Peter Weir’s sweeping nautical adventure Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), based on the beloved novels of Patrick O’Brien, all but blows sea spray from the screen. Russell Crowe is Captain Jack Aubrey of the H.M.S. Surprise, an English officer on the high seas during the Napoleonic wars, and Paul Bettany […]
Forget Van Helsing. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) is the great swashbuckling dispatcher of the bloodsucking undead. Hard-faced Horst Janson is the brooding Kronos, a rangy, sword-wielding soldier who hunts the vampire scourge with his jovial hunchbacked partner, Grost (John Cater) and takes time out from his athletic battles and meditative interludes for a few […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The two biggest movie monsters around go toe-to-claw in “Godzilla vs. Kong” (2021, PG-13) after the lizard king attacks Florida and the giant ape is set free from Skull Island for the […]
In Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988, PG), sloppy, brash American con man Steve Martin tramples through the carefully guarded French Riviera territory of elegant charlatan Michael Caine. This, of course, means war. The prize is the easy pickings of the rich widows who pass through the wealthy resort town. The battle? The first to separate an […]
When John Woo, the action maestro of Hong Kong cinema, is working at the top of his game, he transforms violent action cinema into a ballet of blood and bullets that matches the emotional intensity of his character drama. Face/Off (1997) is his second American film but the first to reach the pitched level of […]
A Simple Plan (1998) – An endless white landscape of rolling hills and snow-blanketed forests. A lonely acoustic score (by Danny Elfman) plays in the background. A vision of rural simplicity portrayed in hushed tones. The stillness is about to shatter. Brothers Hank (Bill Paxton), an accountant at a small town feed store, and Jacob […]
The leathery frontier drama Hondo (1953) stars John Wayne as a Cavalry scout who comes across a lonely homestead where a toughened settler (Geraldine Page) and her son await the return of her brutish husband (Leo Gordon), refusing to leave even as tensions between the Apache nation and the Cavalry heat up into war. Wayne […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Anthony Hopkins stars a lively 80-year-old widower defiantly holding on to his independence as his mind begins to falter and Olivia Colman is the loving daughter watching him slip away in “The […]
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Complete Series (2008-2010), the TV spin-off of the Terminator films, turned out to be both smart science fiction and gritty, spectacular action for the small screen. That already makes it more compelling and rewarding than the last few films in the series. Set in the aftermath of Terminator 2: Judgment […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Carey Mulligan is the “Promising Young Woman” (2020, R) of this drama that uses black comedy and revenge thriller conventions to confront the trauma of sexual assault. Bo Burnham and Alison Brie […]
