The Dink
Once-promising tennis talent Dustin Boyd (Jake Johnson) injures his wrist and is told to try pickleball; he may look down on it, but finds an unexpected older friend in Candace…
China Moon
Florida homicide detective Kyle Bodine (Ed Harris) falls in love with a married woman (Madeleine Stowe); soon, the relationship becomes more dangerous. Cinematographer John Bailey’s directing debut is a classically…
Westworld
What became an exciting thriller by Michael Crichton in 1973 was turned into a far more ambitious but also convoluted TV series, set in the 2050s where a corporation is…
The Truman Show: Before Big Brother
Jim Carrey. Photo: Paramount There’s an episode of Twilight Zone, the 1980s revival, called ”Special Service” that aired in 1989. Written by J. Michael Straczynski, who later created the sci-fi…
Gravity: More Science, Less Hollywood
Sandra Bullock. Photo: Warner Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and the most famous person working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was surprised the other day to…
Apollo 13: Lost Moon, Saved Lives
Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Tom Hanks. Photo: Universal When producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard decided to turn the story about the ill-fated 1972 Apollo 13 mission into…
The Right Stuff: Touching the Sky
Photo: Warner I have never understood those who have no interest in space. That’s like showing no interest in the questions that have occupied scientists and philosophers ever since mankind…
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…
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
When one of Ben Gates's (Nicolas Cage) ancestors is revealed to have been part of the Abraham Lincoln assassination plot, the historian/adventurer and his friends try to clear his name.…
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…