Email Author Jean Oppenheimer

1999 Stories by Jean Oppenheimer

• The Cider House Rules rules

  published December 30, 1999

  1. The Cider House Rules No other film this year captures the complex, bittersweet nature of life so movingly. Michael Caine and Delroy... More >>

• Blacks and Jews

  published December 23, 1999

  Although he couldn't have known it at the time, growing up in Baltimore during the 1950s would prove to be filmmaker Barry Levinson's smartest... More >>

• Little orphan Tobey

  published December 16, 1999

  It is rare to find a movie that is as accomplished, multilayered, and rewarding as the novel from which it was adapted, but The Cider House... More >>

• Rock the boat

  published November 25, 1999

  A tangible sense of sadness and longing hangs over The Legend of 1900, the mesmerizingly beautiful and poetic new film from Italian... More >>

• Mommy weirdest

  published November 11, 1999

  Susan Sarandon is one of the screen's most gifted actresses, a fiercely intelligent artist who invests her roles with depth, compassion, wit, and... More >>

• Porn to lose

  published October 14, 1999

  Am I a traitor to my gender because I didn't find this unabashed film about female sexuality erotic, brave, or even -- can I say it --... More >>

• Renoir's war

  published September 30, 1999

  A classic that fully merits the designation, Jean Renoir's 1937 anti-war masterpiece Grand Illusion is, quite simply, one of the greatest... More >>

• Concentration comedy!

  published September 23, 1999

  The joke that opens Jakob the Liar, the new Holocaust comedy (and talk about an oxymoron) starring Robin Williams, captures the bittersweet... More >>

• Crash and yearn

  published September 23, 1999

  It is the wry humor and amazing equanimity of the men profiled in the documentary Return With Honor that proves most astonishing. They were... More >>

• Conjoined at birth

  published September 2, 1999

  There is something fairy-tale-like, but also deeply human, about Twin Falls Idaho, a gentle, beautifully realized tale of love and intimacy... More >>

• Like father, like son

  published August 5, 1999

  Ten-year-old Fraser Pettigrew leads an idyllic existence. He lives on a bucolic estate in Scotland with five siblings, four dogs, his gentle... More >>

• Second Chances

  published July 8, 1999

  Twice Upon a Yesterday seems almost too geared for the Sliding Doors crowd. Because this romantic fable relies on the same kind of... More >>

• Taxi Driver

  published July 8, 1999

  London-born novelist-screenwriter Hanif Kureishi doesn't have Margaret Thatcher to kick around anymore, as he did so incisively and effectively in... More >>

• Leaving Mike Figgis

  published June 24, 1999

  Pretentiousness masquerading as profundity; self-indulgence masquerading as art. The Loss of Sexual Innocence, the dreadful new film from... More >>

• He said, she said

  published June 10, 1999

  Lauren Hutton may not be the best actress in the world, but she sure has sex appeal. And she has a nice ability to mock her sexiness at the same... More >>

• The English prisoner

  published May 27, 1999

  David Mamet--famous for his in-your-face characters, brutal and frequently raunchy dialogue, and deliberate, staccato prose about, ya know, dat... More >>

• No need for sympathy

  published May 13, 1999

  Even English actresses of a certain age have a difficult time finding good roles, so it's understandable that Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Joan... More >>

• Unreal world

  published February 25, 1999

  Director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, Beaches) has always tended toward unrealistically feel-good movies, and The Other Sister is no exception.... More >>

• Two for the road

  published January 21, 1999

  Directed by Walter Salles (1995's Foreign Land), the Brazilian film Central Station concerns the relationship between a homeless 9-year-old boy... More >>