Depicting Ted Kennedy's involvement in the fatal 1969 car accident that
claims the life of a young campaign strategist, Mary Jo Kopechne.
This movie's slickly made with excellent performances, but such a sober, unexcited depiction of the events, it doesn't reveal more than the facts already known.
A faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame and
success in the film industry during the final years of Hollywood's
Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles.
This Tarantino movie shows all the panache, high production quality, good set pieces, cinematic allusions and top performances and cameos, for which the director is generally celebrated, - so there's lots to be found here to please the senses - but it's essentially without a plot and therefore outstays its welcome; it's very superficial and mainly a buddy movie with outstanding DiCaprio and Pitt chemistry combined with a heavy streak of nostalgia for a bygone Hollywood era - and the Manson family (plus Sharon Tate) angle is cynically pitched in as a stilted plot device.
A getaway driver becomes the latest assignment for a tenacious detective.
From memory: Stylish, straightforward exercise in making a purified genre picture is indeed successful for what it strives to be, but nearly hollow in content; most memorable element, however, are the excellent car chase sequences.
Halliwell***+: "Deft and clever thriller that has been stripped of all redundancies and reduced to its core, of two obsessional men on different sides of the law locked in deadly conflict. It is a simple, spare story of bleak lives, brilliantly told."
Maltin***: "Tense throwback to the Hollywood film noir era...Oddball melodrama doesn't seem like much at the time, but has a way of staying with you afterwards.Great car chase sequences."
The early career of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickock is telescoped and
culminates in his relocation in Deadwood and a reunion with Calamity
Jane.
Ambitious, but in the end failed attempt to demystify a Wild West legend is well produced, but lacks coherence and a stringent plot; Jeff Bridges is good in the title role, but most of the star cast is condemned to playing sallow bit parts.
Halliwell*: "A complex, fragmentary look at the life of Wild Bill Hickock that strips away the heroics to present a confused and unhappy killer; spasmodically interesting, if rather too glum."
Maltin**: "Odd revisionist take on Wild Bill Hickock, told in episodic form that creates distance from - rather than understanding of - the legendary hell-raiser of the Old West...Barkin is fun as Calamity Jane, but other characters are superficially drawn at best."
A NASA astronaut, forced to retire years earlier so he could
save his family farm, has never given up his dream of space travel and
looks to build his own rocket, despite the government's threats to stop
him.
Slow-paced, good-natured satire, implicitly celebrating American wayward entrepreneurship; Billy Bob Thornton is perfectly cast in the title role.
Maltin**1/2: "Thornton is ideal...Capraesque story...is beautifully rendered; only problem is that the guy in question is nuts!"
A prostitute who survived a brutal and abusive childhood in Michigan becomes
a thick-skinned but emotionally damaged adult and serial killer.
Intense serial killer drama, dominated by Charlize Theron's inimitable performance.
Halliwell**: "True life crime story, somewhat doggedly directed, but notable for a remarkable performance by Theron as the abused and abusive killer."
Maltin***: "Theron won an Oscar for her raw, no-holds-barred performance...The film works better as a love story...than as an incisive social commentary. Impressive feature debut for writer-director Jenkins."
A drifting gunslinger-for-hire finds himself in the middle of an ongoing
war between the Irish and Italian mafia in a Prohibition era ghost
town.
Yet another remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo is an interesting, but not fully satisfying mixture of genres, especially of Western and gangster movie; good star cast and expertise direction make it watchable, though.
Halliwell*: "A Hollywood Western influenced by other schools of film-making. The wit and charm of Kurosawa's original, Yojimbo, has been replaced by a raw energy and gunfights in the style of John Woo; but its glum, conscienceless protagonist lacks the style of Toshirô Mifune or even Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti Western version, A Fistful of Dollars."
Maltin**: "...rife with gunplay, but overcome by sheers boredom."
In a future where all flora is extinct on Earth, an astronaut is given
orders to destroy the last of Earth's botany, kept in a greenhouse
aboard a spacecraft.
Dark, well-crafted sci-fi drama with excellent special effects and a laudable ecological message, but Bruce Dern's madman character is unnerving and muddles the whole movie.
Halliwell*: "Sombre futuristic fantasy, well made but slow and muddled in development."
In the dead of a Wyoming winter, a bounty hunter and his prisoner find
shelter in a cabin currently inhabited by a collection of nefarious
characters.
More closed-room mystery drama than a Western, this movie is slow-paced, talkative and very violent, but as usual Tarantino keeps the tension throughout helped by a great cast, excellent cinematography and a score by Ennio Morricone.
An aging, booze-addled father makes the trip from Montana to Nebraska
with his estranged son in order to claim a million-dollar Mega
Sweepstakes Marketing prize.
Wonderful road movie thanks to paced, thoughtful direction, a splendid cast and some fantastic black-and-white photography.
Maltin***1/2: "Rich comedic portrait of taciturn Midwesterners..., featuring a gallery of wonderfully authentic faces... Dern and Forte anchor the film with their solid, credible performances. Beautifully shot in widescreen black & white..."
A mad scientist is experimenting with
transplanting second heads onto farm animals, and when an out-of-control
maniac stumbles upon his place, he seizes the opportunity
