Email Author Arnold Wayne Jones

1996 Stories by Arnold Wayne Jones

• Out There

  published December 26, 1996

  Cult of personality Evita Cast recording/soundtrack Warner Brothers Records Whatever you may think of her personally,... More >>

• Roadshows

  published December 12, 1996

  Singing in the rain I'm not sure why Weezer's music isn't silly; it certainly sounds like it should be. Their rhythmic, nearly sing-songy... More >>

• Crime doesn't pay

  published November 14, 1996

  As Palookaville begins, three wayward city boys--Jerry (Adam Trese), Sid (William Forsythe), and Russell (Vincent Gallo)--chisel their way through... More >>

• Out Here

  published November 7, 1996

  Reel Life Trout Fishing in America Trout Records It's to the credit of Ezra Idlet and Keith Grimwood that Trout Fishing in... More >>

• Out There

  published November 7, 1996

  The Waiting Game Claire Martin Honest Records Claire Martin never actually scats on her debut; rather, she delivers the rhythms... More >>

• Avon calling

  published November 7, 1996

  Although the hot movie topic for the past year has been Jane Austen, it really should have been William Shakespeare. True, four of Austen's novels... More >>

• Guerrillas in their midst

  published October 31, 1996

  There's a great line delivered by the Scottish protagonist in Trainspotting: "A lot of people hate the English, but I don't. The English are just... More >>

• Drink up

  published October 31, 1996

  Storytellers long ago recognized the fertile ground for plots available at the average neighborhood saloon. A bar can be so many things to... More >>

• Catchy

  published October 24, 1996

  Melodramas often take a bad rap in the critical press, as if there's something wrong with enjoying schmaltzy love stories or torrid, overblown... More >>

• Driven to abstraction

  published October 24, 1996

  In the opening scene of Surviving Picasso, set in Paris at the height of World War II, the great Spanish artist is showing his haphazard... More >>

• Empty room

  published October 17, 1996

  For a few years now, I've been praying to the talent gods to give me the strength to keep liking James Foley movies. When Foley first began... More >>

• Everybody hurts

  published October 10, 1996

  Throughout the '60s in England and the '70s in America, the development of film as a form of popular entertainment began to explore areas of... More >>

• Valley of indecision

  published October 3, 1996

  Los Angeles is an elastic city, the kind that people who have never been to feel comfortable projecting attributes on, usually based on nothing... More >>

• Empty calories

  published September 26, 1996

  Whenever food acts as a central component in a movie, it occupies a peculiar role--probably because, since eating is something everyone can relate... More >>

• Invasive procedure

  published September 26, 1996

  I almost never react to situations the same way that people in movies do. Maybe I'm just too short-tempered and confrontational, but I always... More >>

• Wooden nickel

  published September 19, 1996

  American Buffalo, with Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz parrying with playwright David Mamet's razor-sharp dialogue, promised to be the sleeper... More >>

• For real

  published September 12, 1996

  Bill Watterston, the cartoonist who created Calvin & Hobbes, was so devoted to the concept of his strip--that a little boy's toy tiger might... More >>

• Here be monsters

  published September 5, 1996

  There were several reasons I had not anticipated reviewing The Island of Dr. Moreau. Not the least of these was that early word on the film wasn't... More >>

• Kids these days

  published September 5, 1996

  The Brady Bunch Movie was a sleeper success last year, but the film itself wasn't quite as good as the screenplay's primary idea: setting the film... More >>

• The singer, not the song

  published August 29, 1996

  Jean-Michel Basquiat was a middle-class kid from the suburbs when he first started living in a cardboard box in a New York City park in 1979. Jean... More >>

• Crocodile tears

  published August 22, 1996

  As you watch The Spitfire Grill flicker by on the screen, it's difficult not to ask yourself whether the writer-director, Lee David Zlotoff,... More >>

• Escape while you can

  published August 15, 1996

  John Carpenter had big-studio backing after the sleeper success of his independent thriller, Halloween, yet his follow-up film, Escape from New... More >>

• Par for the course

  published August 15, 1996

  Although my father has hidden it well, his greatest parenting disappointment probably has been that a jock like him produced an offspring as... More >>

• Weird science

  published August 8, 1996

  The season began unspectacularly, with no sign of questionable new trends. Then slowly but surely, this summer's insidious onslaught made itself... More >>

• And then there were some

  published August 1, 1996

  The era of the mom-and-pop video store has pretty much died in Dallas, with the thrilling exception of four stalwart independents: Tapelenders on... More >>