Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a fearless firefighter ("All right, guys. Heads up. Let's do it") whose wife and son get blown up by a South American terrorist: code name, El Lobo. Conviction -- political, emotional, or otherwise -- is not something you need waste any time looking for. Calculation is everywhere. …
The soundless opening shots -- of soldiers stripping the bodies on an 1807 battlefield, piling them on carts, dumping them in mass graves -- summon up a powerfully oppressive mood. And the introduction of the title character as an ambulatory ghost (the Beethoven piece on the soundtrack is the "Ghost" …
The homosexual Austro-Hungarian intelligence officer of John Osborne's play, A Patriot for Me, is portrayed predominantly in shades of frigid blue, as if the action were viewed inside an ice cube. This may be someone's notion of "distancing." The movie takes too long to get to the interesting stuff -- …
A true ... ish story about a British con man, name of Alan Conway, whose gimmick of passing himself off as the reclusive director of 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, etc., proved to be an effective method of cadging drinks, cruising gay bedmates, eliciting cash. At any rate it …
Martin Scorsese's extremely tardy sequel to The Hustler. The twenty-five-year interval between the two should prepare us for some pretty radical changes, and any perceived differences or inconsistencies in the character of Fast Eddie Felson (now a prosperous liquor salesman and only connected to the game of pool in the …
Amateurish murder mystery in which a psychoanalyst tries to smoke out a killer from the quintet of suspects in his group-therapy sessions. Any halfway attentive viewer will very early be able to solve the mystery for himself. All he will need to go on are a couple of too-long-dangling questions …
Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi's entry into the world of a blind boy, a triumph of humility and empathy. The boy's openness to the world around him in contrast to his father's insulation from it is a constant theme: the soundtrack, in one instance, quiets down to just the distant birdcall …
A phantasmagoria of Armenian history and culture, from the officially disapproved Soviet filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov (among his crimes: homosexuality). A stranger to this territory might well feel the need for some textual commentary, footnotes, and the like, but he would not be bothering to feel that need in a lesser …
Steven Spielberg's old-fashioned Prestige Picture, a literary adaptation of both a critical and a popular success, and one with tie-ins to both the black and feminist communities. These last connections give the director a chance finally to apply the universe-embracing ideals of Close Encounters and E.T., not just to imaginary …
Los Colores de la Montaña is a Colombian drama set in a remote region. How far will two boys go to recover their prized soccer ball when it's kicked into a minefield? In Spanish with English subtitles.
The pronunciation of the last two (or four) words of the title, in the local dialect, is "Jim Dine," like the American pop artist; the actual reference, of course, is to the deceased American actor and cult figure, who has left his mark on a tiny Texas town not far …
Christian Charles's intimate documentary on the private hells of stand-up comics, focussing on two in particular, one big and one small: Jerry Seinfeld, honing a new act after the end of his TV sitcom, and thirtyish Orny Adams, whose biological clock is noisily ticking. It makes you feel something like …
As stark and stately as the artiest work of John Ford, this Western is set during World War II, though it's easy to lose track of that fact. The narrative events, concerning the cattle ranchers' seemingly eternal struggle to preserve their way of life in the face of social change, …
Interracial romance, labor agitation, the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War -- two hours plus of harsh penance for Americans, prescribed by the Englishman Alan Parker (Mississippi Burning). Richly produced, handsomely photographed -- and Tamlyn Tomita, as the Nisei who defies her father and accepts the attentions of …