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 […]
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WATCH NOW EXECUTIVE DECISION Your stereotypical Arab terrorists take over a 747 with 400 passengers and defy even their own cooler, wiser leaders to try a nerve-gas bombing on Washington, D.C. A team of high-tech commandos, accompanied by tuxedoed C.I.A. guy Kurt Russell (fresh from a cocktail party), drop on board in midair, and try
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WATCH NOW THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE: Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) is dead at age 19. Her shocked family is grieving and afraid. The parish priest, Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), is charged with criminally negligent homicide because he supposedly told Emily to stop taking the medicine the doctors had prescribed. The young woman had been
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WATCH NOW Steve Martin’s homage to the 1940s and 50s is a one joke movie that wears thin after 45 minutes (in which Martin inserts himself into classic film noirs, often in drag, where he turns the melodrama into comedy). Fortunately, the laughs are plentiful enough throughout to make Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid worthwhile
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) Read More »
Here’s the tagline for the first installment of Miike’s highly regarded (and deeply disturbing) Dead or Alive trilogy: “WARNING: This motion picture contains explicit portrayals of violence; sex; violent sex; sexual violence; clowns and violent scenes of violent excess, which are definitely not suitable for all audiences.” Never mind the clowns. This warning doesn’t even
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WATCH NOW EXTREME MEASURES is a cut above the average thriller. Its “mad scientist” plot a reputable researcher (Gene Hackman) collects homeless derelicts in Manhattan for spinal cord experiments is only a cover for exploring very relevant issues in medical ethics. Hugh Grant plays the idealistic E.R. doc who stumbles onto the conspiracy and pursues
EXTREME MEASURES (1996) Read More »
WATCH NOW One of the more successful entries into the Stephen King horror film genre (and probably the best under the Dino De Laurentiis production label), The Dead Zone is aided in no small part by Christopher Walken in the lead role. Walken stars as high school teacher Johnny Smith, who wrecks his Beetle and
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WATCH NOW EYES WIDE SHUT Stanley Kubrick’s last film closely follows an early 20th-century Arthur Schnitzler novella and transfers it from Vienna to contemporary New York. A sympathetic young doctor and his wife (Bill and Alice, played by Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) are well-off and devoted to their young child. They seem happily married
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WATCH NOW Classic children’s television show hosts like Mister Rogers and Barney make great role models for children, but their trite style makes them easy targets for adult jokes. Danny DeVito’s latest project, Death to Smoochy, is well-intended with its mockery of children’s television and those inane hosts, however it is completely misdirected in its
Death to Smoochy (2002) Read More »
WATCH NOW FARGO During a depressing North Country winter, a car dealer who is used to scamming a few extra bucks out of his customers plans a bigger outrage, an absurd swindle. The mark is his wealthy boss, who is also his father in law. Jerry (William H. Macy), our homespun antihero, hires some goons
