Sidney Lumet, an old-fashioned New York liberal Jewish humanist in a Depraved New World of heedless materialism, might try to tell himself (with teeth gritted tighter than those of his leading lady, Rebecca De Mornay, and voce more sotto than that of his leading man, Don Johnson) that the story …
The heaven-made or at least computer-made match of martial-arts star Jean-Claude van Damme and Hong Kong action director John Woo (The Killer, Hard-Boiled, et al.) seemed as if it would have been beneficial to both parties -- higher production values for Woo, higher style for van Damme -- but it …
Elementary suspenser: stolen rare coin, crooked cop, deaf lady in distress. (We have already had a blind lady in distress in a suspenser called -- wouldn't you know? -- See No Evil.) Instruction on the world of the deaf rises just enough above elementary to show you how to sign …
Four casualties of a bus accident are condemned, for an indefinite period and unknown reasons, to keep company with the newborn whose arrival on earth coincides with their departure: they're invisible and inaudible to everyone but him, and they disappear from him as well when he reaches the age of …
Oliver Stone in his appointed role -- self-appointed, make that -- of dispenser of strong medicine. His patented technique: put the patient in a headlock and pinch his nose with one hand, then force a funnel down his throat and pour in castor oil with the other. That's a pretty …
Starring Anita Mui, Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung, scored by Wai Lap Wu.
Combination screwball comedy and black comedy (blackball comedy?). A hotel desk clerk and compulsive liar gets involved for real with a homicidal and very hot-tempered international fashion model called Hexina. Writer and director Alan Spencer generates little style but many gags, never slowing to worry about taste (e.g., a replay …
Three resurrected weird sisters (the rat-toothed Bette Midler, the bimbo-esque Sarah Jessica Parker, the jello-y Kathy Najimy: three broad actresses) chase after three dull youths in present-day Salem. This could have been prevented if only the talking black cat had spoken up before the virgin lit the black-flame candle on …
Three resurrected weird sisters (the rat-toothed Bette Midler, the bimbo-esque Sarah Jessica Parker, the jello-y Kathy Najimy: three broad actresses) chase after three dull youths in present-day Salem. This could have been prevented if only the talking black cat had spoken up before the virgin lit the black-flame candle on …
Three resurrected weird sisters (the rat-toothed Bette Midler, the bimbo-esque Sarah Jessica Parker, the jello-y Kathy Najimy: three broad actresses) chase after three dull youths in present-day Salem. This could have been prevented if only the talking black cat had spoken up before the virgin lit the black-flame candle on …
Comedy of bad taste, set among the mixed-nuts occupants of an El Monte trailer park: bad enough to raise the specter of Pink Flamingos, not bad enough to raise an eyebrow. With Max Parrish, Adrienne Shelly, Andrea Naschak, Diane Ladd, Sean Young; written and directed by Joel Hershman.
Plain and simple account of plain and simple folk in rural Idaho, a single mom and a brood of six, "the Lacey tribe," as she dubs them, struggling to construct a dream house out of little more than a teepee. Screenwriter Patrick Duncan ("This is a true story," says his …
Remake of just plain The Incredible Journey. Two dogs and a cat, stashed away on a Montana ranch while their family sojourns in San Francisco, take it into their heads to "go home" -- over mountains, across rivers, down waterfalls, around grizzly bears. That's not the worst of their troubles. …
This does to Rambo what the original Hot Shots did to Top Gun: shot a bushel's worth of peas at the hide of a rhino. Sample gag: the hero knees an adversary in the nuts -- keep in mind, the nuts -- and immediately afterwards the adversary spits two walnuts …
Long-winded, high-colored family chronicle about the Italian-American wife who is "won" in a pinochle game, and the daughter who throws herself into religion without any encouragement from her parents: "Nuns are sick women," instructs Papa. The movie loses a lot, around the halfway point, with the death of the superstitious, …