If asked to name a 1950 noir starring William Holden and Nancy Olson a majority would understandably name Billy Wilder’s classic Sunset Boulevard. However, there’s another film that meets that criteria, the somewhat forgotten Union Station. Though it’s billed as…
The recent spate of musical biopics over the last decade or so tend to follow a formula: we meet a star at the height of his career, and flashback over his life, beginning with a deprived childhood. From there, life…
Filmed over a twelve year period using the same cast, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is impossible to discuss without at least mentioning how it was completed. This wasn’t a case of special effects wizardry. Instead, the cast and crew gathered annually…
An unconventional Hollywood blockbuster, On Golden Pond is a character driven drama that explores aging, mortality, and reconciliation. Based on the play by Ernest Thompson, On Golden Pond finally earned legendary actor Henry Fonda a Best Actor Academy Award in…
Produced by Hal Wallis and directed by William Dieterle, Wallis had intended Rope of Sand as a reunion for Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. When that plan did pan out, he settled for Burt Lancaster in the lead, and a…
Adapted from the 1975 play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer—and in turn, Singer’s earlier short story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy,” Yentl was a true passion project for Barbra Streisand, which took her more than a decade to bring…
Edinburgh, 1932. Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) is a dedicated teacher at the very conservative Marcia Blaine School for Girls. “I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders,” she says to her class, “and all my girls…
We open on a man jogging, seen only from behind. His strong gate, and forceful breathing suggests he jogs with purpose. Then, a title card slams down over a blaring synth, as if to confirm our suspicions. This man isn’t…
There are no homicidal maniacs on the loose, nonetheless, Todd Haynes’ Safe is a truly terrifying film. The horror comes from what at first appears normal and familiar—life in the suburbs. ‘Typical life’ gives way to a self-inflicted, existential crisis…
Based on a comic that first appeared in 1984, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) had a successful movie franchise in the 1990s, and has been revived in director Jonathan Liebesman’s (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) 2014 live…