Even though director Alexander Payne’s “Election” is set in modern times, it struck such a familiar cord with me that I couldn’t help being transported back to my high school days. Darkly comic and scathingly funny, “Election” manages to nail the proverbial high school experience on the head. Read the rest of this entry »

Desperate to shed the nice boy image that catapulted him to stardom in “Breaking Away,” actor Dennis Christopher turned to director Vernon Zimmermann’s quirky black comedy “Fade to Black.” Indeed, “Fade to Black” was as far from the sunny outlook of “Breaking Away” that Christopher could get without doing snuff or porno. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Costner must feel like Garrett Morris’ Saturday Night Live character Chico Escuela: Baseball has been very, very good to me.

Good? Let’s talk great. Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, For Love of the Game, and now The Upside of Anger, in which the guy with the All-American good looks and home run smile plays a former baseball star now trying to score off the field. Read the rest of this entry »

Tales of family disintegration have been around since man first threw Mammoth blood on a cave wall. This devolution has been the basis of great literature, inspiring everyone from Shakespeare to Sontag. Dysfunctional families serve as reminders how fragile and vulnerable love and relationships can be, and their presence in movies allow us to look into the window without fear. Read the rest of this entry »

Even though director Alexander Payne’s “Election” is set in modern times, it struck such a familiar cord with me that I couldn’t help being transported back to my high school days. Darkly comic and scathingly funny, “Election” manages to nail the proverbial high school experience on the head. Like high school itself, sometimes it hurts. Read the rest of this entry »

“The Gauntlet” is one of those preposterous movies that works because of its star power. Imagine the film with anyone else but star Clint Eastwood and it falls apart. It’s Eastwood who makes “The Gauntlet” such an exciting ride. Read the rest of this entry »

Celebrated Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is having the worst and best day of his life. The woman in his life is leaving him for a high-profile job in London. He’s just been informed by the club’s owner that the team has been sold, and he’s due to be traded to New York. Read the rest of this entry »

By the time “Scream” arrived in 1996, the teen-slasher genre had all but worn itself out. Started in the seventies by John Carpenter with “Halloween” and revived in the eighties by Wes Craven with “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” the genre had long been the staple of drive-in double bills. Read the rest of this entry »

As first dates went, it was one for the record books. While some couple invariably end up in the back seat of a car during the middle of a date, this one began in the trunk. That’s where bank robber Jack Foley and Federal Marshal Karen Sisco end up when Sisco accidentally stumbles on Foley’s prison break. Read the rest of this entry »

In “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” blossoming teenage wizard Harry Potter is in a whole world of hurt. First he turns his Aunt Marge into a human dirigible, and upon returning to Hogwarts, learns that convicted killer Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), implicated in the death of his parents, has escaped his cell. Read the rest of this entry »