Suspense

The Glass Shield film review

At least it sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately, the execution of the new Miramax film, The Glass Shield, a drama set in an L.A. sheriff’s station, leaves the viewer with little more than the perception that he’s just seen a movie that could have been something, but didn’t quite make it. The Glass Shield’s ….

Jeepers Creepers film review

What’s with Hollywood and road trips? Lately it seems like everything evolves from adventures while traveling across highways and small towns. To the credit of the filmmakers who think of these common ideas, most of the time, at least for the time being, these ideas work well. This year alone, we have seen plenty of ….

The Descent film review

Year: 2005 The Descent has a fairly simple premise. Six women go on a caving expedition that goes horribly wrong, when they get trapped and stumble upon a race of humaniod-like predator beasts, bent on doing nothing more than having them for supper. But make no mistake, some of the most effective, gripping and frightful ….

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 ….

Sling Blade film review

www.filmfetish.com/images/starf.gif”> Unlike most critics, I’ve been largely unimpressed with Billy Bob Thornton’s work in the past. From One False Move to A Family Thing, I’ve always found his writing to lack depth and miss a true focus. But then there’s Sling Blade, and with Thornton in complete control as the writer, director, and star of ….

Platoon film review

Like no other movie could tell, Platoon shows us categorically that war – and especially the Vietnam War – is hell. The story is vintage Oliver Stone – based on his own experiences in the bush with only a few moments of fictionalization. In Platoon, Charlie Sheen plays a young and naive Private Chris Taylor, ….

Psycho film review

One of Hitchcock’s masterpieces – though I like Vertigo and Rear Window better – about a woman who steals $40,000, the sleepy motel where she spends the night, and the cruel secret behind the motel owner redefined the horror genre and set the standard for thrillers for the next 40 years. A rare must see. ….

Rear Window film review

Not only is Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window one of his best pictures, it’s one of the best films ever made altogether. The master craftsmanship on display (placing virtually the entire film within the confines of the apartment of hobbled photographer L.B. Jeffries — the inimitable James Stewart — referred to as “J.B. Jeffries” on the ….

Serpico film review

Damn dirty cops! It’s gonna take Frank Serpico to clean up this town!!! Based on a true story of rampant corruption and internal affairs in New York City (where else?), Serpico stands as the consummate cop movie, right up there with The French Connection. But while The French Connection is a standard cops-and-robbers movie, Serpico ….

Stage Fright film review

Alfred Hitchcock might have had a fair-to-good thriller here with Stage Fright had he not blown it with cheap plotting that has made the film one of his most reviled among Hitchcock enthusiasts and historians. The problem relates to the flashback, a device Hitchcock frequently used to good effect. But here, Hitch deceives us from ….

Straw Dogs film review

The movies you love best aren’t always the ones whose ideas you agree with. D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation is easy to admire for its technical innovation but easy to despise for its virulent racism; the Nazi hagiography Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will has similar pleasures – and problems. Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 masterpiece ….

Strangers on a Train film review

Picking Alfred Hitchcock’s best movie is a sucker’s game. His talents stretched across so many eras and worked in too many styles to reduce matters to one choice. But it’s hard to resist thinking of Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) as one of the director’s greatest creations; nobody was better at illuminating the charismatic sort of ….

THX 1138

George Lucas’s most grown-up piece of work is, oddly enough, his first feature from 1971, the instant classic of dystopic angst, THX 1138, inaugurating a steady reversal of artistic maturity that would culminate in the cartoonish Star Wars sequels; which is maybe where he wanted to end up all along. An angry, idealistic film that ….