East and West Movie Review
East and West is an Austrian re-discovery from the year 1924 starring Molly Picon.
Independent Film Guide - E
Easy Rider Movie Review
In his 1995 autobiography Endless Highway, David Carradine writes that Easy Rider was financed by Peter Fonda's Diner's Club card. Eventually, of course, it was picked up by Columbia, made everyone a fortune and gave Jack Nicholson the first of his many Oscar nominations. The turning point was the Cannes Film Festival, where this $375,000 road movie, partly shot in 16mm, won t…
Eat a Bowl of Tea Movie Review
After the 1987 bomb Slamdance, director Wayne Wang returns to the low-key, personal style of filmmaking that won critical praise for his earlier movies, Chan Is Missing and Dim Sum. Eat a Bowl of Tea focuses on the family pressures that nearly destroy the marriage of a young Chinese couple, circa 1949. I first thought that the husband was suffering from a problem that was far more easily correctab…
Eat Drink Man Woman Movie Review
This mouth-watering film by Ang Lee shows a great chef (Sihung Lung as Chu) at work making superb meals every Sunday for his three daughters (a teacher, an executive, and a clerk at Wendy's). Since he IS their father, he is filled with opinions about what his grown children (who still live with him) should do with their lives. Lung, Ah-Leh Gua, and …
Eat the Rich Movie Review
Eat the Rich, a British comedy featuring cameo appearances by Paul and Linda McCartney, is about restaurants, blood, and money. It stars Lanah Pellay, a whining London drag queen whose number-one hit, Pistol in My Pocket, can be heard on the movie's soundtrack. When Lanah, as Alex the waiter, is fired from a posh eatery, s/he forms a gang and vows revenge. So, yes, you can take that …
Eating Raoul Movie Review
I really love Paul and Mary Bland. I don't know that I'd want to live next door to them, but they're so nice and so much in love and so happy, sort of like Gomez and Morticia Addams. Their dream is to open a restaurant, and, as luck would have it, this real creep tries to attack Mary and when Paul kills him by mistake, they realize that the creep has money and it's THEI…
Echoes of Paradise Movie Review
Philip Noyce's Echoes of Paradise/Shadows of the Peacock treats the age-old theme of the married woman with young children who has a fling with a promiscuous young man who is totally wrong for her, who realizes it 90 long minutes later, and who returns to her family with an experience she appears to have placed well behind her. It fails to answer the question of the ‘80s �…
Eddie and the Cruisers Movie Review
The coming attractions trailer for Eddie and the Cruisers was so awful that I almost didn't see it theatrically. Apparently, there were quite a few other people who felt the same way because Eddie and the Cruisers didn't attract much attention until it hit the video stores. Then it became so famous that the soundtrack became a hot item, and a 1989 sequel was filmed in Canada with Mic…
Eddie and the Cruisers 2: Eddie Lives! Movie Review
Eddie and the Cruisers was far from a masterpiece, but it boasted an intriguing mystery, a satisfying structure, and a fine cast which included Tom Berenger, Ellen Barkin, Joe Pantoliano, and Helen Schneider, none of whom returned for Eddie Lives! The ineptly promoted 1983 film also earned the reputation of being better than it was because it attracted a huge audience when it was released on video…
8½ Movie Review
Federico Fellini's 8½ was one of the loveliest films of 1963 and it's every bit as exquisite today. The dream cast is headlined by Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee, and Barbara Steele. All this plus Nino Rota's haunting score and the brilliant cinematography of Gianni Di Venanzo combined to make 8½ one of the most widely admired and relentless…
Eight Men Out Movie Review
If there is any financial protection at all for ballplayers today, it is probably because, over 75 years later, we are still haunted by the 1919 World Series scandal that inspired John Sayles to write and direct Eight Men Out. The film reveals how vulnerable the underpaid Chicago White Sox were to self-serving operators like Arnold Rothstein, Bill Burns, and Abe Attell. The team's grievance…
El Mariachi Movie Review
Robert Rodriguez kept it simple for his first film and, as a result, plunged head first into the movie business with a splash at age 24. All El Mariachi (Carlos Gallardo) wants is a chance to sing. All drug dealer Azul (Reinol Martinez) wants is a chance to avenge himself on Moco (Peter Marquardt), his former partner. Unhappily, El Mariachi and Azul are id…
Emmanuelle Movie Review
In 1975, Emmanuelle was the most popular movie in France. It was called “a sexual Vogue” by someone or other and also an “'X’ you can take your wife to.” If adult audiences required THAT much assurance, they needed more help than mere publicity hacks could provide! The ultimate comment on the film? Emmanuelle stinks, then and now. It is the story of an inn…
Emma's Shadow Movie Review
“The Poor Little Rich Girl” is among the most familiar images on the silver screen. Mary Pickford first played her in a strange little film from 1917. Her only escape from her emotionally deprived life is through an accidental drug overdose! In 1936, Shirley Temple preferred the company of radio troupers Alice Faye and Jack Haley to benign neglect from Michael Whalen, her tycoon fath…
Enchanted April Movie Review
In the 1980s, Mike Newell was best known for his work on tough, gritty projects like Blood Feud, Dance with a Stranger, and The Good Father. Enchanted April, a delicate comedy of manners and wishful thinking at best, seemed an odd choice for this hard-hitting director. Based on a novel by Elizabeth von Arnim (who was the Countess Russell in real life), Enchanted April was a resoundin…
The End of Violence Movie Review
The End of Violence disappointed Wim Wenders fans who wanted it to be another Paris, Texas or Wings of Desire, but Wings of Desire did nothing for me, unlike The End of Violence. It's an absorbing story with an extremely interesting cast. Bill Pullman is Mike Max, a director who gets kidnapped at gunpoint by two idiots who wind up with their heads blown off and not by Mike Max. He escapes i…
The English Patient Movie Review
Once, a long time ago, I was a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. After a few bewildering industry functions, I let my membership lapse. So I'm not even marginally qualified to vote with the members of the Academy for Best Picture of the Year. But if I could have voted in 1996, I would have, for Fargo! More than enough people are worshipping The English Patient …
The Englishman Who Went up a Hill But Came down a Mountain Movie Review
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is a direct descendant of the classic Ealing comedies circa 1949. A quaint, decidedly regional British situation is gently but persistently satirized for the entire film. In this case, we are looking at a small village in Wales, where a visual quote about the chief recreational activity (i.e. making babies) is affectionately …
Enid Is Sleeping Movie Review
When I first saw About Last Night in 1986, I was enormously impressed by the quirky talent of a young actress named Elizabeth Perkins. In 1988, she made Big and Sweet Hearts Dance, both so saturated by cutesy concepts that she tended to get lost in the proceedings. Then there was 1986's From the Hip, 1993's Indian Summer, and 1995's Moonlight and Valentino in which she was eve…
The Entertainer Movie Review
The Entertainer is the 1960 film in which Laurence Olivier, then 53, bid farewell to the romantic roles of his youth. Olivier surrounded himself with the angry young men of that era: director Tony Richardson, writer John Osborne, and unknown actors Albert Finney and Alan Bates. The bitter film represents a complete departure from his previous work. It also ended his 20-year marriage to actress Viv…
Entertaining Mr. Sloane Movie Review
Let me say something about the FASHIONS in Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Beryl Reid, a full-figured 52, must be among the least vain actresses of all time to wear the skimpy outfits designed for her by Emma Porteus. Well, Kath WOULD wear outfits like that to entice the new tenant, Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery, then 30). HE, meanwhile, is wearing the tightest leather suit imaginable, which ma…
Equinox Movie Review
Someday, some Alan Rudolph devotee will come up with a book about why he or she IS one, and I have a hunch I will be no more enlightened than I am now.
Eraserhead Movie Review
When David Lynch paid a visit to Berkeley in the ‘80s, an eager crowd begged for the secret of Baby Henry. Who or what had played the premature child of Henry Spencer, played by Jack Nance? Lynch wasn't talking, and no amount of groveling could persuade him to divulge this particular bit of casting for the benefit of posterity. And now Jack Nance (1943–96) is gon…
Evergreen Movie Review
Once upon a time, going to talking pictures in America meant that we only saw American movies; 1933's The Private Life of Henry VIII changed all that. Not only did this very British film win its star, Charles Laughton, the Academy Award for best actor, but it also proved that audiences were receptive to pictures made outside of Hollywood. Unfortunately, musical comedies don't always …
Every Man for Himself God against All Movie Review
In 1828, a most unusual young man turned up in Nuremberg. For the next five years, he was a source of wonder and, perhaps, fear to the intelligentsia. Who was he? Where had he come from? Why had he been deprived of a normal existence his entire life? Was he descended from royalty? His murder in 1833 only intensified the riddle. Artists and scholars continue to study Kaspar Hauser to the present da…
Nothing Works Everything Ready Movie Review
This early Lina Wertmuller film is a fast, occasionally funny yarn about how some young Sicilian men and women make a start in Northern Italy (Milan, to be specific), even though they have no money and are constantly being victimized.
Eve's Bayou Movie Review
There are few tasks tougher on a writer than to reveal an unpleasant character, warts and all, through the eyes of a child who loves him with all her heart. First-time writer/director Kasi Lemmons has accomplished this stunning feat with an effortless skill and mature compassion that many grizzled veterans would envy. The story begins with the adult reflections of Eve Batiste, narrated by T…
Evil Dead Movie Review
If you're ever trapped in a cabin with your friends and find the Sumerian Book of the Dead, do not open it, skim its incantations, or say even one of them out loud. If you do, you will wind up in pieces. That's what happens to the cast of 1983's The Evil Dead. Guys love this blood-and-guts fest, and even think it's funny. But the violence never (ever!) let…
Exotica Movie Review
Before he was Nowhere Man, Bruce Greenwood was Francis the tax inspector in Atom Egoyan's Exotica. Francis is a nightly customer at the Exotica strip club, mainly because Christina (Mia Kirschner) works there. Francis’ interest in Christina disturbs Eric (Elias Koteas), the club dee jay who used to go with her. But obsession always finds a way to feed itse…
Eye of the Needle Movie Review
It's an old story: an attractive woman is married to a man who hasn't touched her in years. She preserves the conventions of the relationship, anyway, at least until the first devil-may-care stranger arrives on the scene. Well, okay, so far it's an old story. But in 1981's Eye of the Needle, based on the Ken Follett WWII suspense thriller, we see a rare example of a str…
The Fable of the Beautiful Pigeon Fancier Movie Review
Ruy Guerra's attractive trifle about a vain and selfish dandy focuses on his obsession for a lovely young matron.