Bandit Queen movie review
The true story of a modern-day female Robin Hood of India. A powerful and in spots devastating journey through one woman’s conquest of a culture that views women as little more than sexual commodities.
drama
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon movie review: arthouse action
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will make you fall in love with film all over again. Instantly one of the greatest ever adventure movies, it’s also a touching, tender story of love forbidden and denied.
Unbreakable (review)
I don’t think it’s venturing too far into hyperbole to call this, the followup to The Sixth Sense from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, a work of transcendent filmic genius, one that acknowledges the audience’s expectations, confounds them, rebuilds them, and ends up using them to brilliant, astonishing advantage.
The Exorcist, Lost Souls, and Possessed movies review: sympathy for the devil
Do screenwriters bother with characterization or motive for Old Scratch? Rarely — the Prince of Darkness is supposed to just coast on his rep as the Ultimate Bad Dude, and yet those selfsame screenwriters must, by storytelling necessity, declaw him, prevent him from taking full advantage of the hellish forces at his command.
Misery (review)
Annie Wilkes is King’s best psycho and one of the most banally malevolent visions of evil ever depicted onscreen — as played by the extraordinary Kathy Bates, she is a terror of frighteningly everyday proportions. A lonely, abandoned woman living in the Colorado mountains, her greatest solace comes from the romance novels of author Paul Sheldon (James Caan), all of which feature an heroine with the unlikely name of Misery.
Taxi Driver (review)
Was *Taxi Driver* more disturbing, or less disturbing, before its unpleasant truths shifted into the real world?
Raging Bull (review)
The other great movie about boxing, Martin Scorsese’s *Raging Bull* is as dismal as *Rocky* is triumphant, as hopeless as *Rocky* is hopeful.
GoodFellas movie review: king of the hill
This is the best mob movie ever made.
Longitude (review)
Here’s a three-hour (four, with commercials) movie about clocks: clocks being built, clocks being taken apart, clocks being talked about, clocks being restored. It should be as boring as watching paint dry, but instead it’s a thrilling intellectual adventure about the genius and obsession that drives both scientific discovery and scholarship.
Twister movie review: storm troopers
One of my very favorite movies, a superb example of the genus Popcorn Flick, unforgettable as it puts onscreen imagery we’ve never seen before. This is as close as I get to turning my brain off at the movies.
