WATCH NOW THE DEVIL’S OWN is a humane thriller based on the idea that a law-abiding American-Catholic policeman offers room and board to a young Irish immigrant who is actually a fugitive I.R.A. revolutionary. Both actors (Harrison Ford as the cop, Brad Pitt as the stranger) are loaded with charisma. Pitt’s character has killed 24 […]
WATCH NOW DISNEY’S THE KID How would you do if by some magic you were confronted and evaluated by your eight year old self? So you didn’t become a missionary or an astronaut or win the gold in Olympics gymnastics? You make a six-figure salary doing what? You don’t have a dog? That’s what happens
DOGMA Kevin Smith’s “comic fantasy” about angels and demons in contemporary New Jersey is mostly an excuse for him to vent about the Church and many of its rules. Smith, 29, is a budding talent with a couple of low budget hits (Clerks, Chasing Amy). He can’t be accused of anti Catholicism because he is
WATCH NOW Donnie Brasco The hero in this film is really a cop who pretends to join the Mob to get otherwise unavailable evidence. “Brasco” happens to be the assumed name of real-life F.B.I. agent Joseph Pistone, whose book provided the basis for this superb screenplay by Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show). The serious Mob movie
WATCH NOW Like watching a car try to beat a train across the tracks and failing The Day of the Dolphin is a jaw-dropping disaster that you can’t turn away from. Fortunately, this one is caught on film for posterity. If you’re unfamiliar with the movie, you won’t believe it’s really about this until you
WATCH NOW ENEMY AT THE GATES: The first scenes in this epic, set during the 1942-43 Battle of Stalingrad, are horrifying in the grand and artful sense a depiction of war and chaos that arouses compassion for those who endured or died. These scenes resemble the storming-of-Normandy sequences at the start of Saving Private Ryan.
WATCH NOW It’s awfully long, but The Day of the Jackal (which inspired a remake almost 25 years later) is a terribly compelling look at the machinations of an assassin and the military/police machinations that must occur in order to apprehend him. Or, more to the point, the machinations of 1973, before the dawn of
WATCH NOW EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU Woody Allen offers a light escape from winter troubles. The tunes are vintage 1930’s, the singing is improvised by non-singing actors, the backup dancing is by pros, the orchestrations are superb and most of the numbers range from pleasant fun to broad hilarity. The splendidly-used locations include not
WATCH NOW ENTRAPMENT is mainly an excuse to team venerable action hero Sean Connery with lithe beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones (Zorro) in something that shows off their skills, charisma and photogenic surfaces. They play brainy, athletic thieves capable of pulling off capers possible only in the movies like heisting a priceless Chinese ceremonial mask from its
WATCH NOW A true 1950s drive-in classic (along with War of the Worlds and Forbidden Planet), The Day the Earth Stood Still anticipated the earnest, melodramatic artiness and social commentary of sci-fi TV series such as The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone. From the opening sequence, in which a flying saucer lands in front
