Grand Hotel (review)

It’s all very silly, the ultimate in Depression-era escapism: a piece of Hollywood magic that’s impossibly romantic filled with people who are impossibly elegant, bantering and wisecracking constantly. Its fascinating and diverse characters and a rather dark ending, however, give Grand Hotel more heft than any of its hellish spawn such as The Love Boat or Fantasy Island.

Cimarron (review)

Wichita just ain’t far enough west for Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix). He longs for the untamed frontier. So when the 1889 Oklahoma land rush puts 2 million acres up for grabs, he packs up the wife, Sabra (Irene Dunne), and the kid, Cimarron (which means ‘wild,’ we’re told), and heads off to help build a new world, or, more specifically, the boomtown of Osage, Oklahoma.

Ronin (review)

What a difference it makes to a movie when it’s real actors — as opposed to, say, studio executives’ personal trainers — blowing things up. The Fugitive stood out in the action movie genre by drawing its energy from the intense performances from both Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones (Oscar winner for a popcorn flick!). And now Ronin shows just how smart car chases and gunfights can be when thinking actors are the ones behind the wheel and behind the trigger.