This movie would get a “WOOF!” if Jennifer Lopez weren't in it. If you want to see a neo-noir entry that's done right, watch John Dahl's Red Rock West. If you want to watch Roadrunner cartoons, by all means watch them. And if you want le bad noir and live-action cartoons scrambled together for 125 minutes, this is your movie. Both Oliver Stone and Jon Voight �…
This was a comeback vehicle (of sorts) for Peter Fonda, because (surprise!) he's never been away, he's just been making the sort of pictures that don't win Golden Globes or Oscar nominations. He's always been good even when the rest of the flick isn't. In point of fact, Victor Nunez movies are slow, subtle films, so they need the best …
Daniel Day-Lewis plays Czech surgeon Tomas, who makes love with Sabina (Lena Olin) and falls in love with Tereza (Juliette Binoche). The backdrop is Prague, 1968. Just before Russia invades Czechoslovakia, Tomas and Tereza escape to Switzerland. Tomas has spent his entire adult life avoiding politics and serious involvements; now events beyond his control require him to…
This may be one of the best movies ever made on an 11-day shooting schedule; I rarely stopped laughing at the onscreen antics which is not to say that it will have that effect on everyone. What is Robert (Robocop 3) Burke doing back in town after serving hard time? Everyone wants to solve this strange enigma, but the wonderfully appealing Adrienne Shelly finds out. (Her dad th…
Under Suspicion may look pretty good on cable television at one o'clock in the morning. But on the huge screen, well, there's nothing wrong with Under Suspicion that a good script doctor and/or a decent director couldn't have fixed. Simon Moore is the director of this British made-for-television “thriller” starring Liam Neeson and Laura San Giacomo. Neeson…
Recovering gambling addict Michael Chambers (Peter Gallagher) returns home after skipping out on his debts and his wife Rachel (sultry newcomer Alison Elliot) several years before. Old passions ignite in more ways than one, and Michael's lust for his ex, now married to a hot-tempered hoodlum, leads him to risk it all for a final big score. Moody and tense study o…
Two Slim Callaghan movies were made between 1948 and 1954, this one and Meet Mr. Callaghan, based on The Urgent Hangman starring Derrick de Marney as Slim, Delphi Lawrence as Effie, and Trevor Reid as Inspector Gringall. The first film starred Michael Rennie as Slim, Joy Shelton as Effie, and Barry Jones as Inspector Gringall. Peter Cheyney's original novels attempt to transplant most of th…
The Unfinished Sentence is a long, complicated study about the efforts of an industrialist's son to better understand the workers’ world, despite his own privileged position.
Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi is the whole show in this crowd-pleasing documentary that won the 1995 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The film focuses on Mizrahi's preparations for the showing of his 1994 collection. It also touches on how he reads fashion in classic Hollywood movies, like 1935's Call of the Wild starring a dressed-to-the-nines Loretta Young: “If…
The Usual Suspects was one of the best movies of 1995, featuring a dazzling, tautly constructed screenplay by Oscar winner Christopher McQuarrie and a star-making performance by Kevin Spacey. The less you know about the film in advance, the better, because the story will put you through more twists and turns than a roller coaster ride, and half the fun is the sheer unexpected inventiveness of it a…