Secretariat
January 18, 2011
After failing to win an Academy Award in 2002 for her brave performance in Unfaithful (losing out to Nicole Kidman in The Hours), cynical pundits surmised that Diane Lane took on the role of Penny Chenery, the owner of the legendary race horse Secretariat,...
Surfer, Dude
January 20, 2009
With his laid-back, bohemian reputation, cultivated by his break-out performance in Dazed and Confused (1993), being cast a professional surfer seems like the role of a lifetime for Matthew McConaughey. Surfer, Dude (2008) was a personal, pet project...
The Bourne Ultimatum
December 18, 2007
Jason Bourne (Damon) is back for a third (and possibly final) installment of the popular series of films based loosely on the Robert Ludlum novels. If The Bourne Identity (2002) was about our hero escaping from his CIA handlers and The Bourne Supremacy...
Backdraft: 2-Disc Anniversary Edition
October 11, 2006
At the time of its release, Backdraft (1991) was regarded by some critics as an admirable if not flawed homage to the profession of firefighting. Of course, compared to the recent Ladder 49 (2004) it seems downright gritty and hard-hitting but still doesn’t...
Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier
August 15, 2006
Made only a few years after the Vietnam War ended, Apocalypse Now (1979) was Francis Ford Coppola’s ambitious fusion of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness and the madness of the American experience in that war. Riding high on the success of The...
Buffalo Soldiers
December 7, 2002
Buffalo Soldiers (2001) had the misfortune of being scheduled to come out in theatres the day after 9/11. Miramax, understandably nervous about releasing a black comedy about the U.S. Army so close after such a devastating event, shelved the film for...
The Right Stuff
May 1, 2002
When The Right Stuff came out in 1983 it was a big hit with critics but failed to get off the launch pad with audiences. The film disappeared off of almost everyone’s radar for the next ten years, only appearing semi-regularly on cable movie channels....