Rocky: Rise of an Italian Stallion

Sylvester Stallone. Photo: United Artists At the 1977 Academy Awards, Sylvester Stallone and Muhammad Ali staged a comic brawl as a way of showing that Ali had no ill feelings…

Wings 

When the United States enters World War I, two young men (Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen) from the same small town, one rich and the other poor, join the Air…

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: The Crazy Ones

Photo: United Artists Author Ken Kesey considered himself a link between beatniks and hippies, a critic of behaviorism and the conventional. His most famous novel, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's…

Miss Julie: A Midsummer Nightmare

Anita Björk and Ulf Palme. Photo: Sandrews In 1888, when August Strindberg offered a Stockholm publisher his new play "Miss Julie", he added a warning: "I ask you not to…

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…

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…

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…

Oslo, August 31st 

Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), who has just been released from a drug rehab clinic in Oslo, has a job interview but visits an old friend (Hans Olav Brenner) first; their…

Rain Man: Escaping a Bubble

Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. Photo: MGM 1988 and 1989 were awkward years for the Academy Awards. It's not like there weren't any brilliant movies released, it's just that the…

On the Waterfront: The End of Mob Rule

Marlon Brando. Photo: Columbia In 1949, investigative journalist Malcolm Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles he had written for the New York Sun. Titled "Crime on…