Thoroughly Modern Millie
BBB (out of 5) Julie Andrews is a jazz baby who is determined to be the very definition of “modern”: it’s the roaring twenties and women have a freedom and equality to men that… Continue reading
Tag Archive: Elmer Bernstein
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Saturn 3
B (out of 5) Earth is overcrowded and harvesting food has been outsourced to other celestial bodies manned by small crews, including a moon of Saturn where Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett live completely alone… Continue reading
A Rage In Harlem
BBBB.5 (out of 5) A magnificent shoot-out in mid-fifties Mississippi ends with dead bodies everywhere, the one survivor a gorgeous femme fatale (Robin Givens) who makes away with the loot, a trunk full of… Continue reading
The Great Santini
BBBB (out of 5) Robert Duvall is a tough Air Force pilot who is brought home from Spain and stationed with his family and four kids in a small town in South Carolina.… Continue reading
Genocide
BBBB (out of 5) An unflinching record of the Holocaust that immediately became the standard upon which the remaining years of films on the same subject would be marked against, and the first… Continue reading
The Man With The Golden Arm
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Outstanding look at drug addiction by filmmaker Otto Preminger that is surprisingly not as dated as could be expected. Frank Sinatra is excellent as a recovering junkie who gets out… Continue reading
Stripes
BBBB (out of 5) Bill Murray has a hell of a day when he loses his job and girlfriend at once, finding himself without a hope in the world of living a decent, adult… Continue reading
The Magnificent Seven
BBBB (out of 5) Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is remade for the Hollywood screen as the quintessential western, easily adapted thanks to Kurosawa’s own love of the classic American genre. Yul Brynner, Steve… Continue reading
The Great Escape
BBB.5 (out of 5) A huge cast of actors is assembled for this exciting wartime adventure. Steve McQueen heads the group as an American soldier in a Nazi Prisoner-Of-War camp who decides to join… Continue reading
Buddy
BBBB (out of 5) Gertrude Davies Lintz (Rene Russo), upon whose autobiography Animals Are My Hobby this beautiful family film is based, is a rich east coast socialite who has populated her mansion… Continue reading
Wild Wild West
B (out of 5) Flat adventure that never goes anywhere for an interminably long 100 minutes. Will Smith and Kevin Kline play the lead roles originated in the 1960s spy show of the same name,… Continue reading
The Field
BBBB (out of 5) Exceptional drama based on the play by John B. Keane, and Jim Sheridan’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning My Left Foot. Richard Harris is superb as “Bull” McCabe, whose family has… Continue reading
My Left Foot
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Growing up in dire circumstances in a poor Irish neighbourhood, Christy Brown (played superbly by both Daniel Day-Lewis and Hugh O’Conor) is spurred on by his kindly, sensitive mother… Continue reading
The Good Son
BB (out of 5) Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood play cousins who spend a summer together, with Wood the guest and Culkin the picture-perfect son of the household…or is he? Wood begins to witness some… Continue reading
Ghostbusters (Ghost Busters)
BBBB (out of 5) After three scientists (Bill Murray, who is terrific, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis) investigating supernatural phenomena are fired from their university and have their grants taken away, they set up… Continue reading
The Good Mother
BB (out of 5) A strong performance by Diane Keaton just can’t save this incredibly dull drama. She plays a divorced, single mother whose conservative ex-husband (James Naughton) objects to the way she’s raising… Continue reading
Keeping The Faith
BBB.5 (out of 5) Colourful romantic comedy about the stylish woman (Jenna Elfman) who causes a rift between a rabbi (Ben Stiller) and his Catholic priest best friend (Edward Norton), after the three… Continue reading
Love With The Proper Stranger
BBBB (out of 5) Steve McQueen plays a loose-living New York City musician who thinks he’s going to have a great day when he gets himself a high-paying gig. The prospect of enjoyment… Continue reading
To Kill A Mockingbird
BBBBB (out of 5) Harper Lee’s incredibly popular novel makes its way to the big screen with very admirable results. Gregory Peck gives one of the best performances of his career as Atticus Finch,… Continue reading
Sweet Smell Of Success
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Combine fantastic on-location photography by James Wong Howe, a jazzy score by Elmer Bernstein and a noir-ish plot written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman (upon whose novelette the… Continue reading
Desire Under The Elms
BB (out of 5) Boring adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play features an early English-speaking performance by Sophia Loren. Anthony Perkins plays a farmboy whose widowed father (Burl Ives) brings home a foreign woman (Loren)… Continue reading
The World Of Henry Orient
BBBB (out of 5) Peter Sellers takes a back seat in this mini-adventure that tells the story of two young girls growing up in broken homes in New York City. One is the daughter… Continue reading
Hawaii
BBB (out of 5) This adaptation of one part of James Michener’s mammoth novel(s) is interesting from time to time but, for the most part, is a bore. Max von Sydow plays a fundamentalist… Continue reading
True Grit (1969)
BBB (out of 5) John Wayne earned an Academy Award for his portrayal of a broken-down, drunk and forgotten marshal who is hired by a teenage girl (Kim Darby) to track down and bring… Continue reading
An American Werewolf In London
BBB.5 (out of 5) Griffin Dunne and David Naughton are two friends travelling through Europe who spend an evening hiking the spooky moors of England and realize that they need shelter from the cold. They… Continue reading
Trading Places
BBBB (out of 5) This is one of the films that led to Eddie Murphy becoming the biggest comedy stars of the eighties and it is easy to see why. He plays a street thug… Continue reading
Three Amigos
BBB.5 (out of 5) Three silent film actors (Steve Martin, Martin Short, Chevy Chase) are fired from their studio and left without any kind of employment to support themselves. Famous for playing roles as… Continue reading
Oscar
BB (out of 5) Sylvester Stallone tried to take a break from action films by branching out into comedy, but unfortunately both his choices (this one and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!) were unsuccessful.… Continue reading
The Deep End Of The Ocean
BB.5 (out of 5) Based on the bestseller (and Oprah Book the Month selection) by Jacquelyn Mitchard, this film is so adequate and appropriate in all the right spots that some audience members… Continue reading
Hud
BBBBB (out of 5) Fantastic western directed by Martin Ritt features Paul Newman at his best, playing among the most memorable anti-heroes in film history. It takes place on a cattle ranch where… Continue reading
Some Came Running
BBB (out of 5) Frank Sinatra falls asleep on a bus in a drunken stupor and wakes up the next morning in his home town, still wearing his army uniform and toting a… Continue reading
Airplane II: The Sequel
BBB.5 (out of 5) Some of the inspiration is gone, but the laughs are still there. This time, the aircraft in question is a space shuttle that is transporting passengers to the moon.… Continue reading
The Rainmaker (1997)
BB (out of 5) Matt Damon preceded his Good Will Hunting Oscar win with this unbalanced John Grisham adaptation about a young lawyer newly out of school. He takes on a David vs. Goliath… Continue reading
Bringing Out The Dead
BB.5 (out of 5) Martin Scorsese returns to the harrowing themes of Taxi Driver that made him so popular twenty-odd years earlier. Nicolas Cage is mostly expressionless as a New York City ambulance paramedic… Continue reading
Cape Fear
BB (out of 5) No one would have thought Martin Scorsese capable of such hackery, but here it is. His remake of the 1962 thriller is weakly written and boring to watch, gratuitous… Continue reading
Class
B.5 (out of 5) Ah, the eighties, when being rich and young in the movies was served without even the smallest helping of irony. Andrew McCarthy (in his film debut) plays a kid… Continue reading
Far From Heaven
BBBBB (out of 5) Todd Haynes reimagines Douglas Sirk’s masterpiece All That Heaven Allows into this equally unforgettable classic. Julianne Moore stars as a picture-perfect Hartford, Connecticut housewife who lives to serve her husband (Dennis… Continue reading
Twilight (1998)
BBB (out of 5) Passable detective thriller in the Sam Spade vein stars Paul Newman as a disgruntled private eye investigating a teen’s disappearance and involvement in a crime. An all-star cast of Susan… Continue reading
A Walk In The Spring Rain
BBB (out of 5) A sweet tale of love blossoming between two middle-agers from complete opposite sides of society. Ingrid Bergman spends a summer in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee with her law professor… Continue reading
Airplane
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Hilarity reigns in this stupendously funny movie, an effective spoof of the airplane disaster movies (Airport, Airport ’75, Airport ’77, etc.) that flew across cinema screens all too frequently… Continue reading