The first Harry Potter effort for director Peter Yates, Order of the Phoenix is probably my least favorite of the films. While the ending creates some excitement, getting there is ponderous to say the least, even after cutting the standard…
Emboldened by his success in 2008’s Taken, Liam Neeson has returned to the action/thriller genre in Unknown, based on the 2003 French novel published in English as Out of My Head, by Didier van Cauwelaert. Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris,…
I’ve come to think of this sixth film in the Harry Potter franchise as the one where the young wizard truly begins to grow up. When we last saw Harry in The Order of the Phoenix, he was engaged in…
In 1977 director Martin Scorsese was on a roll. Hot off the critical and commercial success of Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and Taxi Driver, he was given free rein to do whatever he wished. His pet project…
Frank Oz, better known as the voice of Yoda, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy, has taken over the director’s chair regularly in his career. Understandably, his first experience as a director was with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal. Usually…
The 1964 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, yet another entry into director Vittorio De Sica’s ‘lighter fair’ filmography, is likely his best from that period. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni team up again for…
Based on the ground-breaking 1968 Broadway musical of the same name, Hair was long considered unfilmable. Under the guidance of noted director Milos Foreman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus) Hair made it to the big screen in 1979….
Based on Junichiro Tanizaki’s epic novel Sasameyuki (‘A Light Snowfall’), The Makioka Sisters covers the complex relationships of four sisters from a haughty upper middle-class Osaka family. The year is 1938. The two eldest sisters, Tsuruko (Keiko Kishi) and Sachiko…
Described by its director Stephan Elliott as a “musical comedy and road movie with a difference,” The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert introduced Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce to international audiences. Since its release in 1994, the film…
Bill Hicks is widely regarded as one of the best comedians of all time. Sadly, Hicks died in 1994, succumbing to pancreatic cancer at just 32. Honestly, I was only vaguely familiar with Bill Hicks before watching the newly released…