ADRIAN LYNE Bil’s rating (out of 5): B. USA, 1993. Paramount Pictures. Screenplay by Amy Holden Jones, based on the novel by Jack Engelhard. Cinematography by Howard Atherton. Produced by Sherry Lansing. Music by John Barry. Production Design by Mel Bourne. Costume Design by Beatrix Aruna Pasztor, Bernie Pollack, Bobbie Read. Film Editing by Joe Hutshing. Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson play a couple whose plans to get ahead…
Tag: Mel Bourne
Fatal Attraction (1987)
ADRIAN LYNE Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB. USA, 1987. Paramount Pictures. Screenplay by James Dearden, based on his short film. Cinematography by Howard Atherton. Produced by Sherry Lansing, Stanley R. Jaffe. Music by Maurice Jarre. Production Design by Mel Bourne. Costume Design by Ellen Mirojnick. Film Editing by Peter E. Berger, Michael Kahn. Academy Awards 1987. Golden Globe Awards 1987. Michael Douglas plays a hapless married man who is left…
Manhunter
BBBB (out of 5) Long before Anthony Hopkins became a movie star playing Hannibal Lecter, Michael Mann made this fascinating horror movie based on the first of Thomas Harris’s three Lecter novels. William Peterson is terrific as a haunted police officer investigating the work of a serial killer known only as the “Tooth Fairy”, and…
Something To Talk About
BBB.5 (out of 5) Writer Callie Khouri goes from the seriousness of Thelma and Louise to a lighter touch in dealing with the issues that southern women face in their everyday culture. Julia Roberts one day discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) has been cheating on her for a good amount of time, and after nearly…
The Fisher King
BBB.5 (out of 5) Jeff Bridges plays a talk radio host who is devastated when a listener misinterprets his advice and commits a heinous crime in a New York City restaurant. Quitting his job and in the midst of trying to quit his life, Bridges takes to the streets and meets a free spirited homeless man…
The Natural
BBBB.5 (out of 5) This wonderful film by Barry Levinson is a riveting combination of drama and folkloric fantasy. A baseball player (Robert Redford) who has dreamed of glory on the diamond since childhood is cut down in his prime when a mysterious woman shoots him. Years later, he emerges from nowhere to re-enter the…
Gloria (1999)
BBB (out of 5) Sharon Stone‘s gutsy performance is the best reason to watch this adequately done but premature remake of John Cassavetes’ 1980 gangster film (that starred his wife Gena Rowlands, who also starred with Stone a year earlier than this film in The Mighty). She plays a hit woman for the mob who…
Cocktail
B (out of 5) When production on Rain Man was delayed for various reasons, Tom Cruise killed the six extra months he suddenly had on his hands by filming this dreadful film, probably the worst movie he’s ever made since becoming a star (and yes, I have seen Legend). Cruise and his hockey hair graduate…
Reversal Of Fortune
BBBB.5 (out of 5) This excellent film details the case of Sunny von Bulow (Glenn Close), a wealthy New York aristocrat who went into a coma after an excessive dose of insulin administered by her husband. Said Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons), an old European name possibly hiding a nefarious fortune hunter, is convicted of attempted murder…
Angie
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Based on Avra Wing’s touching novel Angie, I Says, about an Italian-American girl (Geena Davis, in a role originally written for Madonna) who has grown up in Brooklyn with her father and stepmother after her mother ran away when she was a little girl. Angie is now in a relationship with…
Striptease
BB.5 (out of 5) Demi Moore took an unfair beating for this comedic dud: she’s no natural at humour, but the film fails because of a bad screenplay and confused direction by Andrew Bergman (who went on to make the even worse Isn’t She Great). A soon-to-be-divorced mother (Moore) gets work dancing at an exotic…
Still Of The Night
BB.5 (out of 5) Humdrum thriller has Robert Benton trying to do Hitchcock but is only partly successful. Meryl Streep reunites with her Kramer Vs. Kramer director as a femme fatale who crosses paths with a psychologist (Roy Scheider) investigating the murder of one of his patients. Streep is the prime suspect and enlists Scheider’s help…
