A period piece road picture about a trio of ex-cons who wind their way around the state of Mississippi during the Great Depression, the basic premise of O Brother, Where Art Thou? seems ideally suited for the Coens’ oeuvre, combining…
When compared to his other works, William Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest is a bit of an odd duck. While it combines elements of his previous comedies, romances, and tragedies into something original, it can also come off as a…
Yuen Woo-ping has had a long and successful career as a director and actor in Hong Kong. American audiences may be more familiar with him through his outstanding fight choreography for such films as The Matrix, Kill Bill and The…
Based on the real life effort from the kids of Elmore City, Oklahoma, to overturn a law in their town banning public dancing, Footloose is about more than rowdy high school kids wanting to show off their cool moves. Though…
If there ever was a living director capable of bringing Roald Dahl’s slightly warped children’s stories to the big screen, it has to be Tim Burton. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory wasn’t the first time the two had “collaborated.” Burton…
Often considered the first the film of what would become known as the French New Wave (though Jacques Rivette’s Paris Belongs to Us was the first to go into production), Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge received near unanimous critical acclaim…
In the tradition of Airplane!, the ZAZ (Jerry Zucker/Jim Abrahams/David Zucker) triumvirate unleashed The Naked Gun in theaters in 1988. Based on their short-lived 1982 ABC television series Police Squad!, which was cancelled after six episodes, the frenetic pace and…
Executive produced by Tom Cruise, 2001’s The Others marked the last collaboration between him and Nicole Kidman prior to their divorce. Set in the British Isles 1945, Grace (Nicole Kidman) and her children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley),…
After the disappointing box office response to both Fantasia and Pinocchio, Walt Disney needed a new feature to improve his studios fortunes. He pinned his hopes on Dumbo, The Flying Elephant, a children’s story written by Helen Aberson and illustrated…
Growing up, I considered Airplane! One of the funniest movies I’d ever seen. However, a little more than thirty years after its initial release, I’m said to say, Airplane! hasn’t aged well. Though it still retains the capacity to elicit…