Il Capitano: Drifting

Antti Reini and Maria Heiskanen. Photo: Sandrews On July 3rd 1988, a married couple and their 15-year-old son were murdered in a small community called Åmsele in northern Sweden. Father…

Breaking Bad: Journey to Damnation

Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston. Photo: AMC On several occasions, Vince Gilligan has pointed out that Breaking Bad could never have existed without The X-Files (1993-2002). The sci-fi show may…

Midnight Express: Trapped in Turkey

Brad Davis. Photo: Columbia When Barack Obama became president, Republicans accused him of embarking on an apology tour. Well, here's an example of a cultural event that did lead to…

The Abyss: On the Edge of Darkness

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris. Photo: 20th Century Fox Watching a good movie like The Abyss and knowing the kind of negative feelings that surrounded the production of it makes you…

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

In the near future, San Francisco scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) has invented a drug that is supposed to cure Alzheimer's... but its most dramatic effect is on apes in…

V

The 1980s TV hit was updated for a post-9/11 audience, introducing elements of social criticism in its portrayal of how the arrival of huge spaceships affected people in the world's…

Blowup: Don’t Analyze It to Death

Photo: MGM I saw this movie a couple of times when I was a film student and rediscovering it ten years later was a delight. Perhaps it is one of…

Hurt Locker: Explosive Experience

Photo: Summit Entertainment Doctors love to complain about movies that portray their line of work. So do cops, fire-fighters, journalists… and soldiers. Many Iraq War vets harbor contempt toward this…

Casablanca: You Must Remember This

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Photo: Warner Casablanca was just another movie meant to bolster the spirit of American audiences at a time when the nation had just entered an…