Snake Eyes (review)

I remember seeing the trailer for Snake Eyes in the theater last year and feeling as if it gave the whole movie away. So I was delighted to find the theatrical trailer right there on the Snake Eyes DVD — I could watch it again before the movie and check my suspicions against the actual film. So I did.

EDtv (review)

Like last year’s Wag the Dog, EDtv sets out to spoof the media and inadvertently ends up lampooning the public that consumes the media’s products. Genial and laid-back where Dog was biting and sarcastic, EDtv nevertheless raises many of the same questions Dog did — questions to which no one, on- or offscreen, seems to have the answers.

True Crime (review)

It’s hard to know what’s most offensive about True Crime. The undisguised misogyny? The ridiculous plot? The over-the-top performances from actors who should know better? The lack of a single character who isn’t a stereotype? Or the fact that the same man, Clint Eastwood, who made the subtle and original Unforgiven is also responsible for this claptrap?

Out of Sight (review)

Out of Sight is a lot of fun, and forced me to revise upward slightly my middling opinion of George Clooney. Pair him with Jennifer Lopez again, and I’ll be real happy.

Titanic (again again) (review)

A film of immense power and eerie beauty, James Cameron’s Titanic could only have been made now, not because of its technical requirements but because the cultural attitudes of the era in which it is set have come full circle to concern us again today.

Braveheart (review)

Braveheart has a primal, visceral power — as when Wallace, in the aftermath of a battle, stands over the carnage he’s wrought and screams in victory, nostrils flaring — that strikes straight to the heart of any warm-blooded Celt, or indeed anyone who values freedom and human dignity.

Forrest Gump (review)

With Forrest Gump, the fable of the dimwitted but goodhearted Alabaman who was, in his own words, a ‘football star, war hero, national celebrity, and shrimp-boat captain,’ director Robert Zemeckis takes his work to a new level of maturity. His previous films are, for the most part, fun and highly entertaining, but Forrest Gump has an intricacy and depth that is more rewarding while still being enormously engaging.

Schindler’s List (review)

While Schindler’s List is the least Spielberg-ian and least showy of the director’s work, it demonstrates an artistry that is at times highly stylized. The film is a study in contrasts and ironies.