A film squarely for adults, Conclave is based on Robert Harris’s 2016 novel of the same name. While many of the films centered on religion have been fodder for the horror and thriller genres, Conclave explores the ancient, secretive process…
Filmed in early 1971 at England’s Shepperton Studios, stars Susan George as Amanda, a college student who agrees to babysit Tara (Tara Collinson) three-year-old son of Helen (Honor Blackman) so that she and her fiancé Jim (George Cole) can meet…
Released in 1954, Akira Kurosawa’s fifteenth film, Seven Samurai is often considered his best work That’s saying something, since he’s also responsible for such classics as Rashomon, The Hidden Fortress (George Lucas’s inspiration for Star Wars), Yojimbo, High and Low,…
The early 1990’s weren’t particularly kind to Sylvester Stallone. Rocky V (1990) received lukewarm reviews and underperformed at the box office. Sly then starred in a couple of poorly received comedies—Oscar (1991) and Stop or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)—before…
Released thirty years ago, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction reshaped American filmmaking and became a cultural phenomenon. Loaded with nods to various film genres and their legendary stars, Pulp Fiction also reignited the career of John Travolta. Filled with well-developed characters,…
Based on the novel by Rod Whitaker and directed by star Clint Eastwood, The Eiger Sanction centers around Dr. Jonathan Hemlock (Eastwood), a former government assassin whose specialty was to sanction, or do away with anyone the government suspected of…
Twenty-five years old, Galaxy Quest remains one of the best sci-fi comedies ever made. To call it a simple spoof of Star Trek is belittling. Written by David Howard and Robert Gordon and directed by Dean Parisot, the film has…
Released in 2014, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar ranks as one of the greatest contemporary science fiction films. In my 2015 release of the Blu-ray, I wrote that seeing it “at home on a television will not have the same effect as…
Based on a novel titled “Como Un Perro Rabioso” (“Like a Rabid Dog”), A Dog Called…Vengeance is equal parts linear storytelling and metaphor. The film opens with an armed man and his dog chasing an unarmed man through a mass…
It runs neck-and-neck with Young Frankenstein, but for me, Blazing Saddles is Mel Brooks’ greatest film. If there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen this brilliant satire, here’s a bit of a synopsis: It’s 1874, and an expanding railroad operation…