Common little fantasy about a common little man who, on his thirty-fifth birthday, gets to change the moment twenty years earlier when he struck out in the high-school baseball championship. The premise is really only half a premise. While the man's whole life is altered, the man himself isn't, so …
Michael Caine (in the flesh) is Scrooge. The thigh-high Kermit the Frog is Bob Cratchit. Miss Piggy is wife Emily. The Great Gonzo is Charles Dickens. God save Us, Every One! Directed by Brian Henson.
Michael Caine (in the flesh) is Scrooge. The thigh-high Kermit the Frog is Bob Cratchit. Miss Piggy is wife Emily. The Great Gonzo is Charles Dickens. God save Us, Every One! Directed by Brian Henson.
The transfer to screen of Michael Frayn's stage piece is in Peter Bogdanovich's more comfortable or anyhow less discomfiting mode, the frenetically pointless as opposed to the face-pullingly pretentious (Saint Jack always excepted), a theatrical farce wrapped around a sex farce (titled Nothing On) en route from Des Moines (Act …
Everybody loves magic! Everybody loves caper pics! And everybody, everybody loves Michael Caine.
Steven Seagal expands his responsibilities from those of the mere star to those of the star-director (like Clint Eastwood, like Jerry Lewis), and it hasn't expanded his humility: his initial entrance on screen is heralded by the line, "Oh, thank God," and the camera thereupon kisses his boots and caresses …
Not the best film of its year to deal with the subject of magic and to feature both Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. That distinction would belong to Woody Allen's Scoop, which was unchallenged as well (except insofar as the air pressure in Jessica Biel's lips may have challenged Scarlett …
A tale of political intrigue complicated by romantic intrigue in Indochina in the early 1950s: an idealistic and myopic American secret agent played by Brendan Fraser, and an aloof, effete British journalist played by Michael Caine ("Sooner or later," he is admonished by a native, "one has to take sides …
A middle-brow mulling of the issues of free expression and censorship, with the Marquis de Sade as the bone of contention. (Present-day application warmly invited.) The movie does not try to deny literature's potential damage to weak minds -- at least to the extent that a slobbering resident of the …
Frayed coming-of-age yarn tied to a crusty-old-coot comedy. Robert Duvall and Michael Caine are mismatched as brothers, and even worse matched with their stand-ins in flashbacks. Haley Joel Osment, Kyra Sedgwick; directed by Tim McCanlies.
Dark comedy, with even darker photography, about an ad exec who goes on a selective little murder spree when he's passed over for promotion. ("He was your superior, wasn't he?" "No, he was my boss.") Darkest laugh: he sets about scattering the ashes of his electrocuted wife, and the wind …
The crisp, clear images seem to be desirous of, and deserving of, some happenings a little livelier than the discreet high-finance hanky-panky written by Peter Stone (Charade, Mirage). Three or four chuckles over the course of two hours; about as fun as a businessman's lunch. Michael Caine, Louis Jourdan, Cybill …
Streamlined, diverted, nevertheless tedious remake of the Anthony Shaffer theatrical thriller. Michael Caine, returning to the scene, takes the part of Laurence Olivier from the 1972 version, while Caine's original role is taken by the man who took his role in the remake of Alfie as well, Jude Law. There's …
Anthony Shaffer's veddy, veddy clever stage play is really not a mystery story at all, but rather a character study of a lordly WASP bigot (Laurence Olivier, acting in a Man of a Thousand Voices style) who just happens to compose genteel whodunits on the side. Shaffer spoofs the detective …
The kind of big-theme fiction film that might expect to receive some brownie points in advance. Certainly Norman Jewison is that kind of filmmaker: In the Heat of the Night, F.I.S.T., And Justice for All, A Soldier's Story, Agnes of God, etc., etc. But the original novel by Brian Moore, …