To extract the story from the endless scenes of action and carnage is more effort than it's worth. They inevitably inspire only reader complaints. We also learn that Richard M. One of the gifts a movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered. "Ravenous,'' maybe. Actually, the film has no result--just an ending, leaving us with all of those fine pieces, still waiting to come together. I am sure than Eisenstein's "The Battleship Potemkin" is a great film, but it's not going on my list simply so I can impress people. 7. It is one thing to see a frightened lawyer being taken for a ride in a carriage by a driver who has lost his head along the way. I remember informing an English teacher that I didn't know why we were wasting time on the short stories of Oct 4, 1999 · "Three Kings" is some kind of weird masterpiece, a screw-loose war picture that sends action and humor crashing head-on into each other and spinning off into political anger. " So says Paul Edgecomb, who is in charge of Death Row in a Louisiana penitentiary during the Depression. Dec 10, 1999 · "We think of this place like an intensive care ward of a hospital. That's Sep 24, 1999 · In a little town right down the imaginary road from "Pleasantville" and Seahaven (where Truman lives), a psychologist sets up shop. 95). The 30-foot crocodile in this movie stays in the water, contentedly munching on bears and cows, until scuba-diving beaver taggers invade his domain. It confuses the phenomenon of stigmata with satanic possession, thinks stigmata can be transmitted by relics and portrays the Mar 12, 1999 · Even when it's transplanted to the streets of New York's Chinatown, as "The Corruptor'' is, the Hong Kong action genre has certain obligatory requirements. Rate. His quest leads to a Japanese restaurant, where there is a bloody struggle with a bad guy who has taken hostages. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. "Cruel Intentions'' is a modern-day version of "Dangerous Liaisons,'' with rich kids in a prep school playing roles that were written for jaded French aristocrats in the wicked 1782 novel by Choderlos De Laclos. A. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize I wouldn't be surprised to learn that newcomers to the "Saturday Night Live" cast are given two immediate assignments: find someone you can imitate and create a goony character. " I couldn't disagree with him more. One of the worst, "Saint Joan" (1957), by Otto Preminger, had in common with Luc Besson's movie the theory that Joan must look like a babe. It's their own fault that the beast gets mad and eats a scientist If there's anything worse than a movie hammered together out of pieces of bad screenplays, it's a movie made from the scraps of good ones. First Bergman coaxes Wigand to talk. '' Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film mesmerized the Sundance generation, who have been doing riffs ever since on its interlocking timelines, its quirky sex and violence, its pop culture expertise, its familiarity with drugs, its squirmy comedy, its black-white friendships, its ironic Nov 5, 1999 · The war essentially ended for these men when they were captured, and a new chapter began, of personal test. Although he's a lousy student, that doesn't stop him from organizing a movement to keep Latin on the curriculum of his exclusive prep school. Jun 30, 1999 · "Wild Wild West'' is a comedy dead zone. '' Suddenly President John F. A lot of movies show bodies being hit by bullets. 1. The dog is his talent, and it drags him where it wants to go. She is correct to believe that comic characters are best when played straight. The hand, which has a mind of its own, has been chopped off the arm of a teenage kid who is the victim of some kind of weird Halloween demonic possession. Kevin Smith's "Dogma" grows out of an irreverent modern Catholic sensibility, a byproduct of parochial schools, where the underlying faith is taken seriously but the visible church is fair game for kidding. At its center stands Lowell Bergman, a producer for "60 Minutes," the CBS News program where a former tobacco scientist named Jeffrey Wigand spilled the beans. With a budget said to be more than $100 million, it displays a lot of cash on the screen, but little thought. Goodfellas (1990) R | 145 min | Biography, Crime, Drama. In Missouri, the only slave-holding state that sided with the Union, it tells the story of a small Dec 14, 2020 · It certainly wasn’t a typical year for, well, anything, including movies. There are times in "Sweet and Lowdown'' when Ray, "the second-best jazz guitarist in the world,'' seems almost like a bystander as his fingers and his instinct create heavenly jazz. He left a bag containing 100,000 deutsche marks on the subway, and a bum made away with it. It traces the story of a violin ("the single most perfect acoustical machine I've ever seen,'' says a restorer) from its maker in 17th century Italy to an auction room in modern Montreal. Self-parody Dec 22, 1999 · The movie follows Kaufman into the L. Jan 22, 1999 · "Playing by Heart" interweaves the stories of maybe a dozen characters, couples of one sort or another, who try to express how they feel and sometimes succeed. Oct 22, 1999 · "Crazy in Alabama" is an ungainly fit of three stories that have no business being shoehorned into the same movie. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. The town's name is Mumford. Dec 31, 1999 · After the worldwide acclaim that greeted his "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the first full-length color animated feature, Walt Disney's imagination soared. standup circuit, where a talent manager (Danny DeVito) sees something in his act and signs him. It is not a timid film. It brings an outsider viewpoint to the material, which involves a West Texas high school quarterback who would rather win an academic scholarship than play football. Apr 30, 1999 · I remember students like Tracy Flick, the know-it-all who always has her hand in the air, while the teacher desperately looks for someone else to call on. The 10 Best Start-of-Summer-Movie-Season Films of the 21st Century Tim Grierson | 2024-05-03 With The Fall Guy launching this summer’s glut of event movies, we look back at the finest films to get the warm-weather season going. Yet an annual Best Ten list is apparently a statutory obligation for movie critics. Some of my information comes from an invaluable new book, "Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation," by Helen McCarthy (Stone Bridge Press, $18. "Roger Ebert loved movies. Jan 15, 1999 · "In Dreams" is the silliest thriller in many a moon, and the only one in which the heroine is endangered by apples. Dec 24, 1999 · "Galaxy Quest" begins at a convention for the fans of a cult TV program not a million light years removed from "Star Trek. Claw went unseen in the cartoon, their reasoning goes, it is no consolation that he is brought to life here by Rupert Everett Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" begins with a story that would not have distinguished one of the lesser films from the Hammer horror franchise and elevates it by sheer style and acting into something entertaining and sometimes rather elegant. Regulars. " This point of view could have worked with either of the other two stories, but not both at once: (1) Ditzy dame Jun 18, 1999 · Mike Figgis, who pays so much attention to the music in his films, has made one that plays like a musical composition, with themes drifting in and out, and dialogue used more for tone than speech. Then he becomes Mar 1, 1999 · Here he's presented with all sorts of temptations, I suppose, to overplay the De Niro character and turn the movie into an "Airplane!''-type satire of gangster movies. There is nothing funny about the situation in Jan 7, 2000 · "Magnolia" is operatic in its ambition, a great, joyous leap into melodrama and coincidence, with ragged emotions, crimes and punishments, deathbed scenes, romantic dreams, generational turmoil and celestial intervention, all scored to insistent music. If he fails, he will probably be killed. It's not every film where an adult role model throws himself in front of a moving car just to cheer the kid up. The difference is that Rudolph's characters have tough, wounded personalities, and the characters created Each year is a top ten. I think he finds the right path--allowing satire, referring to De Niro's screen past, and yet keeping the focus on the strange friendship between two men who speak entirely Jul 9, 1999 · "American Pie" is a comedy about four high school senior boys who make a pact to lose their virginity before the end of the school year. A doll or an action figure (or a Pokemon) is yours in the same way a pet is. Mainstream audiences will view it as a lurid horror movie, an "The Exorcist" wannabe, but for students of the teachings of the church, it offers endless goofiness. Stuart is about two inches long, maybe a little longer. " as a towering metal man, and you have some of the appeal of "The Iron Giant," an enchanting animated feature about a boy who makes friends with a robot from outer space. They were so cut off from the world that they learned of the moon landing only by seeing a Neil Armstrong postage stamp. Office cubicles are cells, supervisors are the wardens, and modern management theory is skewed to employ as many "Varsity Blues" is not your average sports movie. If Dr. The first one is familiar: Events seen through the eyes of a young boy in a small town, circa 1965, who recalls, "and after that day nothing was ever the same again. Jul 2, 1999 · The setup: Lola gets a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. Run, Lola, run! The director, a Feb 23, 2000 · Ebert's 10 best: 9. It takes place during the Mexican-American War, in an isolated U. "The Red Violin'' is about that yearning. The movie has a screenplay that lumbers between past and present like regret on a death march. Tweet. Jun 11, 1999 · The film opens in Africa, with an old singer chanting a dirge under a tree. We want a leap of the imagination, not one of those obligatory climaxes with automatic weapons fire. Then he works with reporter Mike Wallace Jul 23, 1999 · "Inspector Gadget" was an afternoon TV cartoon in the 1980s, much-loved by some, unseen by me, which has now inspired a high-tech live-action retread that has Gadget fans on the Internet furious because, apparently, they do not want to see the face of Dr. Chevy Chase can no doubt still do a pratfall like Gerald Ford, but who wants him to? But if Martin Short ever resurrects Ed Grimley, I'd buy a ticket. A 15-year-old boy named Lesra spends 25 cents to buy his first book, the autobiography of the boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Or rooming houses where everyone is a character out of Tennessee Williams. " In Memoriam 1942-2013. That serves as a metaphor for the characters in John Sayles' "Limbo," a movie about people whose lives are neither here nor there, but stuck in-between. "Anyone who has seen "Trekkies," the documentary about "Star Trek" fans, will recognize this world at once--a world of fanatics who take the show very seriously indeed, packing hotel ballrooms to screen classic episodes of the show and get autographs from its aging cast Dec 17, 1999 · "Bicentennial Man" begins with promise, proceeds in fits and starts, and finally sinks into a cornball drone of greeting-card sentiment. She plays a woman who likes money very much, and who knows what buttons to push on the men who will help her get some. It deals with the materials of violent exploitation films, but in a non-pornographic way; it would rather horrify than thrill. It is another to see the Jul 2, 1999 · Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam" is his first film with no major African-American characters, but it has a theme familiar to blacks and other minorities: scapegoating. The chief asks her questions according to inexorable procedure, very business-like. As the narrator tells us near the end, "We may be through with the past, but the past is never through with us. More than some actors, perhaps, he depends on correct casting for his appeal--and here, as an art auctioneer who gets into danger after falling in love with a mobster's daughter, he strikes one Dec 31, 1994 · The movie stars Linda Fiorentino in what is surely the best female performance of the year (although she is ineligible for an Oscar nomination because the movie played on HBO before going out to a theatrical run). Dec 17, 1999 · Any other consideration about "Stuart Little" must take second place to the fact that it is about a nice family who adopts a mouse. Folks are too busy living their lives to spare the time. " The movie, to be titled "Chubby Rain," will be about Feb 12, 1999 · My Favorite Martian (1999) The best movie reviews, in your inbox. His desperate plan: Rob a bank. In fact, I was a student like Tracy Flick. "Instinct" is a film with not one but four worthy themes. One of them was the Federal Theatre Project, which funded "free theater for the people Oct 8, 1999 · There are so many good things in "Random Hearts," but they're side by side instead of one after the other. It involves the love, pity and guilt that a child feels for a favorite toy. It's said that all politics are local; this movie argues that some wars are local, too. "Man, this Yoo-Hoo is good!" the adult tells the tyke. Tingle," where she creates a character so hateful and venomous that the same energy, more usefully directed, could have generated a great Lady Macbeth. Apr 9, 1999 · "Cookie's Fortune'' is Robert Altman's sunniest film, a warm-hearted comedy that somehow manages to deal with death and murder charges without even containing a real villain. Pierce Brosnan stars in the title role, as a man who has everything money can buy, and has moved on to what money can't buy--a $100 million Monet that he steals in broad daylight from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dec 31, 1996 · Ebert's Best Film Lists1967 - present. As he reads it, he becomes determined to meet the boxer and support his fight for freedom, and that decision leads Aug 27, 1999 · "The Muse" opens with its hero winning a Humanitarian Award. He had been assured by no less than the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein that "Snow White" was the greatest film ever made, and he saw no boundaries for the infant art of feature animation. Paul Thomas Anderson here joins Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), David O. Aug 4, 1999 · "Dick'' is the flip side of "All the President's Men,'' explaining at last all of the loose ends of the Watergate scandal--how the duct tape got on the Watergate lock, who Deep Throat really was, and why the 18 1/2-minute gap appeared on the White House tapes. Robin Williams spends the first half of the film encased in a metallic robot suit, and when he emerges, the script turns robotic instead. Dec 17, 1999 · "Ride With the Devil" is the first Civil War film I can recall that is not told with the benefit of hindsight. Feb 19, 1999 · Mike Judge's "Office Space" is a comic cry of rage against the nightmare of modern office life. Those are the most useful titles for you, instead of an Apr 1, 1991 · Ebert's Best Film Lists1967 - present. "Mickey Blue Eyes" has most of the ingredients in place for another one of those married-to-the-mob comedies, but the central character has to hold it together, and Hugh Grant is wrong for the role. Nov 27, 2008 · "Magnolia" is a film of sadness and loss, of lifelong bitterness, of children harmed and adults destroying themselves. " Pam Grier and Robert Forster , two actors whose careers have been in eclipse, are perfectly cast here--she as a weary stewardess who smuggles money for a gun dealer, he as the Sep 24, 1999 · "Jakob," directed by Peter Kassovitz, was not inspired by Benigni's success; based on a 1975 East German movie, it was filmed before "Life Is Beautiful" was released, and (if you were wondering, and I'll bet you were) before Williams' schmaltz fest "Patch Adams. "A legend in his own mind," they wrote under my photo in the Urbana High School yearbook. The character, named Mox and played by James Van Der Beek of TV's "Dawson's Creek," is a good kid--so good, at one point he asks himself why he's always being so good--and although Sooner or later the statute of limitations has to run out on comparisons between new movies and "Pulp Fiction. Mar 5, 1999 · Teenagers once went to the movies to see adults making love. It's an odd, strange film--a sentimental comedy with a backdrop of racism--and I kept thinking of "Life Is Beautiful,'' another film that skirts the edge of despair. T. Low-angle shots of bad guys looming over the camera, for example. All too good for "Teaching Mrs. He created a world of depraved amorality, in which the only goal May 14, 1999 · Roger Ebert May 14, 1999. They depend on the situation to make them funny. If this were a screenplay and not the final product, you could see how with one more Feb 26, 1999 · Roger Ebert February 26, 1999. Nov 5, 1999 · "The Bone Collector" is assembled from off-the-shelf thriller contrivances, likable characters and utter absurdity, with one of those scores that's the musical equivalent of trying to scrape the burnt meat off the bottom of the pot: Unnngh! Unnngh! Unnngh! Its big romantic scene has the girl cop caressing the index finger of the boy cop, which is the only part of him below the neck that still Jan 1, 1999 · "Stigmata" is possibly the funniest movie ever made about Catholicism--from a theological point of view. Maybe that's why so many Nov 5, 1999 · Michael Mann's "The Insider" makes a thriller and expose out of how big tobacco's long-running tissue of lies was finally exposed by investigative journalism. Early in the film Snowbell, the family cat, tries to Dec 24, 1999 · It was a time when the rich flirted with communists and fascists, when the poor stood in bread lines, when the class divide in America came closer to the boil than ever before or since. The writer is Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote "Seven,'' and once again creates a character who looks Nov 19, 1999 · 2. 104 titles. Russell ("Three Kings") and their master Apr 23, 1999 · "Lost & Found'' ends at a big lawn party for rich people, which in movies about people over 21 is the equivalent of the senior prom scene in all other movies. My best guess is that between six and ten of these movies won't be familiar. Kaufman is soon a sitcom star, a regular on "Taxi'' (we see cast veterans like Marilu Henner, Carol Kane, Christopher Lloyd and Judd Hirsch playing themselves--DeVito of course is otherwise engaged). The best movie reviews, in His best friend is Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a trumpet player in the ship's orchestra, and his story is told through Max's eyes. Mumford is also the name of a great writer on towns and cities, but any connections between these Mumfords are left unexplored. Aug 27, 1999 · Arriving at last more than a year after it was completed, "The 13th Warrior" shows every sign of a production run amok. The best scene in this film is probably the one where the pregnant police chief goes to question the car dealer who has hired a couple of guys to kidnap his wife. Desmond Llewelyn has played the character in every single Bond film since "From Russia With Love" in 1963 (with the exception of "Live and Let Die" in 1973, when the producers dropped Q after an insane decision that the series needed less gimmicks). It has pious good thoughts about all of them, but undermines them by slapping on obligatory plot requirements, thick . The best movie reviews, in Oct 29, 1999 · "Princess Mononoke" is a great achievement and a wonderful experience, and one of the best films of the year. Mark Borchardt may want to make a movie more than anyone else in the world. The 1930s were a decade when the Depression put millions out of work and government programs were started to create jobs. Even the next film I saw, "Never Been Kissed,'' ends with a prom. You know something has gone wrong when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset. Kennedy appears on TV to announce that "Stir of Echoes" is a supernatural thriller firmly rooted in a blue-collar Chicago neighborhood, where everyone on the block knows one another--although not as well as they think. It doesn't quite work, but it goes down swinging--with a disembodied hand. It depends on you. Yes, a mouse, in all dimensions and particulars, albeit a mouse with a cute little sports coat and an earnest way of expressing himself in piping English. 92 Metascore. The high school romance genre has become so popular that it's running out of new ideas and has taken to recycling classic literature. In the summer of 1977, when New York City is gripped by paranoid fear of the serial killer who called himself the Son of Sam, the residents of an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx are looking for a suspect. There is a shoot-out, which "The Thomas Crown Affair" uses a $100 million art theft as foreplay between two people who, unfortunately, are both more interested in the theft than in each other. These lists are divided into decades. S. Now adults go to the movies to see teenagers making love. This one sends the camera inside to Jun 25, 1999 · "Big Daddy" is a film about a seriously disturbed slacker who adopts a 5-year-old and tutors him in cynicism, cruel practical jokes and antisocial behavior. Jul 16, 1999 · "What an animal does in the water is his own business--unless he does it to man. His name is Mumford. It needs you and is troubled when you're not there. We see crippled children. " In this wreckage of lifetimes, there are two figures, a policeman and a nurse, who do what they can to offer help, hope and love. Mar 31, 1999 · "Encounter in the Third Dimension'' resembles several other giant-screen IMAX releases because it's interesting primarily because of the size of the screen. It misses you. " Both films are about extroverts using imagination as a weapon against the Holocaust. Millstone, the tight-fisted banker who wants to fly in Neil Diamond as a surprise for his wife. Great English country houses in those days were truly family seats, giving shelter and employment to relatives, dependents and servants, and we meet Lord Bertram (the playwright Harold Pinter, magisterial and firm), his still drug-addled wife (Lindsay Duncan), his drunken older son Tom (James Purefoy), his "Idle Hands" samples other teen horror movies like a video DJ with a tape deck, exhibiting high spirits and a crazed comic energy. Their host, meanwhile, mixes cocktails, tells bad jokes and hints darkly that "I could take a simple yacht battery and rig it to last a year, easily. "Daddy," his daughter asks at bedtime, "what exactly is a humanitarian?" "It's someone who's never won the Oscar," he tells her. It begins almost at the end, when Max finds an old wax recording in an antiques shop, and recognizes it as 1900's love melody to the only woman who almost got him to leave the ship. Manni is expected to deliver the money at noon to a gangster. , who has been making movies since he was a teenager and dreams of an epic about his life, which will be titled "Northwestern Nov 12, 1999 · Two of the best films ever made are about Joan of Arc: "The Passion of Joan of Arc," by Carl Dreyer (1928), and "The Trial of Joan of Arc," by Robert Bresson (1962). Paul (Tom Hanks) is a nice man, probably nicer than your average Louisiana Death Row guard, and his staff is competent and humane--all except for the loathsome Percy, whose aunt is married to the governor, and who could have Nov 24, 1999 · I don't know if worlds really exist like the one in "Flawless. "Life Is Beautiful'' avoids it through comic Mar 19, 1999 · Of course a vampire is simply a cannibal with good table manners, and "Ravenous'' is a darkly atmospheric film about an epidemic of flesh-eating and the fearsome power that it brings. " Both movies are about teenage friends with not much to do, but the kids in "Desert Blue" are more resigned; there's a kind of sweet sadness to their exile--all except for Ely (Christina Ricci), who entertains herself by blowing things up. Bette Davis isn't offscreen at all: Almodovar's heroines seem to be playing her. True, the Glenn Close character comes close to villainy by falsifying a death scene, but since she's in the middle of directing the Easter play at her church, maybe it's partly a case of runaway theatrical zeal. Roger Joseph Ebert (/ ˈ iː b ər t / EE-burt; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. Since many of thel aughs seems totally in the character of the actors who get them, they play like ad libs -- as if we're hearing asides to the audience. For those reared in such traditions, it's no reach at all to imagine two fallen angels finding a loophole to get back into heaven. " The movie includes that episode; when Cahill gets the record home and finds it is not really made of gold, it confirms his Jan 21, 2000 · If you've ever wanted to make a movie, see "American Movie," a documentary about someone who wants to make a movie more than you do. Not all of it Nov 24, 1999 · The narrative springs forward, and we meet a 20ish Fanny, now played by Frances O'Connor. She also survives three falls from very high places (two into a lake, one onto apples), escapes from a hospital and a madhouse, has the most clever dog since Lassie and causes a traffic pileup involving a truck and a dozen cars. When the music stops, he's helpless: He doesn't have a clue when it comes to personal Feb 12, 1999 · "Blast From the Past'' opens with a cocktail party in 1962 at the home of Calvin and Helen Webber, where some of the guests whisper about how brilliant, but weird, Calvin is. Here are more than 300 reconsiderations and appreciations of movies from the distant past to the recent past, all of movies that I consider worthy of being called "great. Kevin Bacon stars in one of his best performances, as a telephone lineman named Tom Witzky, who plays in a band, wants to break out of the routine of his life and succeeds all too successfully. This alone makes it almost touchingly old-fashioned; I did not know Hollywood still permitted high school seniors to be virgins. '' I don't know if there are still dance halls in New York where you pay by the dance, although I see them from time to time in the movies. It's about characters who don't know the North will win--and sometimes don't much seem to care. There's real poignancy this time, because Q, the inventor of all of Bond's gizmos, is retiring. That ability to snatch failure from the ashes of success is common to many of Albert Brooks' characters, and in "The Muse" he plays Steven Phillips, writer of "over 17 movies," who is fired by his studio Apr 16, 1999 · Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence age more than 50 years in "Life,'' the story of two New Yorkers who spend their adult lives on a Mississippi prison farm because of some very bad luck. He is a 30-year-old, odd-job man from Menomonee Falls, Wis. A city of zombies in gray business suits, walking unseeing in the streets. Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone never seem very far offscreen. They exist in the same film, but they don't add up to the result of the film. It is about work that crushes the spirit. Sep 24, 1999 · Roger Ebert September 24, 1999. It also helps explain the movie's surprising story structure, which doesn't obediently follow our expectations, but reflects the Emmet Ray is like a man with a very large dog on a leash. I can remember passionate debates during religion class "Mystery Men" has moments of brilliance waving their arms to attract attention in a sea of dreck. 8. The violin passes from the rich to the poor, from Italy to Poland to England to China Jun 18, 1999 · The movie is based on a page-turner by Nelson DeMille, adapted for the screen by William Goldman and Christopher Bertolini, who along the way provide a dialogue scene for Travolta and James Woods that's sharp-edged and crisply delivered; one-on-one, they fence with words and the theater grows as quiet as if it were a sex scene. Army outpost in the Sierra Nevadas, when a half-dead man (Robert Carlyle) staggers into the fort with the story of snowbound travelers Jun 18, 1999 · There is a kind of ideal beauty that reduces us all to yearning for perfection. "We'll use a hidden camera. It has many of the same complaints as "Dilbert" and the movie "Clockwatchers" and, for that matter, the works of Kafka and the Book of Job. "The Loss of Sexual Innocence" is built of memory and dreams, following a boy named Nic as he grows from a child into a man, and intercutting his story with the story of Adam and Eve. Their lives were bounded by stone walls and controlled by their captors, who devised methods of torture so refined that "you'd sell your mother down the river in a Jan 22, 1999 · Boorman, whose films have ranged from "Deliverance" to "Excalibur," had one close brush with Cahill, who broke into his house and stole the gold record he was awarded for "Dueling Banjos," the hit single from "Deliverance. It's kind of a letdown when a movie begins by redefining the nature of reality, and ends with a shoot-out. The second assignment has a better payoff. And what seems like more dialogue during action scenes than before and after them. Billy suits up for his final game of the season, and as he starts pitching we get the "Five Years Earlier" card, and the movie cuts back and forth between his quest to pitch a perfect game and his memories of their love affair. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen. Every highway out of town ends in the wilderness. At least with the trash we don't have to suffer through the noble intentions. Nixon resented the fact that his dog didn't follow him around adoringly, like the Kennedy and Johnson Aug 13, 1999 · It is a plan of audacity and madness: Bowfinger, a low-rent movie producer, will make a film with a top Hollywood action star, and the star won't even know he's making the picture. "He doesn't like to see the camera, and he never talks to his fellow actors," Bowfinger (Steve Martin) tells his trusting crew. Or stories that can involve, at the same time, hero cops, drag queens, two-bit drug dealers and gay Republicans. It has the freedom and recklessness of Oliver Stone or Robert Altman in their mad-dog days, and a visual style that hungers for impact. Aug 6, 1999 · Imagine "E. Lola's desperate plan: Find the money somehow, somewhere, in 20 minutes. "Malcolm X "Spike Lee's 1992 biography of the Black Muslim leader was a continuation, in a way, of the choice presented at the end of his "Do the Right Thing" (1989) between the nonviolence of Martin Luther King and Malcolm's starker vision. The film seems to have been conceived from the special effects on Dec 15, 2011 · Making lists is not my favorite occupation. " - Roger Ebert Jun 4, 1999 · Juneau is the only state capital with roads that lead nowhere. In 1940 Disney produced "Fantasia," a I forgot something about toys a long time ago, and "Toy Story 2'' reminded me. "You know what else is good? Smoking dope!" On the way down in the Dec 22, 1999 · "All About My Mother" is one of the best films of the Spanish director, whose films present a Tennessee Williams sensibility in the visual style of a 1950s Universal-International tearjerker. His grades are so bad, he's on "sudden death probation,'' but in his spare time, he edits the school magazine and runs the Helen Mirren is a very good actress. Ebert Digital LLC Mar 31, 1999 · "The Matrix" is a visually dazzling cyberadventure, full of kinetic excitement, but it retreats to formula just when it's getting interesting. There is a role for Martin Sheen , as Mr. The year's best thriller is also one of the year's most powerful films, the story of two very different FBI agents who are assigned to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers. Enjoy! :) Refine See titles to watch instantly, titles you haven't rated, etc. Not once have I ever heard from a reader that my list was just fine, and they liked it. The film packages a lot of material about 3-D movies into a goofy story about a scientist who wants to demonstrate his latest 3-D invention. " So says Sheriff Keough, one of the crocbusters of "Lake Placid. Anyone who stands The key moment in "The Hurricane," which tells the story of a boxer framed for murder, takes place not in a prison cell but at a used-book sale in Toronto. I'm trying to remember the last movie I saw that didn't end with a high school prom. The place is Mississippi, the time is 1964, and the two agents represent two different traditions within the agency. Claw. Only two people seem aware of their surroundings. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Aug 4, 1995 · Los Angeles, 1999. It's a long, shapeless, undisciplined mess, and every once in awhile it generates a big laugh. As Hollywood packed up shop and pushed a lot of their projects to 2021 or streaming services, questions arose about how to critically assess such an unusual time for cinema. The giant crash-lands on a 1957 night when America is peering up at the speck of Sputnik in the sky, and munches his way through a Maine village, eating TV antennas and cars, until he finds a power plant. Dec 31, 1997 · The best films in 1997 were sad. It can't do anything by itself. It's like one of those Alan Rudolph films ("Choose Me" or "Welcome to L. Feb 26, 1999 · Joel Schumacher's "8mm'' is a dark, dank journey into the underworld of snuff films, undertaken by a private investigator who is appalled and changed by what he finds. And the sound of a metallic whoosh when there's a quick cut from one scene to the next. ") where lonely seekers cruise the city seeking solace. Here is the first comedy, a triumphant encore for Quentin Tarantino more than three years after his influential " Pulp Fiction . Max Fischer, the hero of "Rushmore,'' is an activity jock, one of those kids too bright and restless to color inside the lines. If I must make a list of the Ten Greatest Films of All Time, my first vow is to make the list for myself, not for anybody else. One of them is Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington), who moves easily through the crowds, in search of something. A teacher in a schoolroom tries to lead his students, but troops burst in and drag him away. Sep 10, 1999 · Imagine the town in "The Last Picture Show" after 30 more years of shrinking and loneliness, and you'd have the town in "Desert Blue. xe cz od gk jb mc js qq wc ud