Two babies are born at the same time in an Israeli hospital. One is Israeli, the other Palestinian. Evacuated during a missile attack, they’re accidentally switched and raised by each other’s families for the next 18 years. Through the prism…
Produced by George Lucas and directed by Ron Howard, Willow has managed to connect pretty well with audiences over the years, but received mixed reviews from critics when it hit theaters back in 1988. Although the film earned a rather…
Filming Shakespeare isn’t particularly easy, and keeping it interesting for a majority of the viewing audience is even more difficult. This 1970 version, highlighted by an all star cast, faithfully retells Shakespeare’s account of events surrounding the assassination of Caesar…
After the dull Chéri and the uneven Tamara Drewe, the generally reliable Stephen Frears appears to be in something of a slump. Unfortunately, his frivolous, superficial adaptation of Lay the Favorite, Beth Raymer’s memoir about her path from stripper to…
While well suited for all ages, there’s little doubt that Wreck-It Ralph is a valentine to parents who remember afternoons spent in the video game arcades of the past. As their parents are smiling about the Q*bert jokes and other…
Relationships and the struggle for power within their framework is a consistent theme throughout Luis Buñuel’s films. A rather sadomasochistic director, Tristana, released in 1970, is Buñuel’s most explicit study of the subject. Made in the later stages of the…
Shot on a shoestring budget by a group of industrial filmmakers who had never produced a feature film, The Blob, released in 1959, became the most successful monster film of the decade. Filmed in rural Pennsylvania, the director Irvin S….
Located in Memphis, the Manassas High School football team had become the punch line to cruel jokes after years of losing seasons. In 110 years, Manassas football hadn’t appeared in a single playoff game. When Bill Courtney, a volunteer coach…
Based on a Japanese short story of the same name, Sansho the Bailiff depicts a world of inexorable cruelty. 11th century Japan is an era when, as the opening credits describe it: “mankind had not yet awakened as human beings.”…
Blessed with a combination of athleticism, good looks and a sense of humor, Douglas Fairbanks became the silver screen’s first action star. A title earned over the course of more than twenty-five feature films made between 1915 and1920. By 1920,…