One of the most ambitious science-fiction films of the 1980s is Enemy Mine (1985), Wolfgang Petersen’s space odyssey of a personal battle between an Earthman (Dennis Quaid) and a lizard-like alien (Louis Gossett, Jr.) who, following a fierce space battle, […]

Two-character dramas are fairly uncommon in cinema but they usually work well as long as the actors chosen are charismatic.  For Hell in the Pacific (1968), director John Boorman could not have chosen more charismatic actors than Lee Marvin and […]

Charm is also evident in Robert Z. Leonard’s musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, perversely titled In the Good Old Summertime (1949) even though the majority of the story takes place in December.  The locale has been altered […]

Among Ernst Lubitsch’s most charming movies is the comedy-drama The Shop Around the Corner (1940).  Its story of a man and a woman who fall in love through corre-spondence but actively dislike each other in person (they are unaware of […]

Twenty-four years after The Day of the Jackal was released, Universal got its corporate wish and remade the story with howitzers of star power as The Jackal (1997).  Thankfully, because the new film is based on the original’s screenplay, it’s […]

One of the most suspenseful thrillers of the 1970s is this gem, a British-French co-production directed by Fred Zinnemann.  The Day of the Jackal (1973) is an exciting adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s best-seller concerning an conspiracy plot to kill French […]

Four years after Slim, Warner Bros. remade the story, with some notable differences.  The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther quite eruditely explained the studio’s process in this way: The Warner Brothers…know the pat way to forge a thunderbolt.  […]

A romantic triangle forms against the backdrop of high-tension power lines in Slim (1937).  Young farmer Henry Fonda watches linemen erect a steel tower, climb it and string electrical lines.  He’s enthralled, and is soon hired as an apprentice to […]