Jones and Duvall make a tale of two brothers a tale to remember
By Joe Leydon,
March 28, 1996
Robert Duvall has a couple of moments during the early scenes of A Family Thing that are so emotionally eloquent, so absolutely right, he almost... More>>
Spike Lee works the phone-sex lines, but loses his connection
By Joe Leydon,
March 21, 1996
It says a lot about Spike Lee's creative energy, and his adherence to the American work ethic, that within the space of a decade he's made nine... More>>
Seldom has any movie illustrated the Peter Principle more vividly than If Lucy Fell. This obnoxiously smug little comedy is the second feature to... More>>
The Birdcage updates La Cage Aux Folles with some political bite
By Joe Leydon,
March 07, 1996
They share a loving, long-term relationship based on shared interests, mutual respect and an immensely satisfying joint career. Of course, they... More>>
Why, indeed, must the show go on? This question is of more than academic interest to Joe Harper (Michael Maloney), a high-strung, chronically... More>>
There are two scenes in Rumble in the Bronx that go a long way toward explaining why, in Asia, Jackie Chan is a movie star who eclipses the likes... More>>
Before and After asks: When a son's accused of a crime, what do you do?
By Edith Sorenson,
February 29, 1996
At the beginning of Barbet Schroeder's new Before and After, we're shown a winter landscape of steel blue skies and crisp snow; as the camera... More>>
City Hall is a frustrating near-miss movie. On the plus side, it's got John Cusack in a lead role, sharp and intriguing character interplay and... More>>
Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket is a whimsical delight
By Joe Leydon,
February 22, 1996
At a time when it seems as though half the new young filmmakers want to be Quentin Tarantino, while the other half want to be Martin Scorsese,... More>>
John Woo's latest isn't his best, but he still leads the action pack
By Joe Leydon,
February 15, 1996
Given the current state of high-tech trickery available to filmmakers, just about any director with an adequate budget can give you maximum bang... More>>
Film CultureBy Mitchell J. Shields,
February 15, 1996
Mohammed Kamara remembers vividly the first time he saw a movie. He was a teenager living in Liberia, and a Land Rover bearing representatives of... More>>
City of Lost Children has a familiar look -- the look of a winner
By Edith Sorenson,
February 08, 1996
Some moviegoers settling down to watch Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's City of Lost Children might think they've wandered into a Terry Gilliam... More>>
Dead Man Walking finds no easy answers to the hard questions of capital punishment
By Joe Leydon,
January 25, 1996
Given the long and not always glorious tradition of death-row melodramas, not to mention the unabashed and frequently expressed liberalism of Tim... More>>
Christian Slater and Mary Stuart Masterson are fine actors -- in Masterson's case, sometimes an inspired one -- who tend to do their best work in... More>>
The name of the film may be Othello, but Iago's the star
By Joe Leydon,
January 18, 1996
Very much in the tradition of Franco Zeffirelli's 1991 film of Hamlet, in which Mel Gibson did himself proud as Shakespeare's melancholy Dane,... More>>
Tarantino meets Rodriguez and, no surprise, all hell breaks loose
By Joe Leydon,
January 18, 1996
Early in a marathon battle with undead predators, a clash that takes up most of the second half of From Dusk till Dawn, a flustered antihero is... More>>
Georgia gets the lyrics right, but it's still out of tune
By Edith Sorenson,
January 11, 1996
If it had been made 50 years ago, when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled Hollywood, it's likely that Georgia would be better than it is. That's... More>>
If you love movies, consider this grim statistic provided by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington: more than half of all the movies produced... More>>
