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High Anxiety film review

Mel Brooks does the best of his second-tier works (outside the holy canon of The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein) in this send-up of Hitchcock flicks. The story tries to ride closely to Spellbound and Vertigo, but ventures into virtually all of Hitch’s major works, including the most notable scenes from Psycho, The Birds ….

Higher Learning film review

I first saw John Singleton’s Higher Learning when I was 17. Back in 1995, my friend and I left the theater feeling like we had seen an important commentary on American society. We felt informed. It just goes to show you how clueless teenagers are. At 23, I rented the movie again and realized that ….

Kinsey film review

In 1948, Alfred Kinsey, a goofy-looking professor from Indiana University previously known (if at all) for his long and laborious study of gull wasps, published Sexual Behavior in the American Male, and the country was never the same. For years, Kinsey had been trekking across the country with his team of researchers, interviewing and studying ….

Mad Max film review

"They say people don’t believe in heroes anymore. Well, damn them! You and me, Max, we’re gonna give ’em back their heroes!" Those empty words come from the chief of police (Roger Ward) to his top dog on the force. Mad Max, read as a fairy tale horror film, follows the logic of a Jacobean ….

North By Northwest film review

It was with slight disappointment and definite surprise that I found, after years of intending to see it, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest coming in just under the top tier of his films. Watching Cary Grant hustle through a cross-country wrongly-accused thriller isn’t a bore, of course, but I felt the curious sensation of reacting to ….

Minority Report film review

Per Minority Report, in only 52 years we’ll have a new privacy nightmare on our hands: A police unit in Washington D.C. will genetically engineer three people, float them in a Jacuzzi, and hook wires up to their heads so the cops can see murders occurring in the future. And thus, they can arrest the ….

I Drink Your Blood film review

Quick: Name your favorite movie about Satanist hippies on acid with rabies. If, somehow, your answer was anything other than I Drink Your Blood, we ask that you contact our offices right away. Then again, we may want those of you who managed the correct answer to call as well. Made by writer/director David Durston ….

Mission: Impossible II film review

Two reviews of the film. James Brundage, the exuberant fan: John Woo is back in the saddle again. After turning out useless Hollywood drivel from emigration up until Face/Off, enjoyable Hollywood drivel with Face/Off, and intelligent and enjoyable Canadian drivel in Once a Thief, John Woo has finally reestablished himself as a grandmaster of the ….

Mulan film review

In the rush to contrast the early-nineties Disney golden age (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King) with the current crop of underperformers (Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range) that have resulted in Disney’s foolhardy decision to jettison hand-drawn animation, some pretty decent films have been lost in the shuffle. Disney’s Mulan, ….

Network film review

This groundbreaking film is a rare example of a really god satire that was popular with film critics and the public – and even with entertainment industry insiders, who might not be expected to get the joke or appreciate the abuse. (I guess Hollywood has always had a condescending attitude toward TV, which explains the ….