The subject matter is surely the stuff of which can’t-miss movies are made: Jacqueline Susann, author of best-seller Valley of the Dolls and other jerk-off (pardon, maddeningly sexy, to quote Helen Gurley Brown) classic lit. There was nothing at all pedestrian about the woman who was regaled in her day…
In the last 30 years, Woody Allen has written and directed something like 28 movies — “something like” reflects the confusion of how to count his contribution to New York Stories. It’s a remarkable productivity record for a major filmmaker, and one that’s even more impressive when you consider how…
Boo hoo! Frank McCourt had a miserable childhood. Honestly, who can say their childhood wasn’t impoverished in some way…or in many ways? That McCourt survived and eventually published his inescapable memoir is nice, of course, and the book is indeed a poignant and crafty piece of work. Nonetheless, it seems…
Some people really are crazy; then, “crazy” is a relative term. Does it apply to someone who feels he might spin off into outer space and never be able to get back down to earth? Or is it only crazy when you have to cling to the nearest table or…
The War Zone opens with a black screen and the sound of waves gently crashing against the shore. The methodical ebb and flow of the water produce a soothing rhythm and a sense of tranquility. The film’s first visual image is equally evocative — a beautiful section of seashore, buttressed…
The 1995 film Friday is best remembered as the film that brought actor Chris Tucker to audiences’ attention. A modest hit, it would seem an odd choice for a sequel, but Ice Cube — who co-wrote the original with DJ Pooh, as well as produced and starred — is back…
In Cradle Will Rock, his third directorial outing, Tim Robbins takes on an almost insurmountably ambitious project: a re-creation of an era into which characters imaginary, obscure, and famous are woven into a tapestry that represents the texture of the time. It’s a tall order. E. L. Doctorow was able…
It’s easy to see how Play It to the Bone, writer-director Ron Shelton’s latest comedy-drama, got started. Shelton obviously wanted to do for boxing what he’d already done for baseball in Bull Durham, for golf in Tin Cup, and for pick-up basketball in White Men Can’t Jump. But somewhere along…
“Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub,” wrote George Orwell, “entry to which is reserved for Catholics only.” This sentiment is on stark display in the work of novelist Graham Greene, whose adulterous relationship (with the very married Catherine Welston, a wealthy farmer’s wife) propelled him to scrutinize the mechanics…
Magnolia, the third film from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, is a brilliant piece of garbage — mesmerizing, but only because you can’t believe someone has the temerity to put so much into so little. Three hours and eight minutes long, and all it has to say at the end is…
Of the readers who bought four million copies, in no fewer than 30 languages, of David Guterson’s 1995 best seller Snow Falling on Cedars, many have likely been looking forward to the movie version. Others have probably been dreading it. For better or worse, this multifarious story about nativist bigotry,…
In the poster art for The Hurricane, Denzel Washington glowers, one bandaged fist cocked for a right to our jaw. He may play a boxer, but this isn’t a boxing movie; indeed, Washington spends nearly two hours caged in a cell. Yet this isn’t a prison picture either — more…
The spirit of Fellini hovers over Train of Life, the third so-called Holocaust comedy to come down the pike. Far superior to either Life Is Beautiful or Jakob the Liar, the French-language production has a silliness and a buffoonish humor reminiscent of Amarcord and Fellini’s Roma, yet somehow it feels…
Note: For the sake of being obnoxiously frank, this critic opts to divulge his favorites while pretending, in keeping with the season, to be hammered on spiked eggnog. Cheers! Honorable Mention: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, directed by George Lucas and his kids. Gimme a light saber to…
1. The Cider House Rules No other film this year captures the complex, bittersweet nature of life so movingly. Michael Caine and Delroy Lindo are standouts in a terrific ensemble cast. Filled with grace, compassion, and humor, this is director Lasse Hallstrom’s best work since My Life as a Dog…
A watershed year. That’s the buzz around the film critics’ water cooler — or should that be popcorn stand? — as 1999, and the first century of film, comes to a close. You can hear the whispers as they turn to shrieks of ecstasy: Just like 1974! Such are the…
Film critics are by nature a sour lot, so it is with truly great pleasure I suggest that 1999 has been the best year for cinema — certainly for American cinema and even for the major studios — in my 15 years on the beat. I’m at a loss to…
1. The Blair Witch Project Both the hype and the inevitable backlash have died down, and what remains is still quite a movie — the horror film reinvented, and the faux documentary brought of age as a legitimate nonparody genre. 2. The Limey A standard revenge melodrama charged up with…
Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday lasts as long as a National Football League game — which would be no crime were the film anything more than nearly three hours’ worth of outtakes spliced together by a palsied editor with a hearing problem. Entire scenes are inaudible, the hip-pop collage soundtrack…
The Talented Mr. Ripley numbs as much as it unnerves. However, that’s exactly the type of thriller you might expect from Anthony Minghella, the writer-director who gave critics something to rave about and many a reluctant date something to snooze through with the Academy Award juggernaut The English Patient. At…
At first glance, Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother seems uncharacteristically grim for a filmmaker with such a demonic sense of humor. Within 10 minutes, the heroine’s 17-year-old son is hit and killed by a car, which propels her and the events of the film into motion. In the next…
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 career move. First in Diner, then in Tin Men, Avalon, and now Liberty Heights, he has drawn on the specific time, place, and culture of his…
