All Quiet on the Western Front: Trauma in the Trenches

Photo: Universal The first talkie to win a Best Picture Oscar portrays the Great War nine years before it would have its even more devastating round two. When the film…

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire 

After winning the Hunger Games, tributes Katniss and Peeta (Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson) inspire rebellions in several districts, and President Snow (Donald Sutherland) comes up with a new version of…

Transformers: Age of Extinction 

Five years after the battle that almost destroyed Chicago, a CIA unit is hunting both Autobots and Decepticons; Optimus Prime finds refuge in a barn owned by an inventor (Mark…

Born on the Fourth of July: All Quiet on the Southeastern Front

Tom Cruise. Photo: Universal It took a while for me to realize that the date I revisited this film on Bluray was indeed July 4th. This tale from the Vietnam…

Magnificent Seven: It Takes a Village

Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholtz, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and James Coburn. Photo: United Artists In 2009, Robert Vaughn released an autobiography that revealed the full extent…

Rosemary’s Baby: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Mia Farrow. Photo: Paramount After making Repulsion, Cul-De-Sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers in England, three very good films that differed a lot in style but all had elements of…

Independence Day 

An inflated and flag-waving throwback to the grand space movies and disaster flicks of the 1950s and ’70s; the story, where Earth is attacked by aliens and must retaliate, could…

Romancing the Stone 

New York City romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) goes to Colombia to help her sister who's been kidnapped, and gets unexpected aid from a bird smuggler (Michael Douglas). After…

Far from Heaven 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder wasn’t the only one in awe of Douglas Sirk. In this drama, Todd Haynes recreated everything from Sirk's films to perfection. One in particular in fact, All…

Dogville 

The residents of Dogville, Colorado, agree to offer runaway Grace (Nicole Kidman) sanctuary, with discomforting consequences. Lars von Trier’s first part of a planned trilogy about the U.S. was shot…