Rocky Balboa
Aging champ Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) decides to come out of retirement for one final fight against the reigning champion, Mason Dixon (Antonio Tarver). That’s the predictable, simple story for…
A Beautiful Mind: The Brain as Friend and Foe
Russell Crowe. Photo: Universal They said the screenplay had little to do with the brilliant mathematician John Nash’s real life. They said director Ron Howard had made the film too…
World Trade Center
Conservatives seemed genuinely surprised to see Oliver Stone make such a patriotic and moving film about 9/11. They must have taken him for a simple political pundit when in fact…
All the King’s Men
As the populist Willie Stark (Sean Penn) wins the Louisiana governorship in the 1950s, a reporter (Jude Law) finds himself doing the dirty work for “the people’s governor”. A surprisingly…
Walk the Line: How Cash Got His Act Together
Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Photo: 20th Century Fox It’s impossible to see this movie and not think of last year’s Ray. Both films tell the story of a supremely…
Melrose Place: Supersoap 2.0
Photo: Fox The show that started out as a lame copy of producer Darren Star’s Beverly Hills 90210 became the hottest primetime soap on U.S. television in the 1990s. Who…
Crash: Learning Who You Are
Thandiwe Newton and Matt Dillon. Photo: Lionsgate It begins with Don Cheadle’s character stating the theme of the movie. He talks about how people in a normal city walk and…
Million Dollar Baby: No Guts, No Glory
Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank. Photo: Warner As an actor, Clint Eastwood is a genuine American icon. His career as a director on the other hand looked quite uneven in…
Shadow of the Vampire: A Symphony of Horrors
Willem Dafoe. Photo: Lionsgate Anyone who has ever seen Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau’s marvelous, silent vampire flick, is likely to never forget the appearance of Count Orlok, the bald, rat-like bloodsucker…
Falcon Crest: Wine, Women and Power
Photo: CBS At first they all seem to have had realism in mind, the primetime soaps of the 1980s. The first episodes of Falcon Crest showed a middle-class family moving…