Star Wars (review)
What can I possibly say about *Star Wars* that hasn’t already been said a hundred times? George Lucas’s modern fairy tale must be one of the most discussed, most analyzed films of the century…
AFI 100
American Graffiti (review)
Made on the cheap, *American Graffiti* has a timeless power that speaks to everyone who was ever a teenager.
Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (review)
So this chick, right, she breaks into these guys’ house, and, like, *cleans* it for them…
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.
Unforgiven (review)
‘It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man,’ says thief and killer William Munny (Clint Eastwood, who also directed) in Unforgiven. ‘You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.’ Practically an antimovie, this revisionist Western rejects the concept of casual murder that many films revel in to examine why ‘it ain’t so easy to shoot a man.’
The Silence of the Lambs (review)
The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological thriller of the highest order, and well deserving of the unusual Oscar nod for Best Picture, never before bestowed upon a film like this. Before or since, action/horror has never been done so well or so cerebrally.
Dances with Wolves movie review: native son
Dances with Wolves is one of the most visually and emotionally stunning movies I’ve ever seen, a glimmer of another world where less might have been lost if more people had been as open and friendly as John Dunbar. From John Barry’s stirring score to director/producer Costner’s daring presentation of a huge chunk of the movie in the beautiful Sioux Lakota language (with subtitles), this is a majestic requiem for a world that is gone.
Platoon (review)
Never has the chaos and horror of battle been so in-your-face, so personal, as in writer/director Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Based on his experiences in Vietnam, this is a stark, caustic account of one man’s war.
Amadeus (review)
Is Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham, in a virtuoso performance he has yet to match) insane? Amadeus opens with an old, bitter Salieri living out his last days in an asylum, where he’s been relegated following a suicide attempt. The film’s story, and the story of his life, unfolds as he confesses to a priest how, and why, he killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
