The Jackal (1997) Review
Bruce Willis plays a cold, charming assassin who changes faces like coats, Richard Gere the IRA sniper sent to catch him, and the target is a real surprise. Critics hated it. It's an 8.5 and my favorite Jackal.
Tag: 1990s
The 1990s sit at the hinge between analog and digital, and its films show the seam. This tag collects reviews of 1990s cinema: the era’s styles, anxieties, and the classics the decade quietly stacked up.
1990s8MM (1999) Review
8MM (1999) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Joel Schumacher directing Andrew Kevin Walker's script about a private investigator tracing a snuff film, with Nicolas Cage restrained and Joaquin Phoenix excellent, undone by a third act that…
1990sLeaving Las Vegas (1995) Review
Leaving Las Vegas (1995) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A man goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death and states the plan in the first twenty minutes. Mike Figgis shot it for around four…
1990sStar Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) Review
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine rates 10 and above on the rewatch scale and is the best series the franchise has produced. It is also the most underrated rating in Trek history. A station instead of a ship, a military…
1980sStar Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) Review
Star Trek: The Next Generation rates 6 to 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A hundred and seventy-six episodes with a ceiling higher than almost any television of its era and a floor that includes the most embarrassing…
1990sStar Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) Review
Star Trek: Voyager rates minus 1 on the rewatch scale, with exceptions for the Borg material and the Seven of Nine seasons. Reset button television. Nothing ever mattered because they needed to be lost again next week, and the conflict…
1990sElizabeth (1998) Review
Elizabeth (1998) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Shekhar Kapur made a Tudor film that behaves like a political thriller, with Cate Blanchett moving from frightened prisoner to constructed icon across two hours. She lost Best Actress…
1990sShakespeare in Love (1998) Review
Shakespeare in Love (1998) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A genuinely witty romantic comedy with a superb Tom Stoppard screenplay, which beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture through the most studied campaign in Academy history…
1990sPhiladelphia (1993) Review
Philadelphia (1993) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The first major studio film about AIDS, made deliberately as a courtroom drama so that a mainstream audience would watch it, and Tom Hanks won Best Actor over Daniel…
1990sLife is Beautiful (1998) Review
Life is Beautiful (1998) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Roberto Benigni made a comedy about a father convincing his son that a concentration camp is a game, won Best Actor, and produced the most divisive film…
1990sForrest Gump (1994) Review
Forrest Gump (1994) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A technically remarkable film with a genuinely great performance at its center and a politics it has spent thirty years being argued about, which beat Pulp Fiction and…
1990sDances with Wolves (1990) Review
Dances with Wolves (1990) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Costner directed a three-hour Western largely in Lakota with subtitles, which nobody wanted financed, and it made four hundred million dollars and beat Goodfellas. The film is…