Between the Bruce Campbell movies and Spider Man movies, Sam Raimi made A Simple Plan (1998) starring Billy Bob Thornton and The Gift here written by him. Billy Bob was very hot in 2000 and the cast assembled here is quite a collection. Cate Blanchett leads the way, but she is supported by Hilary Swank (both won Oscars in 2004), JK Simmons (another Oscar winner) as the hilarious local sheriff, Gary Cole, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves (playing a real piece of work character) and Greg Kinnear. Katie Holmes, right smack dab in the middle of Dawson’s Creek, may have

Hero is such a significant artistic achievement. Yimou Zhang’s film is simultaneously one of the great Wuxia films (martial arts films set in ancient China) and one of the most considerable visual achievements in 21st century cinema. It was one of the most expensive Chinese films made to date in 2002. The prologue introduces the scenario. There are seven warring nations in China. “In any war there are heroes on both sides.” Jet Li plays “Nameless”- with a complex strategy to assassinate the king. To get close enough to the king (Daoming Chen) he has to kill Sky (Donnie

For Francis Ford Coppola this is still not a great film, (the earliest in the archives)- but he is no longer working with Roger Corman and Finian’s Rainbow (1968) is in his rearview so this is his most personal film to date. The bulk of Roger Ebert’s four-star praise for it in 1969 is about the freshness of Coppola’s voice. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-rain-people-1969 Coppola, cast and crew (including Walter Murch and a young George Lucas a production associate) traveled around the country to make the film. There is a clear care for composition and eye for visuals in the first shot

Lee Isaac Chung tells the story of a Korean family moving to rural Arkansas in the 1980s. Chung tells the story with such remarkable specificity (he grew up in rural Arkansas in the 1980s himself - personal). The couple (played by Yeri Han and Steven Yeun) often fight and their children (Noel Cho and Alan Kim) send them paper airplanes with “Don’t fight” written on them in crayons. Again, nothing here is told in a generic, broad way. Their house is on wheels, their profession is identifying the sex of baby chicks, Mountain Dew is called “water from the

When M. Night Shyamalan was a one-man phenomenon making The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) many called him a Spielberg clone or acolyte. Twenty years later, it is hard to get through a review of John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place without mentioning Shyamalan. This is a horror/sci-fi with an ingenious twist. The Abbott family (played by Emily Blunt, Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and Cade Woodward) live in a post apocalyptic world where the alien monsters have very sensitive hearing. There are two time periods covered, a prologue (day 89) and the rest of the action

City of Women is an admirable cocktail blend of La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The first two make sense- this is twenty years after the first (of two up to this point) pairing of Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni. The two men took world cinema by storm with their masterpiece collaborations in the early 1960s. In City of Women Marcello plays Snaporaz. He is riding on the train and starts stalking and lusting after a desirable woman (played by Bernice Stegers). He follows his manhood right off the train (Alice chasing

Billy Wilder adapts Agatha Christie to great success in Witness for the Prosecution. Witness for the Prosecution appears often on lists of the best court room films. Wilder’s achievement is muted, this is a greater accomplishment for Charles Laughton as Sir Wilfrid Roberts and Marlene Dietrich as Christine. Laughton plays this Jabba the Hutt-looking lizard of a cantankerous old man. He is insulting everything and everyone for the entire running time of the film. But, he is hell bent on the truth- and he is so damn likeable despite the description here. “I’m a mean, ill-tempered old man who

Peeping Tom killed the career of the great auteur Michael Powell. The film was rediscovered, and its reputation was largely saved (or at least revived) by Martin Scorsese in the 1980s. But, I have enough pages dedicated to Scorsese here so I’ll stick to the text here- that’s how Scorsese would want it anyways. I forgot it actually begins with The Archers (Powell and (former at this time) partner Pressburger) logo before saying “A Michael Powell production”. There is a closeup of an eye for the first frame. The second frame is a stunning cinematic painting here below. This

The Sand Pebbles is a well produced handsome film. It was made at a time when director Robert Wise and star Steve McQueen were at the height of their powers. Wise was coming off The Sound of Music in 1965 (one of the most successful films of all time) and could make just about whatever he wanted (this was a passion project)—and McQueen was between The Great Escape (1963) and Bullitt (1968). The Sand Pebbles is more epic than war film. It is shot on 35mm runs 182 minutes uses the wide 2.39 : 1 frame and it is

Power past the absurd title if you admired Anthony Mann’s T-Men (1948) and are seeking out something similar (if admittedly a little lesser) and appreciate a good film noir. The production team from T-Men is back along with the strong-jawed leading man Dennis O’Keefe even if Mann is not. Reed Hadley is even here to provide the voice of God narration like T-Men or He Walked at Night. Like T-Men, this rooted as a docudrama with that narration—but it is propaganda. This is one of the first Cold War films (“he’s a fair painter”- “yeah, if there wasn’t so

With the wide canvas and beautiful pink titles in the opening credits—this feels like Minnelli from the very opening frames. After the titles, the film starts as an infomercial for Susanswerphone- an upscale answering service based out of a dingy Brooklyn building- where Judy Holliday’s Ella works. Minnelli ends the film with the infomercial as well to tie things up formally. Ella cares about her clients and gets involved in the lives of many of them- including Jeffrey Moss (played by Dean Martin). This is Holliday’s last film sadly- she passed away at age 43. She was a talented

Steven Spielberg (29 years old in 1975) went into Jaws as a promising young filmmaker and emerged as a wunderkind with a masterpiece under his belt. Jaws also smashed box office records and Spielberg became a one man movie industry movement. It opens with a short little horror film of two teenagers at a beach party. The sequence is largely without dialogue, it introduces John Williams’ brilliantly simple score, and has some lovely photography with dusk arriving on the water. Roy Scheider plays Brody- the chief of police in Amity Island. Brody is a former NYPD