The Forgaughtens: The Score (2001)
The “one last job” trope is one of cinema’s most familiar and tired. In 2001, director Frank Oz assembled a red-hot cast (De Niro! Norton! Brando!) to bring his version of this story to the big screen, and … well … it’s pretty familiar and tired. It’s hard to make a forgettable film with De […]
Listen to Me Marlon Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Listen to Me Marlon is a one-of-a-kind documentary. There have been plenty of non-fiction films — plenty even this year with Amy, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, and others — that chronicle the lives of famous people and their troubles with celebrity as a status. However, none are told with the emotional […]
Superman Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Richard Donner’s Superman is very much a product of the Star Wars school of blockbuster filmmaking—big, ambitious themes masked in a familiar, satisfying story with sometimes spotty (by today’s standard), sometimes dazzling (by any standard) special effects that hide narrative deficiencies at every turn. The ink was hardly dry on the school’s […]
Apocalypse Now Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Apocalypse Now’s back story has been exhaustively covered, but for good reason. The film forever altered the trajectory of Francis Ford Coppola’s career (and nearly destroyed his sanity). It almost killed Martin Sheen. It was disrupted by indecision, narcissism, and acts of Mother Nature. It was delayed for a long time and […]
The Godfather Review
RATING: (4 STARS) If I’m being honest, the first time I watched it, I didn’t want to love “The Godfather.” It’s so cliché. I wanted to buck the trend. I wanted to write a searing piece about this overrated “masterpiece†that everyone loves so much. But I can’t. It’s too damn good. Seriously, this film […]
