Das Boot: Under Pressure

Photo: Bavaria Film On my last visit to New York City, I visited the Intrepid Museum and boarded USS Growler, the 1950s-era cruise missile submarine that is part of the…

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…

Clockwork Orange: Hanging With Your Droogs

Malcolm McDowell. Photo: Warner Author Anthony Burgess allegedly complained that this film adaptation of his novel became so talked-about that it overshadowed everything else he did. Director Stanley Kubrick's film…

All the President’s Men: Exposing a CREEP

Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. Photo: Warner When I was in journalism school, I took a course in investigative journalism. That particular genre is still the finest you can do…