A dry old bone about a framed policeman, a lady lawyer, and a huge population of moral inferiors. Curiously unheroic role for Burt Reynolds (in a gray-flecked toupee), especially during the damsel-in-distress climax. But not even a starving buzzard would give that a glance. Theresa Russell, who's just barely capable …
Clint Eastwood, as a high-principled skip-tracer ("Once we catch 'em, we never gloat"), follows Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, et al., into the funny-voices-and-disguises business. An actor of great stature, he's not one of great range, and his stature is diminished by the stretch. With Bernadette Peters; directed by Buddy Van …
A very small film about a very small Jewish racketeer, made by the Nothing but a Man team, Michael Roemer and Robert Young, in the heyday of the American independent film (ca. 1970) and rescued from oblivion two decades later. It cuts a wide (or a curvy) path through the …
A very small film about a very small Jewish racketeer, made by the Nothing but a Man team, Michael Roemer and Robert Young, in the heyday of the American independent film (ca. 1970) and rescued from oblivion two decades later. It cuts a wide (or a curvy) path through the …
Road movie and buddy movie uniting two opposite Cheyenne braves, a hot-headed reservation activist and a gentle giant tuned in to the Old Ways. "Blissed out" is the way the latter is described, and it fits the movie as a whole. Handsome photography, particularly of the Western sunlight and landscape; …
One of Santa's reindeer is grounded with a bum leg in Small Town, U.S.A. How are all those presents going to get delivered this year? A Christmas fantasy positioned on the Schmaltz Scale somewhere above the Hallmark Card outfit. With Rebecca Harrell, Sam Elliott, and Abe Vigoda; directed by John …
An opera buffa (minus the singers) about Italians in London, a tale of elopement, espresso, and revenge. For all that England intrudes into the ethnic enclave, it could as well be about Italians anywhere, which may be the point. Any other point will be a matter of wildest conjecture. We …
A kerosene-on-fire combination: the feverish Ken Russell adapting the shrill D.H. Lawrence ("an aristocrat of the spirit," to borrow a description of the protagonist here). But Russell's kerosene supply is running low -- only the occasional squirt -- and the result is not so much repellent as just dull. Dull …
Serial killer on the loose, hounded by quick-draw psychological insights (i.e., solarized flashbacks of a Draconian dad). Judd Nelson's psychopath, though not exactly "chilling," could well leave you cold. His capering around the edge of a roof, for example, would be much more unnerving if you couldn't see the safety …
A psychopathic jewel thief pauses in mid-getaway to steal the Sacred Lance of the Lakota Indians. This alarms his businesslike confederates ("We haven't got time for this art shit"), angers the laconic Lakota (Lou Diamond Phillips) to whom the lance was entrusted, and initiates a slow-sealing male bond between the …
All in fun, of course. But the insistent closeups and flat-footed tempo make sure there's little of that. Or to quote the California-blonde heroine: "Well, fun's fun, but how about showing me something else?" With Louis Jourdan, Heather Locklear, and Sarah Douglas; directed by Jim Wynorski.
Patrick Swayze, showing no signs of embarrassment and hence none of intelligence either, is a sort of Wyatt Earp of the nightclub circuit, a professional bouncer (a.k.a. "cooler") called in to tame the toughest of hellholes, just as Wyatt was summoned to Dodge and Wichita. This idea has possibilities, even …
An unlikely source of mirth: a documentary about the layoff of 30,000 auto workers from eleven General Motors plants in Flint, Michigan. The Roger of the title is Roger Smith, GM Chairman; the Me is first-time filmmaker Michael Moore, whose Leftist bona fides had been well established in ten years …
The rare film directed by a Mexican female. She -- Busi Cortes -- beats back some Gothic-romance tendencies (the spooky housekeeper, the revelatory diary, the infidelity, the suicide, the terrible revenge) with a treatment magisterially detached, dignified, decorous, unflappable. A couple of tenacious stereotypes crumple in the process. With Diana …
A Costa-Gavras topic, taken up by the Australian filmmaker John Duigan: the political education, activation, and eventual assassination of a book-wormish priest appointed Archbishop of El Salvador ("a good compromise choice, he'll make no waves"). Highly professional work, steady and conscientious, a little low perhaps on passion and energy, and …