An epic portrait of athletes’ will to succeed, Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad is a beautiful, if unconventional documentary of the 1964 Summer Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan. Every Olympiad commissions an official film, and most are interchangeable rundowns of who…
Inspired by the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween two years before, Friday the 13th was made on a budget estimated to be $550,000 and went on to gross over $39.7 million at the box office in the United States and…
Jennifer Lopez was just another fledgling actress when she won the title role in Selena, and it made her a superstar. Lopez stars as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Grammy-winning Mexican American singer whose life was cut short when she was assassinated…
Following the success of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, filmmaker John Hughes explored teen angst once again, with Pretty in Pink. Premiering on the U.S.A. on January 29, 1986, screenwriter John Hughes (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) showed he continued…
Inspired by an article by the same name in Esquire Magazine, and capitalizing on the late 1970’s early 1980’s popularity of country music, Urban Cowboy stars John Travolta as Bud Davis, a rural Texan who moves to Houston for a…
Originally set for a September 2019 opening, The Hunt got pulled from that date after a rash of shootings. However, the film became a political talking point after the rumor mill began churning with the basic premise — rich liberals…
1940’s Dance, Girl, Dance is notable in the fact that it was directed by Hollywood’s lone female director during the 1930’s-’40s, Dorothy Arzner. While the film’s behind-the-scenes look at a burlesque show might have been sensationalized in other hands, Arzner…
Loosely based on true story, 1979’s The Runner Stumbles was the final film of legendary director/producer Stanley Kramer’s (Judgement at Nuremberg, Inherit the Wind, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) long career. Set in remote Michigan circa 1911, the story begins…
Inside Daisy Clover, a fictional tale about a child star in the 1930’s, stars Natalie Wood as Daisy Clover. A fifteen-year-old tomboy, she lives with her senile mother Lucile (Ruth Gordon) on the beach, selling forged autographed pictures of movie…
I was thirteen when Top Gun came blazing to the big screen in 1986. I absolutely loved the film and saw it three or four times during its original theatrical run. Tom Cruise was buff, the planes were cool, and…