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MOVIES
FEATURED MOVIE
Citizen Kane (1941)
"It is one of the miracles of
cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an innovative cinematographer, and a group of
New York stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. “Citizen Kane”
is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as “Birth of a Nation”
assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and “2001” pointed the way beyond narrative. These peaks stand
above all the others."
RogerEbert.com Link: Citizen Kane (1941) - Buy/Rent Watch online
DOMESTIC - FOREIGN - GUILTY PLEASURES
In no particular order and expanding...Ray (2004)
"Jamie Foxx suggests the complexities of Ray Charles in a great, exuberant
performance. He doesn't do the singing -- that's all Ray Charles on the
soundtrack -- but what would be the point? Ray Charles was deeply involved
in the project for years, until his death in June, and the film had access
to his recordings, so of course it should use them, because nobody else
could sing like Ray Charles. What Foxx gets just right is the physical Ray
Charles, and what an extrovert he was. Not for Ray the hesitant blind man of
cliche feeling his way, afraid of the wrong step. In the movie and in life,
he was adamantly present in body as well as spirit, filling a room,
physically dominant, interlaced with other people. Yes, he was eccentric in
his mannerisms, especially at the keyboard; I can imagine a performance in
which Ray Charles would come across like a manic clown. But Foxx correctly
interprets the musician's body language as a kind of choreography, in which
he was conducting his music with himself, instead of with a baton. Foxx so
accurately reflects my own images and memories of Charles that I abandoned
thoughts of how much "like" Charles he was and just accepted him as Charles,
and got on with the story." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Ray (2004) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Hombre (1967)
" Yes, Paul Newman is a blue-eyed Indian in Hombre, but this apparent ethnic
error is carefully justified in the body of the story. Newman plays a white
man who was raised by the Apaches, and ever since has straddled two worlds,
feeling truly comfortable in neither. While riding a stagecoach, Newman is
subject to the racial bias of banker Fredric March and his snooty wife
Barbara Rush. In truth, March is an embezzler, and has no reason to feel
superior to anyone. This fact comes out when the coach is held up by
murderous bandit-chief Richard Boone. When the passengers fight back, Boone
takes Rush as a hostage. Newman, who by rights should be supremely satisfied
that his tormentors are themselves tormented, proves himself the bravest of
the passengers, sacrificing his own life to save Rush and put an end to
Boone's reign of terror. Hombre is based on a novel by suspense specialist
Elmore Leonard. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi" ~
- RottenTomatoes.com Link:
Hombre (1967) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Blade Runner (1982)
"A blend of science fiction and noir detective fiction, Blade Runner (1982)
was a box office and critical bust upon its initial exhibition, but its
unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the
sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that
increased its stature. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a retired cop in
Los Angeles circa 2019. L.A. has become a pan-cultural dystopia of corporate
advertising, pollution and flying automobiles, as well as replicants,
human-like androids with short life spans built by the Tyrell Corporation
for use in dangerous off-world colonization. Deckard's former job in the
police department was as a talented blade runner, a euphemism for detectives
that hunt down and assassinate rogue replicants." ~
RottenTomatoes.com Link:
Blade Runner (1982) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Pulp Fiction (1994)
"The movie's circular, self-referential structure is famous; the restaurant
hold-up with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) begins
and ends the film, and other story lines weave in and out of strict
chronology. But there is a chronology in the dialogue, in the sense that
what is said before invariably sets up or enriches what comes after. The
dialogue is proof that Tarantino had the time-juggling in mind from the very
beginning, because there's never a glitch; the scenes do not follow in
chronological order, but the dialogue always knows exactly where it falls in
the movie." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Pulp Fiction (1994) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Princess Bride (1987)
"The moment the
princess is taken away by agents of the evil Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), “The Princess Bride” reveals
itself as a sly parody of sword and sorcery movies, a film that somehow manages to exist on two levels at once:
While younger viewers will sit spellbound at the thrilling events on the screen, adults, I think, will be laughing
a lot. In its own peculiar way, “The Princess Bride” resembles “This Is Spinal Tap,” an earlier film by the same
director, Rob Reiner. Both films are funny not only because they contain comedy, but because Reiner does justice
to the underlying form of his story. “Spinal Tap” looked and felt like a rock documentary – and then it was funny.
“The Princess Bride” looks and feels like “Legend” or any of those other quasi-heroic epic fantasies – and then
it goes for the laughs."
RogerEbert.com,
Link:
The Princess Bride (1987) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Psycho (1960)
"It wasn't a message that stirred the audiences, nor was it a great
performance...they were aroused by pure film.""So Alfred Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut about "Psycho," adding that it "belongs to filmmakers, to you and me." Hitchcock deliberately wanted "Psycho" to look like a cheap exploitation film. He shot it not with his usual expensive feature crew (which had just finished "North by Northwest") but with the crew he used for his television show. He filmed in black and white. Long passages contained no dialogue. His budget, $800,000, was cheap even by 1960 standards; the Bates Motel and mansion were built on the back lot at Universal. In its visceral feel, "Psycho" has more in common with noir quickies like "Detour" than with elegant Hitchcock thrillers like "Rear Window" or "Vertigo." ~ RogerEbert.com Link: Psycho (1960) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
"This is perhaps the best of the many Zorro films as Tyrone Power gives an
outstanding performance as the alternately swishing and swashbuckling son of
a 19th century California aristocrat. As a champion of the oppressed, Zorro
must face a wicked governor portrayed by J. Edward Bromberg, who, of course,
has a beautiful niece whom our hero loves. Basil Rathbone is a delightfully
evil assistant to the governor. Based on Johnston McCulley's novel The Curse
of Capistrano, The Mark of Zorro was a remake of the 1920 silent film and by
far superior to all the Zorro incarnations. Interspersed with humor and
one-liners but still keeping up with the highest of swashbuckling
traditions, it is an action-packed story of one man standing against a
corrupt, oppressive government on behalf of those less able to bear their
burdens. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi" ~
Rotten Tomatoes Link:
The Mark of Zorro (1940) - DVDBell, Book and Candle (1958)
"Bell, Book and Candle is a 1958 American Technicolor romantic comedy film directed by Richard Quine, based on
the successful Broadway play by John Van Druten adapted by Daniel Taradash. It stars Kim Novak as a witch who casts a
spell on her neighbor, played by James Stewart. The supporting cast features Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, Hermione
Gingold, and Elsa Lanchester. The film is considered Stewart's final as a romantic lead. " ~
Wikipedia excerpt Link:
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) - 123 Movie HubLittle Big Man (1970)
"Arthur Penn's "Little Big Man" is an endlessly entertaining attempt to spin
an epic in the form of a yarn. It mostly works. When it doesn't -- when
there's a failure of tone or an overdrawn caricature -- it regroups
cheerfully and plunges ahead. We're disposed to go along; all good
storytellers tell stretchers once in a while, and circle back to be sure we
got the good parts. It is the very folksiness of Penn's film that makes it,
finally, such a perceptive and important statement about Indians, the West,
and the American dream. There's no stridency, no preaching, no deep-voiced
narrators making sure we got the point of the last massacre. All the events
happened long, long ago, and they're related by a 121-year-old man who just
wants to pass the story along." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Little Big Man (1970) - Buy
Apocalypse Now (1979)
"Francis Ford Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" was inspired by Heart of Darkness, a novel
by Joseph Conrad about a European named Kurtz who penetrated to the farthest reaches of the
Congo and established himself like a god. A boat sets out to find him, and on the journey the
narrator gradually loses confidence in orderly civilization; he is oppressed by the great weight
of the jungle all around him, a pitiless Darwinian testing ground in which each living thing tries
every day not to be eaten.."
~ RogerEbert.com >
Forrest Gump (1994)
"I've never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that
matter I've never seen a movie quite like "Forrest Gump." Any attempt to
describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is,
but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a drama. Or a dream. The
screenplay by Eric Roth has the complexity of modern fiction, not the
formulas of modern movies. Its hero, played by Tom Hanks, is a thoroughly
decent man with an IQ of 75, who manages between the 1950s and the 1980s to
become involved in every major event in American history. And he survives
them all with only honesty and niceness as his shields." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Forrest Gump (1994) - Buy/Rent Watch online
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
""One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) is on every list of
favorite films. It was the first film since "It Happened One Night" (1934) to win all five of the top
Academy Awards, for best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress (Louise Fletcher), director (Milos Forman)
and screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman). It could for that matter have won, too, for cinematography
(Haskell Wexler) and editing (Richard Chew). I was present at its world premiere, at the 1975 Chicago Film
Festival, in the 3,000-seat Uptown Theatre, and have never heard a more tumultuous reception for a film (no,
not even during "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" at Cannes). After the screening, the young first-time co-producer,
Michael Douglas, wandered the lobby in a daze."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1976) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Candidate (1972)
"Robert Redford stars in this gritty, documentary-like tale of an idealistic, good-natured attorney whose high
standards are soiled by his run for political office. Having seen all the dirt in politics as a young man -- his
father (Melvyn Douglas) was once governor of California -- Redford's Bill McKay has no interest in getting into
the game himself. But a political operative named Luck (Peter Boyle) taps McKay to run against the seemingly
undefeatable Senator Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter), a classic gasbag. McKay reluctantly agrees, but only if his
father is not involved and he is allowed to say exactly what he wants, free of political or party constraints.
As his candor causes his popularity to rise, the stakes become greater for McKay and the pressure to sell out
grows. Jeremy Larner's adapted screenplay won an Academy Award and Redford delivers one of his best performances
in a movie that, when viewed in the age of soundbite-and-poll-driven politicians, seems more timely than ever."
~ Rotten Tomatoes Link: The Candidate (1972) - Buy online
Yakuza (1975)
"Kungfu movies crept into the American market almost backward, with producers named Run Run Shaw and budgets
around $19.95. But now, here's the first American version of Japan's favorite genre, the yakuza movie, and it's a
handsome expensive production with a great performance by Robert Mitchum and a scary one by Ken Takakura, Japan's
box office champion."Link: Yakuza (1975) - Buy online
Dark City (1998)
"Dark City" by Alex Proyas resembles its great silent predecessor
"Metropolis" in asking what it is that makes us human, and why it cannot be
changed by decree. Both films are about false worlds created to fabricate
ideal societies, and in both the machinery of the rulers is destroyed by the
hearts of the ruled. Both are parables in which a dangerous weapon attacks
the order of things: a free human who can see what really is, and question
it. "Dark City" contains a threat more terrible than any of the horrors in
"Metropolis," because the rulers of the city can control the memories of its
citizens; if we are the sum of all that has happened to us, then what are we
when nothing has happened to us? ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Dark City (1998) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
"Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant star in this inspired comedy about a madcap heiress with a pet leopard who meets an absent-minded paleontologist and unwittingly makes a fiasco of both their lives. David Huxley (Grant) is the stuffy paleontologist who needs to finish an exhibit on dinosaurs and thus land a $1 million grant for his museum. At a golf outing with his potential benefactors, Huxley is spotted by Susan Vance (Hepburn) who decides that she must have the reserved scientist at all costs. "
RottenTomatoes.com
Link:
Bringing Up Baby (1938) - Buy/Rent Watch onlineOne Touch Of Venus (1948)
"The spirit of love is back, and she's working in retail in this bubbly
romantic musical comedy. Eddie Hatch (Robert Walker) is a window dresser at
a large department store; he's become especially fond of one of his
mannequins who looks like the sort of girl he'd like to meet, and one night
he impulsively gives the dummy a kiss. To his tremendous surprise, the
mannequin comes to life, and it turns out to be inhabited by the spirit of
Venus, the Goddess of Love (Ava Gardner). Suddenly, romance is in the air as
Eddie's fellow employees throw caution to the wind and finally express their
infatuations with their co-workers; however, Eddie is too intimidated to
follow through on his feelings for Venus, even though she'll only be in
human form for 24 hours." ~
RottenTomatoes.com Link:
One Touch Of Venus (1948) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Shakespeare In Love (1998)
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by
John Madden, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. The film
depicts a love affair involving Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) and
playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) while he was writing the
play Romeo and Juliet. The story is fiction, though several of the
characters are based on real people. In addition, many of the characters,
lines, and plot devices are references to Shakespeare's plays.
Link:
Shakespeare In Love (1998) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Searchers (1956)
"John Ford's "The Searchers" contains scenes of magnificence, and one of
John Wayne's best performances. There are shots that are astonishingly
beautiful. A cover story in New York magazine called it the most influential
movie in American history. And yet at its center is a difficult question,
because the Wayne character is racist without apology--and so, in a less
outspoken way, are the other white characters. Is the film intended to
endorse their attitudes, or to dramatize and regret them? Today we see it
through enlightened eyes, but in 1956 many audiences accepted its harsh view
of Indians." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
The Searchers (1956) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Young Frankenstein (1974)
"Frankenstein quickly returns to Transylvania and the old ancestral castle,
where he is awaited by the faithful houseboy Igor, the voluptuous lab
assistant Inga, and the mysterious housekeeper Frau Blucher, whose very name
causes horses to rear in fright. The young man had always rejected his
grandfather’s medical experiments as impossible, but he changes his mind
after he discovers a book entitled How I Did It by Victor Frankenstein. Now
all that’s involved is a little grave-robbing and a trip to the handy local
Brain Depository, and the Frankenstein family is back in business." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Young Frankenstein (1974) - DVD
The War of the Worlds (1953)
"Earth is under attack in the chilling Cold War classic "The War of the
Worlds" (1953). In one of the greatest science fiction films of all time,
invaders from another world target a small California town with autonomous
probes and laser disintegration rays. A terrifying vision of an America
under siege based on the novel by H.G. Wells starring Gene Barry, Ann
Robinson and Les Tremayne and featuring Academy Award-winning special
effects. " ~
RottenTomatoes.com Link:
The War of the Worlds (1953) - DVD
Manchurian Candidate (1962)
"The film has become so linked with the Kennedy assassination that a legend has grown up around it. Frank Sinatra, the film's star, purchased the rights and kept it out of release from 1964 until 1988, and the story goes that he was inspired by remorse after Kennedy's death. In fact, the director John Frankenheimer told me, Sinatra had a dispute with United Artists about the profits, and decided it would earn no money for the studio or anyone else. The DVD includes a conversation by Sinatra, Frankenheimer and writer George Axelrod, taped when the movie was finally re-released. Sinatra says it was the high point of his acting career; nobody mentions why it was unseen for 24 years."
RogerEbert.com
Link:
Manchurian Candidate (1962) - View online - NETFLIXSahara (1943)
Published: November 12, 1943 - "Those rugged, indomitable qualities which Humphrey Bogart has so
masterfully displayed in most of his recent pictures—and even before, in his better gangster roles—have
been doubled and concentrated in 'Sahara,' a Columbia film about warfare in the Libyan desert, which
came to the Capitol yesterday. And a capital picture it is, too—as rugged as Mr. Bogart all the way
and in a class with that memorable picture which it plainly resembles, 'The Lost Patrol'."~ NYTimes.com Link: Sahara (1943) - Amazon: Watch online
The Sun Also Rises (1957)
"For its time, The Sun Also Rises was a reasonably frank and faithful adaptation of
the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel. Its main concession to Hollywood formula was the casting
of star players who were all too old to convincingly portray Hemingway's "Lost Generation"
protagonists. Tyrone Power heads the cast as American news correspondent Jake Barnes, who,
after incurring a injury in WW I that has rendered him impotent, relocates to Paris to escape
his troubles. Barnes links up with several other lost souls, including the nymphomaniacal Lady
Brett Ashley (Ava Gardner), irresponsible drunkard Mike Campbell (Errol Flynn) and perennial
hangers-on Robert Cohn (Mel Ferrer) and Bill Gorton (Eddie Albert)." ~
RottenTomatoes.com Link:
The Sun Also Rises (1957) - DVD
Dr. Stangelove (1964)
"In 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis fresh in viewers' minds, the Cold War at its
frostiest, and the hydrogen bomb relatively new and frightening, Stanley Kubrick dared to
make a film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button -- and played
the situation for laughs. Dr. Strangelove's jet-black satire (from a script by director Stanley
Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern) and a host of superb comic performances (including
three from Peter Sellers) have kept the film fresh and entertaining, even as its issues have
become (slightly) less timely."
~ RottenTomatoes.com Link:
Dr. Stangelove (1964) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Interview With the Vampire (1994)
"Although one of the characters in "Interview with the Vampire" begs to be transformed into
a vampire, and eagerly awaits the doom of immortality, the movie never makes vampirism look like
anything but an endless sadness. That is its greatest strength. Vampires throughout movie history
have often chortled as if they'd gotten away with something. But the first great vampire movie,
"Nosferatu" (1922), knew better, and so does this one."
RogerEbert.com
Link:
Interview With the Vampire (1994) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
"The title of "Five Easy Pieces" refers not to the women its hero makes along the road, for
there are only three, but to a book of piano exercises he owned as a child. The film, one of the
best American films, is about the distance between that boy, practicing to become a concert pianist,
and the need he feels twenty years later to disguise himself as an oil-field rigger. When we sense
the boy, tormented and insecure, trapped inside the adult man, "Five Easy Pieces" becomes a masterpiece
of heartbreaking intensity." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Five Easy Piecs (1970) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Being There (1979)
"Satire is a threatened species in American film, and when it does occur, it’s usually broad and slapstick, as in the Mel Brooks films.
“Being There,” directed by Hal Ashby, is a rare and subtle bird that finds its tone and stays with it. It has the appeal of an ingenious
intellectual game, in which the hero survives a series of challenges he doesn’t understand, using words that are both universal and meaningless.
But are Chance’s sayings noticeably less useful than when the president tells us about a “bridge to the 21st century?” Sensible public speech
in our time is limited by (1) the need to stay within he confines of the 10-second TV sound bite; (2) the desire to avoid being pinned down
to specific claims or promises; and (3) the abbreviated attention span of the audience, which, like Chance, likes to watch but always has
a channel-changer poised."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
Being There (1979) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Shootist (1976)
"He rides onscreen in The Shootist afraid that he is dying. Not afraid he'll be killed,
but afraid he's dying, which is the last thing we anticipated a John Wayne character would
do of his own accord. It is 1901: He has outlived his century. A sawbones in the next state
has given him the bad news and now he wants to hear it from the lips of Doc Hostetler, who
nursed him back to health after a violent afternoon twenty years ago. And so he rides,
the Shootist, into a Carson City to which the Old West has become an embarrassment. The
streets are still wide enough to turn a mule train in, but now an abashed little horse
trolley runs down the middle of them, and electricity's going to put the horse out of
business next year."~ RogerEbert.com Link: The Shootist (1976) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
"Adapted by James Agee from a novel by Davis Grubb, The Night of the Hunter represented
legendary actor Charles Laughton's only film directing effort. Combining stark realism with
Germanic expressionism, the movie is a brilliant good-and-evil parable, with "good" represented
by a couple of farm kids and a pious old lady, and "evil" literally in the hands of a posturing
psychopath. Imprisoned with thief Ben Harper (Peter Graves), phony preacher Harry Powell
(Robert Mitchum) learns that Ben has hidden a huge sum of money somewhere near his home.
Upon his release, the murderously misogynistic Powell insinuates himself into Ben's home,
eventually marrying his widow Willa (Shelley Winters)."~ RottenTomatoes.com Link: The Night of the Hunter (1955) - Buy/Rent Watch online
CATCH-22 (1970)
"CATCH-22 is a 1970 satirical comedy-drama war film adapted from the novel of the same name by Joseph Heller.
In creating a black comedy revolving around the "lunatic characters" of Heller's satirical anti-war novel set at
a fictional World War II Mediterranean base, director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry (also in the cast)
worked on the film script for two years, converting Heller's complex novel to the medium of film."~ Wikipedia Link: CATCH-22 (1970) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Groundhog Day (1993)
""Groundhog Day" is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately
noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and
slap yourself before you see how good it really is. Certainly I underrated it in my original review; I enjoyed it
so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation. But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that
burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phrase This is like
"Groundhog Day" to explain how you feel, a movie has accomplished something."
RogerEbert.com Link:
Groundhog Day (1993) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Trading Places (1983)
""Trading Places" resembles "Tootsie" and, for that matter, some of the classic Frank Capra and Preston Sturges comedies: It wants to be funny, but it also wants to tell us something about human nature and there are whole stretches when we forget it's a comedy and get involved in the story. And it's a great idea for a story: A white preppy snot and a black street hustler trade places, and learn new skills they never dreamed existed.
This isn't exactly a new idea for a story (Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper" comes to mind). But like a lot of stories, it depends less on plot than on character, and the characters in "Trading Places" are wonderful comic inventions. Eddie Murphy plays Billy Ray Valentine, the con man who makes his first appearance as a blind, legless veteran. Dan Aykroyd is Louis Winthorpe III, the stuck-up commodities broker. And, in a masterstroke of casting, those aging veterans Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche are cast as the Duke brothers, incalculably rich men who make little wagers involving human lives.."~ RogerEbert.com Link: Trading Places (1983) - Amazon: Watch online
Marathon Man (1976)
""Marathon Man" is almost all people and predicaments -- or, more exactly, one person and his unending series
of predicaments. We meet him during his ritual morning long-distance run: A graduate student named Babe (Dustin Hoffman)
who has all sorts of frustrations bottled up inside.
Babe's brother (Roy Scheider) works for the government, for some sort of shadowy agency that handles the dirty jobs the
CIA and the FBI won't touch. (Isn't it a touching fantasy that there ARE jobs like that?) One day he gets killed.
A man claiming to be one of the brother's fellow operatives comes to Babe and says he needs help in setting a trap.
And before Babe quite knows what happens, he's involved in an intrigue so labyrinthine that neither he nor the movie
ever quite figures it out. "~ RogerEbert.com Link: Marathon Man (1976) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
"After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic The Maltese Falcon,
Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941--or, rather, John Huston, a long-established
screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely
as possible to the original. Taking over from a recalcitrant George Raft, Humphrey Bogart
achieved true stardom as Sam Spade, a hard-boiled San Francisco private eye who can be as
unscrupulous as the next guy but also adheres to his own personal code of honor. "~ RottenTomatoes.com Link: The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
"October 11, 1939 | 12:00AM PT -
"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is typically Capra, punchy, human and absorbing-a drama
that combines timeliness with current topical interest and a patriotic flavor blended
masterfully into the composite whole to provide one of the finest and consistently
interesting dramas of the season. Picture is a cinch for top grosses in the key runs,
with holdovers the rule rather than exception. It's meaty and attention arresting for
the subsequent run houses, and a topflight attraction for general audiences."
~ Variety.com Link:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Citizen Kane (1941)
"It is one of the miracles of
cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an innovative cinematographer, and a group of
New York stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. “Citizen Kane”
is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as “Birth of a Nation”
assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and “2001” pointed the way beyond narrative. These peaks stand
above all the others."
RogerEbert.com Link: Citizen Kane (1941) - Buy/Rent Watch online
All the President's Men (1976)
"Newspapers and newspapermen have long been favorite subjects for movie makers'a surprising number of whom are former
newspapermen, yet not until "All The President's Men," the riveting screen adaptation of the Watergate book by Carl Bernstein
and Bob Woodward, has any film come remotely close to being an accurate picture of American journalism at its best. "All The
President's Men," directed by Alan J. Pakula, written by William Goldman and largely pushed into being by the continuing
interest of one of its stars, Robert Redford, is a lot of things all at once: a spellbinding detective story about the work
of the two Washington Post reporters who helped break the Watergate scandal, a breathless adventure that recalls the
triumphs of Frank and Joe Hardy in that long-ago series of boys' books, and a vivid footnote to some contemporary American
history that still boggles the mind."~ VINCENT CANBY - New York Times Link: All the President's Men (1976) - Buy/Rent Watch online
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
"To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was directed by Robert Mulligan. The screenplay by Horton Foote was based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Harper Lee. It stars Gregory Peck and Mary Badham. Running time: 129 minutes. A Pulitzer Prize winner when it was published in 1960, Harper Lee's first book, To Kill a Mockingbird, went on to sell more than 30 million copies. Yet most Hollywood studios weren't interested in bringing Lee's story of racial intolerance in the Deep South to the big screen. According to Robert Mulligan, who directed the film for Universal, "the other studios didn't want it because what's it about? It's about a middle-aged lawyer with two kids. There's no romance, no violence (except off-screen). There's no action. What is there? Where's the story?"
~ telegraph.co.uk Link:
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Accidental Tourist (1988)
The Accidental Tourist (1988) - "Yes, that is my son," the man says, identifying the body in the intensive care unit.
Grief threatens to break his face into pieces, and then something closes shut inside of him. He has always had a very
controlled nature, fearful of emotion and revelation, but now a true ice age begins, and after a year his wife tells
him she wants a divorce. It is because he cannot seem to feel anything. "The Accidental Tourist" begins on that note
of emotional sterility, and the whole movie is a journey toward a smile at the end."
~ RogerEbert.com
Link:
The Accidental Tourist (1988) - View online - AmazonNetwork (1976)
"Strange, how Howard Beale, "the mad prophet of the airwaves," dominates our memories of "Network." We remember
him in his soaking-wet raincoat, hair plastered to his forehead, shouting, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to
take this anymore." The phrase has entered into the language. But Beale (Peter Finch) is the movie's sideshow.
The story centers on Diana Christiansen (Faye Dunaway), the ratings-hungry programming executive who is prepared
to do anything for better numbers. The mirror to which she plays is Max Schumacher (William Holden), the middle-age
news executive who becomes Diana's victim and lover, in that order.." ~
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
Network (1976) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Minority Report (2002)
"At a time when movies think they have to choose between action and ideas, Steven Spielberg's
"Minority Report" is a triumph--a film that works on our minds and our emotions. It is a thriller and a human
story, a movie of ideas that's also a whodunit. Here is a master filmmaker at the top of his form, working
with a star, Tom Cruise, who generates complex human feelings even while playing an action hero."
RogerEbert.com
Link:
Minority Report (2002) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Usual Suspects (1995)
"Near the end of
The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger "Verbal" Kint, says,
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This may be the key line in
this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems,
and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through
a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars'
worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, "
RottenTomatoes.com Link:
The Usual Suspects (1995) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
""Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." These opening words of Kurt Vonnegut's famous novel make an effective and short summary of a haunting, funny film. For the screen, director George Roy Hill faithfully renders Vonnegut's black anti-war comedy about Pilgrim (well played in a low key by Michael Sacks), who survives the horrendous 1945 fire bombing of Dresden then lives simultaneously in his past as a naïve American POW and in the future as a well-cared-for zoo resident on the planet Tralfamadore (with zaftig Valerie Perrine as his mate). In the present, he's a middle-aged optometrist in Ilium, NY. If this sounds like a bit of a jumble -- it is. " ~
RottenTomatoes.com Link:
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Torn Curtain (1966)
"A cold war military espionage thriller, Torn Curtain succeeds in creating and exploiting plenty of enjoyable tension.
It is also the only Alfred Hitchcock film to feature 1960s era superstars like Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. With Hitchcock
reportedly ill at ease directing a method actor, Torn Curtain benefits from a Newman performance in which he never appears
relaxed, and his agitation helps to propel the drama."~ theaceblackblog.com Link: Torn Curtain (1966) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Conversation (1974)
"“The Conversation” comes from another time and place than today’s thrillers, which are so often simple-minded.
This movie is a sadly observant character study, about a man who has removed himself from life, thinks he can observe
it dispassionately at an electronic remove, and finds that all of his barriers are worthless. The cinematography
(opening scene by Haskell Wexler, the rest by Bill Butler) is deliberately planned from a voyeuristic point of view;
we are always looking but imperfectly seeing. Here is a man who seeks the truth, and it always remains hidden. He
plays the conversation over and over, but does Mark say, “He’d kill us if he had the chance,” or “He’d kill us if
he had the chance”?"~ RogerEbert.com Link: The Conversation (1974) - Buy/Rent Watch online
I The Jury (1982)
"Armand Assante stars as Mike Hammer. He fills the role without occupying it. His lines are so hard-boiled
and his manner is such stylized macho that it's sometimes hard to be sure anybody's home. He looks leaner, slicker
and younger than most movie private eyes, but he plays the same basic role and the movie makes all the same basic
stops: The eye has a cheap walkup office near Times Square, he's pals with a corrupt police detective, he gets
involved in a case that's more complicated than it seems, he falls for a beautiful dame who almost does him in,
he saves the girl, he kills the creep and he doesn't get paid a dime."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
Torn Curtain (1966) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Broken Flowers (2005)
""Broken Flowers" stars Bill Murray as Don Johnston, a man who made his money in computers and now
doesn't even own one. To sit at the keyboard would mean moving from his sofa, where he seems to be stuck.
As the film opens, his latest girlfriend (Julie Delpy) is moving out. She doesn't want to spend any more
time with "an over-the-hill Don Juan." After she leaves, he remains on the sofa, listening to music. He
reaches out for a glass of wine, changes his mind, lets the hand drop... No actor is better than Bill
Murray at doing nothing at all, and being fascinating while not doing it. Buster Keaton had the same
gift for contemplating astonishing developments with absolute calm. Buster surrounded himself with
slapstick, and in "Broken Flowers" Jim Jarmusch surrounds Murray with a parade of formidable women."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
The Conversation (1974) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Angel Eyes (2001)
"The movie, directed by Luis Mandoki, has intriguing opening scenes. Is this a thriller? A supernatural
movie? Who do the angel eyes belong to? An angel? Or does Catch only come on like a guardian angel while
reserving secrets of his own? We are still asking these questions during a stretch of the film where Sharon
is staring at a gun in her face, and her life is saved by . . . Catch... There are lots of movies about cops
because their lives lend themselves to excitement in a movie plot. They get involved with bad guys. They see
action. They spend a lot of time drinking coffee in diners, because a booth in a diner provides an ideal
rationale for a face-to-face two-shot that doesn't look awkward or violate body language. For these and
other reasons "Angel Eyes" is a cop movie, but its real story doesn't involve the police, it involves
damaged lives and the possibility that love can heal."
RogerEbert.com Link:
Angel Eyes (2001) - Buy/Rent Watch online
RearWindow (1954)
"They say that most of the great movies begin with a simple premise. "Rear Window" sure does.
Jimmy Stewart is a magazine photographer who is stuck at home in a wheelchair, with his leg up in
a cast. He starts spying on his neighbors. He begins to notice odd behavior on the part of the couple
across the way. They fight. The man seems violent. The woman is not seen again. What happened to her?
Was she murdered? How will the man dispose of the body? Is there a person alive who would not be drawn
into this plot?"
RogerEbert.com Link:
RearWindow (1954) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Graduate (1967)
""The Graduate, the funniest American comedy of the year, is inspired by the free spirit which the young
British directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and
other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something. Comedy is
naturally subversive, no matter what Doris Day thinks. Most Hollywood comedies have non-movie assumptions built
into them. One of the most persistent is that movie characters have to react to funny events in the same way that
stage actors do. So we get Jerry Lewis mugging. But in the direct style of new British directors, the audience
is the target of the joke, and the funny events do not happen in the movie -- they are the movie."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
The Graduate (1967) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
"Ferris Bueller" was
directed by John Hughes, the philosopher of adolescence, whose credits include "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast
Club" and "Pretty In Pink." In all of his films, adults are strange, distant creatures who love their teenagers, but
fail completely to understand them. That's the case here, all right: All of the adults, including a bumbling high-school
dean (Jeffrey Jones), are dim-witted and one-dimensional. And the movie's solutions to Cameron's problems are pretty
simplistic. But the film's heart is in the right place, and "Ferris Bueller" is slight, whimsical and sweet."
RogerEbert.com Link:
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Purple Rain (1984)
"Despite its initial critical drubbing, "Purple Rain" won the Oscar for Best Original Song Score, an award
His Purple Badness snatched from the grasp of Kris Kristofferson AND the Muppets. Said song score became a smash-hit
soundtrack popular enough to battle Bruce Springsteen’s "Born in the USA" for chart domination. The "Purple Rain"
album ended one side with the 9 minute titular track, and the other with the song partially responsible for the
"Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" stickers that adorn countless CDs today. Despite coming from a very R-rated
feature, there isn’t a profanity stronger than "hell" on the entire soundtrack. In fact, "Purple Rain" doesn’t
even carry the advisory sticker it spawned on its cover."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
Purple Rain (1984) - Buy/Rent Watch online
A Shot in the Dark (1964)
"Sometimes the narrative is subordinated to individual bits of business and running gags but Sellers’ skill as a
comedian again is demonstrated, and Sommer, in role of the chambermaid who moves all men to amorous thoughts and
sometimes murder, is pert and expert. Lom gives punch and humor to star’s often distraught superior, George Sanders
lends polish as the millionaire and Graham Stark excels as Sellers’ dead-pan assistant."
Variety Link:
Wikipedia,
A Shot in the Dark (1964) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Moonstruck (1987)
""Moonstruck" is a romantic comedy founded on emotional abandon and poignant truth. Not content with one romance,
it involves five or six, depending on how you count, and conceding that some characters are involved in more than one.
It exists in a Brooklyn that has never existed, a Brooklyn where the full moon makes the night like day and drives people
crazy with amore, when the moon-a hits their eyes like a big-a pizza pie. The soundtrack is equal parts "La Boheme" and
Dean Martin, and Ronny Cammareri's feelings are like those of an operatic hero, larger than life and more dramatic, as
when he tells Loretta why he hates his brother Johnny. One day Johnny distracted him at the bakery, he says, and his hand
got caught in the bread-slicer. As a result, his girlfriend dumped him. Holding his wooden hand in the air and pointing
to it dramatically, he cries: "I want my hand! I want my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride!""
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
Moonstruck (1987) - Buy/Rent Watch online
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
"However stagily preposterous, George Cukor’s 1940 movie The Philadelphia Story, now rereleased, is also utterly
beguiling, funny and romantic; it is based on the same stage play, by Philip Barry, as the 1956 musical High Society.
This is the most famous example of the intriguing and now defunct prewar genre of “comedy of remarriage”, the subject
of an equally interesting study by film theorist Stanley Cavell called Pursuits Of Happiness. It features three stars
from the studio era who are the aristocrats, or deities, of the Hollywood golden age: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and
James Stewart. Part of the fascination in watching this movie again is savouring those three extraordinary voices,
highly imitable but entirely unique."
~ The Guardian.com Link:
The Philadelphia Story (1940) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Body Heat (1981)
""Like a tantalizing mirage, film noir haunts modern filmmakers. Noir is the genre of night, guilt, violence
and illicit passion, and no genre is more seductive. But the best noirs were made in the 1940s and 1950s, before
directors consciously knew what they were doing (“We called them B movies,” said Robert Mitchum). Once the French
named the genre, once a generation of filmmakers came along who had seen noirs at cinematheques instead of in flea
pits, noir could never again be naive. One of the joys of a great noir like “Detour” (1954) is the feeling that it
was made by people who took the story perfectly seriously. One of the dangers of modern self-conscious noir, as
Pauline Kael wrote in her scathing dismissal of “Body Heat,” is that an actress like Kathleen Turner comes across
“as if she were following the marks on the floor made by the actresses who preceded her.”" ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Body Heat (1981) - Buy/Rent Watch online
And Justice for All (1979)
"Here's an angry comedy crossed with an expose and held together by one of those high-voltage Al Pacino performances that's so
sure of itself we hesitate to demur. Pacino plays an aggressive young Baltimore lawyer who has worked within the system for 12 years
or so -- he's not a reformer fresh out of law school -- but who, during the course of this movie, is driven to advise the American
system of jurisprudence to stick its head where the sun don't shine."
~ RogerEbert.com Link:
And Justice for All (1979) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Monkey Business (1952)
"Needless to say, "Monkey Business," which arrived at the Roxy yesterday, is not a "message picture" nor a compound
of high dramatic art. It is, to be quick about it, what is known as a "screwball comedy"—or would have been known by that
label back in the Greg LaCava days—and, as such, it is simply a concoction of crazy, fast, uninhibited farce. This sort of
thing, when done well—as it generally is, in this case—can be insanely funny (if it hits right). It can also be a bore.This
viewer found it entertaining and farcically inventive to the point where its battery of comedy writers obviously lay back
on their typewriters and let it coast. That is to say, it bubbles and throws off a lot of surprise so long as its single
gag is running more or less up-hill."
~ NYTimes.com [1952 review] Link:
Monkey Business (1952) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Vertigo (1958)
"“Vertigo” (1958), which is one of the two or three best films Hitchcock ever made, is the most
confessional, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art. It is *about* how Hitchcock
used, feared and tried to control women. He is represented by Scottie (James Stewart), a man with
physical and mental weaknesses (back problems, fear of heights), who falls obsessively in love with
the image of a woman--and not any woman, but the quintessential Hitchcock woman. When he cannot have
her, he finds another woman and tries to mold her, dress her, train her, change her makeup and her
hair, until she looks like the woman he desires. He cares nothing about the clay he is shaping; he
will gladly sacrifice her on the altar of his dreams." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Vertigo (1958) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
"Movies borrow from other movies all the time, but few have the honesty to admit it. Danny DeVito is nothing if not an
honest man. He not only borrows the plot device from Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" for his new comedy,
"Throw Momma from the Train," but he even has one of his characters actually go to the movies to study the relevant scene from
Hitchcock's 1951 classic. The character (played by DeVito himself) sits in the dark of a revival house and gazes moonily up at
the screen, where Robert Walker is smoothly explaining to Farley Granger how two strangers can commit two perfect murders." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Throw Momma from the Train (1958) - Buy
What About Bob (1991)
""With Dreyfuss and Murray on top form, not even the familiar plotline - uptight rich person meets free-wheeling poor person
and learns about life - can prevent this lunatic comedy from being funny. Ideally cast and perfectly matched as an anal-retentive
shrink and his multi-phobic patient, the stars generate laughs a-plenty. As the author of a bestselling self-help manual, Dr Leo
Marvin (Dreyfuss) should have no trouble coping with a deeply dependent patient who follows him to his lakeside holiday home. But
Bob (Murray) fails to heed Leo's professional advice and wreaks havoc in Leo's messed-up family, liberating them from their neuroses.
Leo's reaction is neither grateful nor rational... Occasionally, something dark and disturbing threatens to rise to the surface, but
this being a formulaic comedy, the ripples caused by Bob's anarchic antics soon give way to the flat calm of normality."
~ timeout.com Link:
What About Bob (1991) - Amazon: Watch online
Lost in Translation (2003)
"Bill Murray's acting in Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" is surely one
of the most exquisitely controlled performances in recent movies. Without
it, the film could be unwatchable. With it, I can't take my eyes away. Not
for a second, not for a frame, does his focus relax, and yet it seems
effortless. It's sometimes said of an actor that we can't see him acting. I
can't even see him not acting. He seems to be existing, merely existing, in
the situation created for him by Sofia Coppola." ~
RogerEbert.com Link:
Lost in Translation (2003) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Some Like It Hot (1959)
"The plot revolves around two musicians — played by Curtis and Lemmon — who unintentionally witness the
St. Valentine's Day Massacre; to avoid being gunned down by the mob, they disguise themselves as women and
join an all-female orchestra on its way to Florida. Monroe plays the singer, who dreams of marrying a millionaire.
Curtis’ character, who lusts after Monroe’s, disguises himself as a millionaire to win her. While Lemmon plays
his best friend, who gets engaged to a real millionaire, masterfully portrayed by the totally adorable Joe E. Brown (1891 - 1973).
Though the production of the film was far from smooth sailing, the chemistry between the actors is off the
charts. Monroe, who notoriously struggled to remember her lines, still managed to deliver her dialogue as if by
happy inspiration. A frustrated Curtis, who had to exercise a legendary amount of patience during those moments,
successfully feigned unbridled energy and enthusiasm in every take. And Lemmon, well, his comedic timing and
delivery are a master class in hilarity that should be studied by all actors, everywhere. If there was personal
tension between the actors, the audience was none the wiser. "
~ byLizPublika - artpublikamag.com Link:
Some Like It Hot (1959) - Buy/Rent Watch online
"is one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie that doesn’t deserve one nanosecond of serious
analysis but has a kind of idiotic grandeur that makes you almost forgive it. Based on a story by William Gibson,
the father of cyberpunk fiction, it has the nerve to pose as a futuristic fable when in fact all of its parts were
bought off the shelf at the Used Movie Store. The movie takes place a few decades in the future, when the world is
in the grip of a high-tech virus caused indirectly by the high-speed cyber lifestyle. It stars Keanu Reeves as a data
courier who has a “wet-wired brain” (no wisecracks, please) into which vast amounts of priceless computer data can be
uploaded. " ~
