Category: Film

  • Little Children (2006)

    Weaving a tapestry of marital strain, infidelity and the difficulties of parenthood, Little Children is a scathingly honest critique of suburban manners that never sacrifices its humanity for satire. Director Todd Field‘s follow-up to his excellent 2001 melodrama, In the Bedroom, the film is a rarity: caustic without crossing over into cruelty, affecting without resorting to cheap…

  • Frenzy (1972)

    After several disappointments in the 1960s, Frenzy marked a near-return to form for Alfred Hitchcock. It also marked a belated homecoming of sorts for the master of suspense, who returned to his native London for this 1972 thriller that echoed his past glories while simultaneously exploiting the decade’s’ new permissiveness. Jon Finch stars as Richard…

  • The Visitor (2007)

    Richard Jenkins is one of those character actors you see often, and often take for granted. If there is one great thing about indie films (and, for the record, there are a number of great things about them), it’s the opportunity for criminally overlooked thespians of a certain age or look to shine in leading…

  • Mission: Impossible (1996)

    Loosely based on the espionage TV series of the late 1960s, Mission: Impossible finds Tom Cruise as secret agent Ethan Hunt, the point man for a team of IMF spies headed by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight reprising the only character originally from the TV show). Trouble ensues when Phelps’ team is assigned to keep a list of…

  • The Wedding Singer (1998)

    Cauliflower isn’t the most flavorful of veggies, but slather it in ranch dressing and it’s damned tasty. Why do I tell you this? It’s akin to my theory about why The Wedding Singer remains such a pleasant (if unremarkable) romantic comedy 25 years after its theatrical release. It’s all about The Wedding Singer‘s slathering of…

  • The Roost (2005)

    The Roost is for horror fans who fondly recall the heyday of drive-in theaters and pot-addled midnight screenings. Director Ti West’s über-low-budget debut mines the less-is-more approach carved out by the likes of George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead and early John Carpenter pictures. The premise is lean. Four young people (Karl Jacob,…

  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

    Among the final pictures by John Ford, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance reveals the legendary filmmaker poking a stick at the Old West mythologies he helped create. It’s one of the director’s best, and that’s saying something for the guy who gave us Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, How Green Was…

  • The Past (2013)

    Asghar Farhadi burst on the international stage with 2011’s Oscar-winning A Separation, but he was making accomplished films in his native Iran well before the rest of the world took notice. Case in point is The Past, a brutally effectivre exploration of domestic crisis. It begins as Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to Paris after four…