Is Escape from L.A. campy comedy or awful action? You decide.
By Arnold Wayne Jones,
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>>
Kansas City is Robert Altman's best movie in years--but does anyone care anymore?
By Jimmy Fowler,
August 15, 1996
Here's a dirty little secret about film critics that won't make an amusing bon mot at the next National Society of Film Critics dinner, unless... More>>
Jack is the latest summer flick to mix quasi-fantasy with toothless comedy
By Arnold Wayne Jones,
August 08, 1996
The season began unspectacularly, with no sign of questionable new trends. Then slowly but surely, this summer's insidious onslaught made itself... More>>
Emma writer-director Douglas McGrath jumps from Midland to Jane Austen
By Jimmy Fowler,
August 08, 1996
I don't know what I expected Douglas McGrath to look and sound like after I had been told the writer-director of Miramax's sterling new version... More>>
A friendly, disorganized guide to what won't be checked out at your local video store
By Jimmy Fowler and Arnold Wayne Jones,
August 01, 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>>
Everyone thinks he was the first to adore Louise Fitzhugh's remarkably sophisticated 1964 short novel, Harriet the Spy. As with sex or illicit... More>>
Trainspotting delivers a riotous, disturbing portrait of heroin addiction
By Arnold Wayne Jones,
July 25, 1996
The Scottish accents are so thick in Trainspotting that for the first few minutes you're not sure the characters are really saying what you're... More>>
The comic horror of The Frighteners eventually brings on the willies
By Arnold Wayne Jones,
July 18, 1996
Peter Jackson's brief resume as a writer-director is about as impressive as any independent filmmaker. Three genre films--Bad Taste, Meet the... More>>
The Hunchback of Notre Dame offers a dangerous Disney innovation: authentic emotion
By Jimmy Fowler,
July 18, 1996
A month into its much-heralded summer release, Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame has begun a slow limp down the box-office ladder. Everybody... More>>
Boys and their toys take charge in Courage Under Fire and Independence Day
By Arnold Wayne Jones,
July 11, 1996
For me, there is no movie moment that has ever approximated the satisfaction I felt when, on my 12th birthday, I saw Death Star blown apart for... More>>
Once again, the Hollywood Foreign Press Corps has forced us into a crisis situation, so I am announcing the winners of the 1996 Drive-In Academy... More>>
Because some of my friends have gotten married, I've had--on rare occasion--the opportunity to attend a few bachelor parties. Mostly, that means... More>>
Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty flounders with style
By Jimmy Fowler,
June 27, 1996
Anyone who thinks the films of 50 years ago placed the virgin/whore shackles on female characters should check out Molly Haskell's perpetually... More>>
Nothing is what it seems in John Sayles' border-town tragedy, Lone Star
By Arnold Wayne Jones,
June 27, 1996
A shooting, a base closing, a school controversy, an interracial romance, a 40-year-old murder. These are among the numerous prosaic events that,... More>>
