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While Steele Justice is highly entertaining44 and very clearly following in the footsteps of a formula44 its action execution is often sloppy and hamhanded46

Who needs a Rambo spoof when Rambo so successfully spoofed itself

A highly accomplished tearjerker from Britain and worth seeing for its warmth of feeling even though you are aware all along that you are being worked on by a team of professional sentimentalists

Its the sort of film where in a crisis nuns roll their eyes skywards and slowly murmur with clasped hands things like Sweet Jesus have mercy

If you want to know what the ultimately synthetic boxoffice film would look like then try this weepie

A sincere and involving celebration of the human heart that manages to sell its moving story without relying on mere sentimentality

Thoughtful casting lends the film resonance and its far better than its potentially mawkish plot combination of children and nuns would suggest

The pathos of little children caught in the agony of war is always a solid staple of sentiment on the screen It has been well and touchingly presented in any number of films And it is offered again with deep compassion in Conspiracy of Hearts

Papagajka starts with the mystery of an intriguing and beautiful world but unfortunately doesnt go beyond a surface level exploration of its world and characters

A small yet satisfying psychological drama dripping with atmosphere and surreal beauty

Addicted doesnt know how to competently address its issues of shame and guilt without simply reifying that sexual fulfillment is something that ravages unless tightly contained

Addicted is the kind of film for which the Alan Smithee pseudonym was invented

Woodruffs direction is smooth enough on a technical level but the films storytelling has little dimension even for a melodrama

The actors are uniformly handsome and mostly serviceable though the same cant be said about the filmmaking or the writing

Part soapy melodrama part steamy thriller of infidelity gone sideways this film is wholly unconvincing as a study of sexual compulsion

Watching Addicted is like eating Cheese Whiz straight from the jar Theres no nutritional value Its kind of embarrassing But it does satisfy a base craving for cheap immediate sensation

The film unfortunately depicts black female sexuality a topic rarely portrayed onscreen with all the depth and subtlety of a late night Cinemax offering

Addicted doesnt know whether it wants to be a modernday bodiceripper a moralitytinged cautionary tale or a serious snapshot of sexual compulsion Whatever the case it fails on all fronts

Billed as an erotic thriller but playing more like an Rrated daytime soap Addicted marks a rare but dramatically neutered opportunity to explore a black womans sexuality onscreen

Addicted doesnt fail because it wants to provide steamy soapy melodrama to a mainstream audience its faults are a function of its judgment not of its genre more Cinemax than cinematic

The film lingers so lovingly over Zoes many sexual exploits that one almost feels disappointed when it becomes clear that the film is about to turn into a lecture Erotica is best when it doesnt take itself too seriously

While the leads are certainly attractive enough to bring the book to life the film fails to live up to the melodrama and seductiveness that made the book popular

Far be it from me to totally trash a seeminglysilly soap opera males might find laughable to the same extent it moves females to tears Go figure

If one squints hard enough all the nudity and grinding might retain appeal but for those who cant switch their brain off the picture is maddeningly inconsistent and comically performed

The film is fun bright mindless yet bubbly and to be appreciated in that vain if at all Recommendation Watch anything else

Watchable as an outrageous film

That it succeeds is mostly due to Fonda Calling her performance powerhouse would be a grand understatement

The film is meticulously made offering a swirl of tension aided in this by Michael Smalls haunting score and Fonda is indeed fantastic even if the role shes playing happens to be a Hollywood staple of outdated moors

Like other of Pakulas greatest films featuring phenomenal female leads this is really a Jane Fonda picture youre watching and its impossible to forget it

Style grit and a narrative that pits focus on the unforgiving landscape of New York City

There is a timelessness to the freakyness and sadness of the human condition in this film and Fonda is nothing short of sensational in her tense portrayal of a transitioning soul An essential watch

As close to a classic as anything New Hollywood produced

Persuasive script by Andy and Dave Lewis elegantly muted Technicolor high in its class

What lifts it above its Bpicture origins and the pastiche is certainly conscious is the style crisp elliptical only moderately arty of Alan J Pakulas direction

This is done with remarkably little dialogue but with a tremendous sense of tension and atmosphere

But Klute feels vibrantly alive in a way that betrays its subdued chilliness

While the plot mechanics work along the wellworn gears of any number of mysterythrillers the film catches and holds us because Bree is such a fascinating enigmatic character

Klute is a cool film about a cool customer but its all a faade Its more of a character study in thriller garb and Brees cool affect is mostly a wellhoned act

There was no shortage of superb performances by lead actresses in the 1970s Diane Keaton in Annie Hall and Sally Field in Norma Rae are two that immediately come to mind but Jane Fondas turn in Klute was not only great but also groundbreaking

A movie resolutely of its moment that still surges with thirdrail electricity

Playing a complex sharpy written part Jane Fonda won the Best Actress Oscar for her strongest dramatic performance in Alan Pakulas well mounted drmataic thriller

Produced handsomely in New York but directed tediously by Alan J Pakula the film is a suspenser without much suspense

One of the most important and influential movies of the early 1970s

Fonda makes all the right choices from the mechanics of her walk and her voice inflection to the penetration of the girls raging psyche It is a rare performance

Sutherland is either an excellent sounding board for this nuanced portrait or hes a big zero probably both Fonda however transcends her limitations making the most of her often forced quality as an actress

Fonda is simply a revelation beautiful sassy and streetwise and yet hauntingly vulnerable She deserved her Oscar in a role she has never bettered

For once a genuinely psychological thriller

Fonda won an Oscar Roy Scheider is her nasty pimp

With Fonda and Sutherland you have actors who understand and sympathize with their characters and you have a vehicle worthy of that sort of intelligence So the fact that the thriller stuff doesnt always work isnt so important

Fonda and Sutherland sizzle A great story too

A knockout

The whole movie is selfconsciously artsy with long periods of silence carefully composed camera setups that I guess are supposed to suggest remoteness and alienation

Pakula when he is not indulging in subjective camera strives to give his film the look of structural geometry but despite the sharp edges and dramatic spaces and cinema presence out of Citizen Kane it all suggests a tepid rather tasteless mush

Fonda and Sutherland are at the top of their game in this mysterythriller that also provides a fasinating look into the mind and soul of a top NYC callgirl

A gripping suspense thriller Fonda tough and vulnerable deserved her Oscar here

Fondas riveting performance is impossible to shake

Thanks to its complexities of character and morality Klute creates a proposition for the audience in which theres no such thing as simple pleasure even if were paying

Worth a look for Fonda who finally became an actress with this role

An exciting murdermystery story that serves as a fascinating study of the complex inner life of an attractive call girl played by Jane Fonda

Even today it remains difficult to overpraise the depth and reality Fonda brought to her character or to overstate how completely she set the pace for actresses in the 70s

Informed in part by the conventions of film noirKlute manages to distil them all into something highly original and distinctly unsettling

Klute was fresh when it came out in the 1970s but time has taken away much of its boldness

Mann stages some thrilling sequences notably a pounding storm and while Thunder Bay is no masterpiece its still worth a look

Thunder Bay combines all the elements for an engrossing movie

Sets up fascinating tensions between people and ways of looking at the world but ultimately backs away from any kind of meaningful examination of them

Theres not many directors other than Anthony Mann who could have made the rival wildcatters and shrimpers become so loveydovey

Stinks up the joint

The whole film has an air of smugness about it as if Burns has created this 92minute joke which either you get or you dont

Uncertain as to whether its a horror story a cautionary tale or simply another absurdist look at life and love in the big city A Problem With Fear gets its own case of the cold sweats

A Problem With Fear is aggressively busy jumping between sterile office buildings airless shopping malls and hurtling subways cut with television and computer game images None of it though amounts to much beyond a sense of visual irritation

A puerile TVstyle pigskin parody

Silver has done something really special with all of this bringing the stories of these four people together in a sort of relationship mlange that speaks to the ways people cant help but miss the forest for the trees

The offhanded piercing quality of the comedy within the vipers nest of romantic roundelays suggests a cruel Alan Rudolph and thats more than enough for me

Selfdelusion is the principal subject of this short acerbic comedy by Nathan Silver

Flashbacks and fantasies plus wry inserts of film clips and complex overlaps of art and life adornfor that matter overwhelmthe story which is built on flimsy psychological clichs amid the implacable imperatives of desire and disease

The energetically crafted wellacted movie about characters one would go to considerable extremes to avoid in real life is turning into a veritable indie microgenre

The Great Pretenders fails at every genre it pretends to be

The Great Pretender manages to illustrate the irrefutable truth that life and romance is messy but also quite entertaining

The punchlines are dark and the tone is caustic but its central concern is a classic one what we see in other people and how we would like to see ourselves

This film is a beautiful and beguiling art object

Unfortunately as with so many of Silvers films the endless selfabsorption of the characters on display quickly wears thin

While by no means a masterpiece or rewriting of all that has come before iOnce Upon a Time in Calcuttai exhibits the dramatic potential of a director who refuses to ignore what is oft left forgotten in what is considered the stages of development

Peripheral details like an old abandoned theater and a pregnant dog were more interesting than the main characters

A crisp little picture framed in a hazy bigger one defined by a nervy national mood that is implicitly felt rather than explicitly illustrated

It feels like a young filmmaker has watched a lot of porn ultraviolence and Gus Van Sant and tried to combine them in one movie And it just doesnt work At all

The underlying pathos in the premise gives the film a jolt of emotion thats difficult to define

A school comedy so predictable the screenwriters should be sent to the principals office but with a central performance worth skipping last period for

It was good acting and good writing

Oh dear am I the Duff

While director Ari Sandels adaptation is devoid of any surprises and spells out every thought and action it does finally deliver a worthy message

Not clever enough to be genredefining in its own right The DUFF nevertheless follows successfully in the footsteps of its teen romcom predecessors delivering both laughs and a genuinely touching romance

Its not a terrible movie just kind of forgettable and average

This is Whitmans show and shes so strong she makes a good film out of what should have been a middling one

Theres a part of me that thinks I should dislike this film on principle alone but Id be lying if I said I did dislike the finished project

A fairly predictable entry into the teen genre that is elevated thanks to an incredibly charming lead performance from Mae Whitman

THE DUFF has a visual style that places you in the lexicon of the teen psyche with selfreferential hashtags and slang

Both the cruelty of the students and the happiness of the ending felt beyond the realm of possibility to me If youre going to make a satire you have to go all the way

What keeps this movie from simply being a tired ripoff is the incredible performance of Mae Whitman

Always fun to see how high school gets technoupdated The phoneandsocialmedia insanity portrayed here makes the beepers of 1995s Clueless look like trilobite fossils

The DUFF brings something different to the genre