Brad Pitt completely commits to the part of a man who is born old and grows younger through a sweeping survey of 20th century history.
Category: based on a short story
‘The Twilight Zone’ – enter another dimension on Hulu and Paramount+
Submitted for your approval: Rod Serling, a writer whose mix of science fiction, fantasy, and social commentary results in the most celebrated and respected anthology series of all time.
Karloff and Lugosi in ‘The Black Cat’ on Criterion Channel
Edgar G. Ulmer’s baroque masterpiece is dark and brilliant and the pinnacle of expressionism in Hollywood horror cinema.
John Huston’s ‘The Dead’ on Criterion Channel
John Huston’s final film is one of his most exquisite works, a perfect cinematic short story and a beautiful adaptation of James Joyce.
David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’ on Amazon Prime
Zodiac (2007), David Fincher’s drama about the notorious unsolved Zodiac killings that had San Francisco gripped in fear during the early seventies, was the filmmaker’s most disciplined, focused, and mesmerizing film to date when it was released in 2007. Based on the non-fiction book by Robert Graysmith, a newspaper cartoonist who became obsessed with the […]
Steven Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’ on Amazon Prime
Steven Spielberg’s future shock crime thriller Minority Report (2002), based on a story by sci-fi visionary Philip K. Dick, offers law enforcement as a preventative force managed by drugged-into-submission psychics: they predict a murder and the cops arrest the perpetrator before he perpetrates anything. The names of the potential killers and victims roll out of […]
Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’ on Amazon Prime
Always one of America’s most undervalued directors, Clint Eastwood proved himself American cinema’s national treasure in the third act of his impressive career. Million Dollar Baby (2004), an understated, unpretentious, powerfully told drama, adapted from F.X. Toole stories by Paul Haggis, earned Eastwood his second round of Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture (his […]
‘I Married a Witch’ – Veronica Lake casts a spell on Criterion Channel
“Long ago, when people still believed in witches …” I Married a Witch (1942), René Clair’s sexy ghost story by way of a cockeyed American romantic comedy, is a delightful and deftly made little trifle with Veronica Lake at her best as the daughter of an ancient supernatural trickster (played by Cecil Kellaway). Resurrected hundreds […]
‘Real Steel’ with Hugh Jackman on Netflix
Distill Rocky and The Champ, add a dash of The Rumble in the Jungle, shake well and serve in larger-than-life rock ’em sock ’em robots. That’s basically what you get with Real Steel (2011), and somehow all those second-hand pieces come together in a rousing (if awfully inevitable) underdog story. Ostensibly based on the same […]
‘Where the Wild Things Are’ – a dreamy Maurice Sendak adaptation on HBO Max
Maurice Sendak’s masterpiece of a picture book comes to the screen in Where the Wild Things Are (2009), a film as unique and heartfelt as the book itself. Director Spike Jonze (whose vision received the blessing of Sendak) and co-scripter Dave Eggars expand and reimagine the story of the defiant Max, a young boy in […]