Minor Madonna (assuming there's anything that could be called major Madonna). So, what, then, was the lure? The role of an S&M; mistress (hair and makeup styled at the Eva Braun Beauty Salon) on trial for the murder of her weak-hearted lover -- allegedly screwing him to death after spiking …
The war on terrorism, or anyway a single battle against terrorism, conducted with slickness and razzmatazz, and time for romance too. Leonardo DiCaprio continues to breathe hard in his efforts to be an action hero; the steel-haired Russell Crowe, in a desk job, plays peekaboo around his glasses frames; both …
Antiwar agitation by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, centered around a young Missourian named Tomas Young, an Army vet paralyzed in Iraq, with an heroic supporting part for Robert Byrd (D.-W.Va.), seen in antebellum debate on the Senate floor and finally met in person. (Some remarkable effects are gotten from …
It's The Hands of Orlac once again -- the transplanted appendages with minds of their own -- only it's extended to whole arms, legs, finally head. As in his script for The Hitcher, writer-director Eric Red has material suitable for a half-hour Twilight Zone and then stretches it out very, …
Second remake of Don Siegel's epochal Invasion of the Body Snatchers, sixteen years after the first remake, thirty-eight after the original. Though the theme -- creeping conformity in the form of extraterrestrial "pods" that replicate and replace the bodies of earthlings -- has not in the least become dated, the …
A risky title for a movie, particularly for a dish of sentimental tripe about a peewee prestidigitator who has Whoopi Goldberg for a put-upon foster mom and Gerard Depardieu for an imaginary playmate. The playmate eventually expands his repertoire to imaginary dance partner, imaginary family therapist, imaginary educator, imaginary moralizer. …
Moral tale about the brash young turks (especially the pasty, mumbly Giovanni Ribisi) of a crooked stock brokerage. An uncinematic subject ("Do you know what 'bridge financing' is?") injected with testosterone and hip-hop. They're no help, and nor is the sickly bluish-greenish image. Writer-director Ben Younger is up front about …
Though set in contemporary L.A., this is an old-fashioned urban thriller (the Johnny Mercer tune, "Dream," as mellowly performed by the Danny May Orchestra and Singers, harks back to the correct period during the opening credits), with a tightly constructed plot, a low-key acting ensemble as smooth and well-blended as …
TV series superdog escapes from the backlot under the impression his powers are real. (Shades of The Truman Show.) Even the vast possibilities of computer animation can’t convince us of this particular possibility. Once the canine hero, about two-thirds of the way through, awakens to his limitations and discovers his …
Jean Harlow plays patsy in this sharp-toothed comedy of a movie queen who squirms vainly under the thumb of her publicity agent. Lee Tracy, as the demonic puppeteer, knows what to do with Jules Furthman's gleaming dialogue; and Franchot Tone, as a sappy spoiled rich kid, arrives in time to …
Detective thriller in which the mental prowess of the master sleuth is glaringly spotlighted by reducing him to a quadriplegic: an almost literally disembodied brain. The arrangement vaguely suggests a high-tech variation on the modus operandi of the venerable Nero Wolfe, a voluntary shut-in (you will recall) who left the …
Tom Wolfe's fat novel of New York City, of high finance, low politics, racial conflict, manipulated media, the whole ball of wax. Brian De Palma's adaptation of this avoids the pieties of the Problem Picture by turning it instead into an impious comic strip, with healthy doses of cynicism and …