrific Widmark Performance in Atmospheric Thriller | Jules Dassin takes to the grimy streets of London for this crime thriller about small-time American shyster Harry Fabian ( Richard Widmark ) and his attempts to join the ranks of the criminal elite . Harry is small fry , relegated to using his con man finesse to drive business to a local nightclub run by a man with whose wife Harry had a past fling . But he yearns for something bigger and works out a scheme that will enable him to corner the market on the London wrestling syndicate . Trouble is , there are a lot of interested parties who for one reason or another don't want Harry's plans to succeed . The character of Harry reminded me a lot of my ex-brother-in-law . He was always looking out for that next big deal , the one that was going to strike gold . To everyone else , it was obvious that if he put as much effort into plain old honest work as he did into trying to outsmart his way to the top , he would have the comfortable life he wanted . Harry is like that , and Richard Widmark plays him perfectly . There are a couple of interesting interviews with Jules Dassin on the Criterion Collection DVD release of this movie , and in one of them he says that he always thought Widmark was a terrific actor , but that audiences never really got to see that , partly because Widmark was content within the stereotyped confines he was placed in by Hollywood . Maybe the fact that he wasn't a huge star worked to his benefit here . He gets every nuance of Harry just right . It's a performance that expertly balances Harry's cockiness and belief that he truly is smarter than everyone else if he could just get the break , and the pathetic hopelesness of a born loser who's not as clever as he thinks he is and will never know it . Widmark really gets Harry , and is able to play him as a villain and a hero at the same time . As long as Dassin sticks to the male-dominated world of London's underbelly , he's on firm ground . His movies are always dripping in atmosphere , and this one is no exception . London lends itself very well to Dassin's stark black & white compositions . And all of the testosterone comes to a boil in a shockingly violent scene in which two arch rival wrestlers go at each other like two dogs intent on tearing each other's throats out . But it's when Dassin turns his attention ( or lack of it ) to his female characters that the movie flounders . Googie Withers , playing Harry's old flame , threatens to walk away with the movie until her story comes to an abrupt end just when you think it's going to provide the movie with a juicy twist . She has all the trimmings of a true femme fatale , but Dassin does nothing with her . And one suspects that Gene Tierney is only in the film so that her name could appear on the movie posters . So overall Dassin gives us a clever story but one that feels oddly underdeveloped . One thing I really did appreciate about this movie was its downbeat ending . Any other movie from this time period would have tacked on some completely unrealistic redemption for Widmark in the last seconds , but Dassin refrains from doing that . The violence and pessimism serve to set this movie slightly apart from other Hollywood studio fare of the time , and make " Night and the City " a closer companion to the new wave films beginning to emerge from Europe , and to which Dassin himself would contribute " Rififi " five years later . Solidly crafted and well paced if not necessarily a masterpiece . |
574,474 | 4,532,636 | 293,662 | 7 | Pretty Fun | The Transporter is a not bad action flick that , true to the genre , is heavy on the action and not much else . Don't look here for a plot you can sink your teeth into . The focus is on outrageous and at times downright dazzling set pieces designed to show off the athleticism of star Jason Statham . He's a relaxed and easy to watch action hero , and as long as he's engaged in kicking butt he easily carries the film , but he doesn't have the charm of , say , a Jackie Chan , and he doesn't do as well with the scenes where he's actually required to speak . But fortunately , he's not required to speak frequently , and when he is , he's only asked to deliver a few words at a time . Wise decision by the screenwriters . You're not going to add any points to your I . Q . , but you just might have a good time . |
573,397 | 4,532,636 | 456,396 | 7 | Depressing Story Left Me Wanting More | Meet Sonia and Bruno , brand-new and very young parents to baby Jimmy , who have nowhere to live and no way to provide for their newborn son . Bruno is a petty thief , who uses the money he illegally makes to buy jackets and rent convertibles rather than supplying his wife and son with food and clothing . Sonia is basking in the glow of motherhood , and wanders through her days happily and naively assuming that everything will be fine . Until Bruno sells their baby through an illegal adoption ring . . . . The biggest surprise to me in watching this film is that it's not really about the baby at all . The effect Bruno's sale of Jimmy has on Sonia is so drastic that he becomes panic-stricken and immediately gets Jimmy back . After that , the film sticks with Bruno , and we see him fall deeper and deeper into a hole he has created for himself . The child of the film's title is not Jimmy but Bruno , and Sonia as well . These are kids trying to raise a kid , and to watch them try to do so is painful , heartbreaking and depressing . I was completely distracted by the fact that the baby not once cries , despite being dragged around on buses , left in cars and abandoned sheds , passed around from stranger to stranger . I couldn't believe how unrealistic the filmmakers had treated this part of the film when they bring an almost documentary-like approach to everything else . But then the ending came along , and I realized that the absence of tears throughout the film was a dramatic device . For at the end , the tears come , but not from Jimmy . No , they come from Sonia and Bruno , who crumble into one another's arms and cry like babies out of the fear and desperation at the overwhelming responsibility of life . I thought " L'Enfant " was well done , but at the same time it left me cold . We're not given much reason to care about Bruno , so watching him make one stupid decision after another gets tiresome after a while . The film highlights a problem , but it's one we already know exists , and it doesn't do anything in the way of offering a solution , so I'm not entirely sure what I was supposed to take away from it . |
573,789 | 4,532,636 | 107,818 | 7 | One of the First Mainstream Attempts to Discuss AIDS | People really look down on " Philadelphia " now for being a heavy-handed liberal Hollywood attempt to deal with a " gay " issue . But I think it deserves a break . It is heavy handed to be sure , but this is one of the first big mainstream movies with popular mainstream actors I can think of to deal with a topic most of mainstream America wasn't remotely interested in hearing about . It was a pretty big risk for Tom Hanks to " play gay , " as that's something that's been known to ruin the careers of others . And say what you will about the movie , it's hard to find fault with Hanks ' performance . Though much of the material he was given to work with is sentimental , he navigates it ably and manages to give an affecting performance regardless . |
574,353 | 4,532,636 | 94,663 | 7 | The Better of Two Gloomy Woody Allen Dramas from the Same Time Period | Woody Allen was in a bad mood in 1988 , for he made two of his most sombre films : " September " and " Another Woman . " " September " is dreadful , but " Another Woman " is quite good . Gena Rowlands plays a troubled woman who overhears the therapy sessions of an anonymous younger woman ( Mia Farrow ) through the vents in her apartment , and whose life begins to be impacted by what she hears . The film is a character study that gives Rowlands freedom to act up a storm , which she does , well , and it gives an ensemble cast of recognizable faces juicy little parts as the people who come in and out of Rowlands ' life . The biggest problem with Allen's dramas is that they're oppressive . He seems to think that a serious-themed film must be completely devoid of humour in order to be effective . " Another Woman " doesn't entirely escape that trap , but strong writing and acting carry it through and make it feel like more than a Bergman rip-off , which is exactly what " September " does feel like . |
574,498 | 4,532,636 | 44,954 | 7 | Murder on the Chicago to L . A . Express | The novelty of this Richard Fleischer-directed crime thriller rests on the fact that nearly the entire film takes place on board a train . Fleischer , who was adept at slicking up pulpy B material and giving it style to spare , treats the cramped shooting spaces as an advantage rather than a liability - - he uses extreme closeups , packed compositions and clever reflections ( in train windows , mirrors , etc . ) to enhance the story's claustrophobic appeal . No where is this more apparent than in a wild fist fight that takes place in a tiny mens ' room . The story surrounds a hard-boiled detective's ( Charles McGraw , who looks like he was born to play leading men in B noirs ) efforts to escort a dead mobster's wife to L . A . so that she can testify in front of a grand jury . The bad guys want to bump her off before she gets there , but they don't know what she looks like . McGraw delivers the tough-guy patter with confidence , and Marie Windsor ( who reminded me a bit of the contemporary actress Illeana Douglas ) swaggers her way through the role of a gangster's moll with flair . When McGraw tells her at one point that her amorality makes him sick , she replies , " Use somebody else's sink . " A plot twist toward the film's end caught me completely off guard . |
573,890 | 4,532,636 | 86,960 | 7 | It's Like Shaft Meets 90210 | The 1980s , while virtually worthless in every other regard when it came to film-making - - gave us a host of classic adult comedies , and " Beverly Hills Cop " is one of them . The film made a star of Eddie Murphy , and paved the way for the action buddy comedy that has persisted to this day , though rarely as successfully . This is also the film that introduced ( to me , at least ) Judge Reinhold , who would go on to appear memorably again in one of my favorite comedies from the decade , " Ruthless People . " Also featured in a bit part is Bronson Pinchot as a flamboyant clothing store manager . |
574,172 | 4,532,636 | 53,472 | 7 | A Godard Film I Don't Dislike | One of the least intolerable films Jean Luc Godard gave us , if that praise is faint enough for you . " Breathless " is easily one of the most accessible of Godard's films , and while it still features a great many of the French New Wave trappings that exist for the sole purpose of pulling you out of the world of the film , it still manages to tell a story peopled with characters that we care about . Godard owes much of his film's success to the tremendous screen presence of his two leads , the smoldering Jean-Paul Belmondo and the hipster gamine Jean Seberg . These two create a vision of spontaneous romance that feels loose and free , in contrast to the rigid romantic formulas imposed on Hollywood products of the time . |
574,048 | 4,532,636 | 196,216 | 7 | Small Time Movie , But Not Bad | I'm not one to challenge the argument that Woody Allen's films in the past decade ( " Match Point " excepted ) have been well below the standards of his work in the 1970s and 80s . I don't believe , however , that all of his films since , say , " Mighty Aphrodite " in 1995 , have been worthless . There was quite a bit I liked about " Celebrity " ( 1998 ) , even if I was the only one , and there's likewise much to enjoy in " Small Time Crooks . " This film was marketed as a throwback to Allen's zany , screwball comedies of the early 70s , like " Bananas " or " Sleeper . " But it actually may surprise you as a much more substantive film than you are expecting , thanks almost exclusively to Tracy Ullman's marvelous performance as Allen's brassy , rough-edged wife , who unexpectedly finds herself ensconced in a high-class ( or at least extremely wealthy ) lifestyle . She is hilarious when called upon to be , but she also brings a lot of depth and compassion to a role that could easily have been nothing more than a broad caricature . After years of making do without his best recurring leading lady , Diane Keaton , Allen has finally found a worthy successor . |
573,568 | 4,532,636 | 46,672 | 7 | Fine Kids ' Film for More Than Just Kids | For a long time , Disney made top-notch live-action films , and " 20 , 000 Leagues Under the Sea " stands as one of the best . I loved this film as a kid , and can remember even at the time being impressed that it didn't feel like it was necessarily dumbed down for a children's audience . Look at the stars here : Kirk Douglas and James Mason . Look at the production values and sterling ( for the time ) special effects . In the present day , Disney puts all of its oomph into its animated films , and its live action offerings many times emerge as barely competent - - and certainly not anything anyone with half a brain ( kid or adult ) would want to see . This is a terrific fantasy adventure film - - people who want to find quality family entertainment should stop complaining about the lack of family-friendly movies being produced now and pick up something like this instead . |
573,977 | 4,532,636 | 67,116 | 7 | A Movie About Popeye - - - No , Not THAT Popeye | A movie that's most remembered for a complex and dazzling car chase scene through the streets of New York City , " The French Connection " wowed audiences and critics at the time and set the mold for the gritty police crime drama that still exists today in our movie theatres and on our television screens . The jittery , documentary-style cinematography and the grungy production design are the elements still aped today by T . V . shows that want to consider themselves to be " realistic . " But the film is really nothing more than an exciting popcorn film ; there would be nothing wrong with that if cinephiles hadn't exalted it beyond its rightful place in film history and led many modern-day viewers coming to it for the first time to expect something extraordinary . Also notable for making a star out of Gene Hackman , who indeed is one of the film's biggest assets in the role of Popeye Doyle , tough-guy detective who's almost as bad as the bad guys he's out to protect the public from . But Roy Scheider , in the supporting role of Popeye's sidekick , is equally deserving of praise . " The Departed " owes much to " The French Connection , " as its screenplay explores the same kind of corruption that blurs the boundaries between upholding the law and breaking it . In Scorsese's film , as in " The French Connection , " you don't know whether it's better to be on the side of the law or opposed to it ; both positions seem equally scary . |
574,062 | 4,532,636 | 100,157 | 7 | Kathy Bates Gives a Cock a Doody Performance | Stephen King's novel had a smashing premise that the film only partially succeeds in capitalizing on . It's clear that " Misery " is an author's ( or at least King's ) worst nightmare : a writer of disposable potboilers ( James Caan ) is in an accident and finds himself convalescing in the home of his self-proclaimed # 1 fan ( Kathy Bates ) . Trouble is , his # 1 fan is holding him hostage , and does nasty things to him if he doesn't write exactly what she wants him to . Some of those things are diluted for the film ( in the book , she chops off one of his feet , whereas in the movie she only hobbles him with a sledgehammer ) and some missing altogether ( the finger in the birthday cake for instance ) . But it's not the gore that made the book scary - - it was the helplessness of the main character , and director Rob Reiner is right to focus on that in the film as well . Kathy Bates is appropriately wacky as Annie , but she's a wonderful actress who's done a bunch of much better work elsewhere , so it's sort of a shame that this is the film for which she won her Oscar . Caan is good too , but he's shown up by Bates - - anyone would be shown up by this loony-tunes character . It's only toward the end that Reiner trips up , and the film goes lame , veering away from the book . However , in the film's defense , the ending to the book was pretty lame too , so Reiner was probably right to try to do something different , even if that something doesn't really work . |
574,022 | 4,532,636 | 42,832 | 7 | Minor Work from a Cinema Great | Panic in the Streets is a pretty standard B-movie that is raised a notch above other standard B-movies by its direction . Elia Kazan could take just about any material and make it better than it would otherwise have been in the hands of many others , and this film is no exception . It's a high-concept film : a murdered man's body ends up at the New Orleans city morgue and an autopsy reveals that it was infected with bubonic plague . The race is on to find the man's murderer to stop an epidemic . You would think this would get fairly run-of-the-mill treatment , which it sort of does , but it's Kazan's version of run-of-the-mill , which means there are all sorts of little directorial touches that prevent the film's style from feeling anonymous . Kazan had a knack for atmosphere , and the New Orleans setting really comes alive , as it would a year later for his masterpiece " A Streetcar Named Desire . " Richard Widmark is the doctor from the health bureau whom no one will believe , and he gives a fine , tense performance . Jack Palance uses his unbelievably sharp cheekbones and jawline to good effect as Blackie , the murderer on the lam . Zero Mostel is assigned the thankless duty of playing Blackie's sap of a fall guy . And I really liked Paul Douglas in a droll performance as the New Orleans chief of police and Widmark's right-hand-man . The premise of this movie has become eerily relevant in today's climate , which actually makes it somewhat uncomfortable to watch . But it's actually got a surprising amount of humor in it too . Widmark and Barbara Bel Geddes , who plays his wife , have a lot of witty banter that sounds like the way married people really talk . Credit once again goes to Kazan for creating a female character that feels like a full-bodied person and not simply a collection of " feminine " traits . Widmark and Douglas are funny together too , and there's a laugh-out-loud scene when Douglas is interrogating some Asian boat workers who have only the barest grasp of the English language . The obligatory chase and fight scene at the end does not feel at all staged , which is refreshing . The fist fight looks clunky and clumsy , which is how fist fights in real life are , not the nicely choreographed things we are used to seeing in Hollywood movies . The whole movie has a refreshing realism to it , so while it may not be especially profound or one that you remember for years , it will probably entertain you for a couple of hours at least and may strike you as a cut above other movies of its type . |
573,978 | 4,532,636 | 67,093 | 7 | Strong Material , Beautiful Score and Wonderful Lead Performance Overcome Heavy Directorial Hand | Director Norman Jewison does all he can to pound the life right out of this screen adaptation of the phenomenally successful Broadway musical , but thanks to the strength of the original material , he doesn't succeed . There are many better screen musicals , but there are also many that are far worse . Suffice it to say that Hollywood , which had churned out one disastrous musical after another for the last decade , finally got back to producing a musical it could be proud of . This beautiful story about a simple milkman in turn-of-the-century Russia who must come to terms with the loss of the safe and only world he has ever known , succeeds on screen largely due to the performance of Topol , who breathes body and soul into Tevye the milkman and creates one of those characters that for ever after you instantly associate with the actor who played him . You can feel him working overtime to keep Jewison's lumbering physical production on its feet , and his efforts prove themselves to be nearly Herculean , since Jewison can't direct a musical number to save his life . " Fiddler on the Roof " is not a dance musical , but it does have some rousing dance numbers courtesy of Jerome Robbins ; however , you wouldn't know it from this movie , since Jewison almost unfailingly chooses the worst camera angle from which to shoot every single frame of the musical portions . What the movie does boast , however , is a glorious version of the musical's beautiful score , left nearly intact and memorably orchestrated by John Williams . It soars and leaps even when the production it's anchored to just sits like a lump . |
574,471 | 4,532,636 | 37,913 | 7 | Crawford Keeps Her Eyebrows in Check | Mildred Pierce is a strange mix of women's picture and film noir . In typical noir fashion , the film begins with a murder and flashes back to the events that led up to it . It also has the standard issue noir look ; veteran director Michael Curtiz knew his way around a movie set , and gives his film a moody , shadowy look perfectly at home among the " Maltese Falcon's " and " Double Indemnity's " of the decade . But the story is pure melodrama , full of motherly suffering and gauzy swoonings . If you crossed Douglas Sirk with Raymond Chandler , you might get something like this . Joan Crawford is wonderful in the title role , and the movie clearly exists to showcase the talents of its star . Ann Blyth is nearly demonic as Mildred's spoiled-brat daughter , Veda . And Eve Arden plays the only kind of character she was ever allowed to play , that of the acerbic , wise-cracking best friend . The men in the film are nearly an afterthought , interesting seeing as this movie came out during WWII . This is yet another of those films from the same time period that offered a hypothetical warning about what would happen to the homefront if women carried on in the roles traditionally reserved for men . Mildred enters the world of business but gets slapped down the moment she becomes successful . Feminist film theorists love this movie ; in fact , I saw it in a feminist film class . |
573,681 | 4,532,636 | 45,012 | 7 | Another Sturdy Hepburn / Tracy Film | By the time " Pat and Mike " appeared in 1952 , the Tracy / Hepburn formula had begun to feel somewhat mechanical , but there's still some pizazz to this film that makes it worth watching . Katharine Hepburn , particularly , needed films like this . She made one film after another in which she played a repressed spinster , and it was easy to forget she could be sexy and alluring . You can relax into these films , because there are no pretensions - - Hepburn and Tracy are playing themselves , and they know you're there to see them play themselves , and George Cukor doesn't try to get too fancy , and everyone has a good time . |
574,153 | 4,532,636 | 73,640 | 7 | Rudolph Saves the New Year , Too | This was included on the same DVD as " The Year Without a Santa Claus , " and I must say that I don't remember this one at all from my childhood . It picks up where the original " Rudolph " left off . Rudolph has successfully saved Christmas , so he's charged with saving the New Year as well , sent off into the night by Santa Claus ( who's really good at delegating , by the way ) , to find the New Year's baby , a bizarre little tyke with enormous ears who looks like Harpo Marx and wears a giant top hat . He's run away because everyone laughs at his ears ; who better to find him and teach him the value of not taking life so seriously than Rudolph , he of the drunkard's nose ? I liked this one , though it features the least memorable music yet of this kind of animated film . Rudolph is joined by a soldier who's part clock and speaks in rhymed couplets , and a knight whose face we never see and who could be a character out of Monty Python . There's also a gloomy camel and my favorite character , a great whale who gives the group rides around the ocean and helps them chase down the scary monster bird ( that's really its name ) who wants to kidnap baby New Year so he can stop time and prevent himself from turning into ice ( don't ask ) . Last but not least , Red Skelton fills narration duties as Father Time . Like all of these films , even if they're not that great , they provide a certain nostalgic satisfaction to those of us who remember a time before computer animation . |
573,455 | 4,532,636 | 29,604 | 7 | A Melodrama as Only 1930s Hollywood Could Present It | The same things that make " America's Next Top Model " entertaining make " Stage Door " a blast . " Stage Door " is even better , because we don't have to put up with Tyra Banks or her panel of hissy fashion " experts , " but we still get the house full of catty , superstar wannabes who throw insults at one another faster than the audience can keep up . Katharine Hepburn plays the rich daughter of a Midwestern business tycoon who takes a room in an all-female boarding house while she sets out to become a stage actress . The house is full of a bunch of been-there-done-that girls who all have their sights set on the stage , and have varying chances of ever seeing their dreams become reality . Ginger Rogers ends up as Hepburn's roommate , and their animosity for one another becomes a grudging affection over the course of the film . Rogers , because she's not being asked to play second fiddle to Fred Astaire , gets to show off her ample reserves of charm and comic ability , and she really steals the movie away from everyone else . I think the movie is supposed to be primarily about Hepburn , but you wouldn't know it , because Rogers so dominates the first half of the picture that it feels like the film's lost its way when she drops out of a good deal of its last half . Also in the house are Gail Patrick , playing a jaded beauty who's content to let sugar daddies provide her meals and entertainment ; Constance Collier , as an aging diva who takes the young actresses under her wing and tries to teach them their craft ; Andrea Leeds , in the film's most thankless role as a pathetic sad sack who has freak out scenes when she's not moping around and ends up hearing voices before throwing herself out of a window ; and Lucille Ball and Eve Arden serve as a kind of Greek chorus , charged mainly with providing sarcastic commentary on the action swirling around them . Adolphe Menjou rounds out the cast as a smarmy producer who lands Hepburn a choice part . The problem is , Hepburn's character is a terrible actress , and we're sure that her opening will be a total disaster , but she finds out that little ol ' Andrea Leeds took a swan dive just before she goes on , and the emotion it arouses in Hepburn causes her to give the performance of her life and become an overnight sensation . Only in 1930s Hollywood , folks . Don't even try to see the story as anything but the most ridiculous melodrama , and just enjoy the performances and the zingy dialogue . The movie is often very funny , both intentionally and unintentionally so . And as a sidenote , nearly every actress in this film reminded me of a contemporary actress . If I was casting this film now , Nicole Kidman would get the Ginger Rogers role ( I know , I know , I never would have thought Ginger Rogers looks like Nicole Kidman , but at times she does ) , Chloe Sevigny would get Eve Arden's , Debra Messing would DEFINITELY get Lucille Ball's ( they're dead ringers ) and Olivia de Havilland ( o . k . so I know she's not a contemporary actress , but the resemblance is striking ) would get Andrea Leeds ' . |
573,798 | 4,532,636 | 88,939 | 7 | God Help Us All When Spielberg Feels Guilty About Something | Well zip-a-dee-doo-dah , I kept expecting Uncle Remus to come bounding out of the bushes while watching Steven Spielberg's screen adaptation of the Alice Walker novel . In retrospect , Spielberg shouldn't have been let near this story with a ten-foot pole . His maudlin , well-intentioned approach to liberal message movies is completely at odds with Walker's spare , unsentimental storytelling . But , all in all , the results could have been much worse . Yes , Spielberg paints a painfully one-dimensional picture of poor blacks in the 1930s South . Yes , his way of exorcising his white guilt is to make the sole white character in the movie ( played by Dana Ivey ) a dithery twit , and his way of dealing with Walker's feminist elements is to make all of the male characters idiot buffoons . But the movie does have its good points , like a luminous performance from Whoopi Goldberg in the role of Celie , the ugly young woman who finds the beauty within herself , and an equally lovely performance from Margaret Avery , the sultry nightclub singer who helps Celie with her awakening . Oprah Winfrey huffs and puffs her way through a caricature of a performance as Sofia , the big black woman who goes around telling people what's what . Mr . Money Bags Spielberg ensures that the film has top-notch production values , and indeed it does look beautiful , and Quincy Jones provides a warm , pleasant score . Not the stunning film that could have been made from such good source material , but not a disaster either . |
573,348 | 4,532,636 | 53,291 | 7 | Good , But Not One of the Greatest Comedies of All Time | My wife loves this movie , mostly on the strength of Jack Lemmon's wild performance , but I have to admit that I've remained resistant to its charms . I don't DISLIKE it , but I always have trouble understanding how it pops up again and again on various lists as one of the funniest comedies ever produced . Of course , much of my lack of appreciation probably has to do with the fact that cross dressing comedies have become a dime a dozen now , but were virtually unheard of at the time this film was released . And even more notable , Jack Lemmon's character actually kind of LIKES pretending to be a woman , so this film manages to work in some fairly ahead of its time gender politics into its mostly escapist comedy trappings . But the film is hampered by too much Marilyn Monroe , who was just a terrible actress , like it or not . The woman could not act , and no amount of sex appeal ( though I think she had very little of that as well ) could change that fact . Still , my reservations aside , the strengths in this film mostly outweigh the weaknesses . Billy Wilder delivers a sharp script even if his direction seems to be at cross purposes with the movie's comedic elements , and Tony Curtis gives a hilarious and dead-on impersonation of Cary Grant that rivals Lemmon's manic antics in its pricelessness . |
573,445 | 4,532,636 | 82,484 | 7 | The Dawn of Man | A strange and compelling film about prehistoric man , filmed nearly entirely without dialogue . It's so lacking in any of the traditional elements that would normally make a film a commercial success that you have to admire its chutzpah if you admire nothing else about it . Fortunately , it's also excellently made , and feels incredibly authentic , thanks to expert camera-work and production design , and quite amazing makeup effects . The only recognizable actor in the film is Rae-Dawn Chong , but under all that makeup , even she's hard to spot ( just look for the woman ) . |
574,412 | 4,532,636 | 978,759 | 7 | Solid Film Marred by an Ending That Felt False | The illegal immigrant dispute between the U . S . and Mexico has been such a hot-button topic lately that I never think about illegal immigration being a problem between the U . S . and Canada . " Frozen River " uses that very issue as a backdrop for its story about a desperate single mother ( Melissa Leo ) in upstate New York who turns to illegal smuggling as a means for making money to buy her and her two sons a new home . It's a sombre , indie-vibe film , one of those movies where the color scheme is predominantly gray and brown and the action is set in some location you can't ever quite believe summer visits . Just in case we didn't understand the significance of the film's title , director Courtney Hunt inserts shots of a literally frozen river periodically throughout the movie . The whole thing is probably authentic but it's also pretty depressing . I'm thrilled that Melissa Leo received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination , because she's a hard-working actress who's appeared in a number of striking roles that have gone without recognition . But while I thought she was very good , I wasn't wowed by her . The film's final moments , in which Leo's character finds redemption , felt false to me . I guess the movie needed something uplifting to balance out its bleakness , but I didn't buy that this mother , whose actions throughout the entire movie were motivated by the instinct to provide for her children , would then agree to leave them in the hands of someone she barely knows while she goes off to spend four months in jail . Misty Upham , who plays Leo's partner in crime , gives a quietly remarkable performance . |
573,560 | 4,532,636 | 48,641 | 7 | Bergman Cracks a Smile | Ingmar Bergman lightens up considerably to deliver this romantic comedy of manners set in a magisterial country estate . The film contains all of the elements you would expect from a bedroom farce : young foolish lovers ; older , wiser ones ; arch rivals ; a duel . It's by far Bergman's most accessible film and it makes one wish the super-sober director had let his hair down more frequently . Woody Allen aped " Smiles of a Summer Night " in " A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy , " but that film does not do justice to the original material . Stephen Sondheim , on the other hand , improved greatly on Bergman's original film in his Broadway musical " A Little Night Music . " It's more magical , more wistful and much funnier than Bergman's version . |
573,842 | 4,532,636 | 486,655 | 7 | Not " The Princess Bride , " But Then Few Fantasy Films Are | Fantasy adventure is a genre I very much enjoy , and it's a genre too neglected by Hollywood . " Stardust " is a fun and enjoyable addition to it , even if it won't go down as the cult classic it so obviously wants to be . The film's biggest flaw is that there's simply too much going on , too many plot strands , and the film itself is too long . You can feel it working overtime to create the same kind of whimsy that infused a movie that IS a cult classic , " The Princess Bride . " But that movie was small , charming and simple . It didn't stuff itself to the brim with digital effects and thunderous action the way " Stardust " does , and the latter film doesn't come close to the former . But I did appreciate the humour in " Stardust " and its refusal to take itself seriously . Charlie Cox and Claire Danes are likable enough as an impetuous English lad and the fallen star he falls in love with , respectively . Michelle Pfeiffer looks gorgeous ( at least at first ) as a witch intent on regaining her former beauty , even if she's not at home with the film's comic elements . Unfortunately , Robert De Niro is miscast as a swishy pirate with a penchant for corsets and boas , and his big comic scene just feels uncomfortable . But Ricky Gervais adds some fine comedy in a couple of brief scenes , and Peter O'Toole lends the whole thing some credentials by virtue of his mere presence . Even if it has its faults , I liked " Stardust " and hope to see more films like it . |
573,952 | 4,532,636 | 49,408 | 7 | A Worthy If Not Ideal Screen Adaptation | Director Walter Lang does his best to ruin what may be Rodgers & Hammerstein's strongest stage musical , but he's no match for the stellar material . He directs with a stodgy , anonymous style - - why actually move your camera around a set when you can root it to the floor as if it's a potted plant ? With the exception of Yul Bryner and Deborah Kerr , he elicits performances from his cast that would be at home in a cheesy sword-and-sandal Biblical epic . And the film has that overblown , garish visual design too common to big films from this time period , that manages to look both cheap and expensive at the same time , as if all the sets are made out of brightly colored plexiglass . But , and this is a big " but , " this musical tells a beautiful story about cultural tolerance that remains intact in the film , and the movie offers the strong performances of Bryner and Kerr , both perfectly cast in their roles . " Carousel " may have given audiences the most sophisticated R & H score , but for me , the music in " The King and I " remains the most glorious . Too bad the adapted film score severely truncates its stage counterpart : many songs are missing entirely , and almost all of those left are shortened versions . Happily , the " Small House of Uncle Thomas " ballet sequence remains in the film and retains the original Jerome Robbins choreography as it appeared on stage . It may just be the most memorable musical number ever conceived for stage or screen . This film isn't the best possible screen adaptation of a nearly perfect stage show , but thanks to Bryner and Kerr , and of course R & H , it'll do . |
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