The ratings system has its inconsistencies, but, after reading a synopsis of Microcosmos, you'd have to wonder just what the MPAA was thinking.... More>>
After the rowdy cacophony of Baz Luhrmann's turbo-charged Romeo & Juliet, the prospect of a more traditional Shakespearean adaptation is more... More>>
Whenever someone makes a film about a great artist, it is much easier, and a great deal more cinematic, to show him hopping into bed instead of... More>>
To his credit, Neil Jordan never attempts to disguise his sympathies in Michael Collins, his forlorn epic of blood and thunder. This sweeping... More>>
The movie is respectfully titled William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, but don't expect anything like a traditional interpretation of the Bard.... More>>
Writer Lorenzo Carcaterra claims that it's all true, that he only changed a few names -- and altered a few identifying details -- to protect the... More>>
Spike Lee bounces back from the aimless doodling of Girl 6 with Get on the Bus, a labor of love that has the vigor and urgency of something made... More>>
Geena Davis and Gene Hackman exhume some explosive histories
By Joe Leydon,
October 17, 1996
Screenwriter Shane Black may have received the record sum of $4 million for writing The Long Kiss Goodnight, but the movie itself is a fairly... More>>
In Secrets and Lies, Mike Leigh creates fiction with the feel of fact
By Joe Leydon,
October 10, 1996
British filmmaker Mike Leigh often evidences genuine sympathy, if not boundless affection, for the characters who populate his bleakly comical,... More>>
It isn't often that a filmmaker can take credit for single-handedly creating a brand-new genre. But that is just what writer/director Michael... More>>
Tom Hanks shows how it feels at the top of the charts
By Joe Leydon,
October 03, 1996
Given the number of one-hit wonders on the golden-oldie radio stations, it's surprising that no one came up with the idea for a movie like That... More>>
After Extreme Measures, Hugh Grant's career is in stable condition
By Joe Leydon,
September 26, 1996
During the opening minutes of Extreme Measures, we find Hugh Grant cast as Dr. Guy Luthan, a British-born doctor hard at work in the emergency... More>>
If you are dieting, you might do well to avoid Big Night, a rhapsodic ode in the delicious tradition of Babette's Feast and Eat Drink Man Woman.... More>>
In synopsis, Bogus sounds like something too precious for words and too cute by half. A seven-year-old boy, devastated by the loss of his mother,... More>>
Rude and crude with apologies to no one, Bulletproof is the sort of guilty pleasure that should be savored in a crowded theater on a Saturday... More>>
On the day I saw The Trigger Effect, David Koepp's disquieting thriller about survival and suspicion in the wake of a massive power blackout, I... More>>
In The Fan, Robert De Niro would kill for the Giants -- literally
By Joe Leydon,
August 22, 1996
Tony Scott, the auteur of such blunt-instrument entertainments as Top Gun and True Romance, is not a director for whom subtlety is a way of life.... More>>
