A Bridge Too Far (1977) Review
Richard Attenborough's massive ensemble WWII epic about Operation Market Garden. Legendary cast across Allied and German command.
Tag: Practical Effects (Page 13)
1990sSaving Private Ryan (1998) Review
Steven Spielberg's WWII masterpiece. Omaha Beach opening is the best war scene ever filmed.
1980sTime Bandits (1981) Review
Terry Gilliam's droll British time travel fantasy. Six dwarves with stolen map of holes in time.
1950sForbidden Planet (1956) Review
Foundation of modern sci-fi cinema. The 10+ rating reflects honest evaluation of a film that holds up nearly seventy years after release despite the inevitable dating that any production from 1956 carries.
1980sDie Hard (1988) Review
Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman as god-tier Hans Gruber, and one perfect Christmas Eve at Nakatomi Plaza. The rating is not negotiable.
1990sHome Alone (1990) Review
Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci fresh off Goodfellas, and Three Stooges traps wrapped around a John Hughes Christmas movie about loneliness. The film holds up better than it has any right to, given that it is essentially Three Stooges slapstick crossed…
1970sPoseidon Adventure (1972) Review
Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, and the founding document of 1970s disaster cinema. The Poseidon Adventure is the founding document of the 1970s disaster genre.
2000sThe Score (2001) Review
Frank Oz, De Niro, Brando, Norton, and the best heist ending of the 21st century. The Score earns its 10+ through ninety minutes of pure character setup.
Fiction WritingThe Greatest Disaster Films
Twenty disaster films ranked by how well they use catastrophe as dramatic engine instead of spectacle substitute, from Jaws's implied shark to The Martian's optimistic problem-solving. What the best disaster films understand that the worst ones don't: the disaster reveals…
1970sStar Wars: A New Hope (1977) Review
A New Hope is the film that created modern blockbuster cinema, and it did so by being something very specific: a myth engine. Lucas wasn't writing characters in the conventional sense.
1990sTotal Recall (1990) Review
Total Recall is one of the great entertainments in science fiction cinema, and its pleasures are specific instead of generic. The women around him are sharply written and sharply performed.
1980sThe Abyss (1989) Review
The production achievement of The Abyss is extraordinary even by Cameron's standards. The Deepcore rig is a superbly designed setting, confined, functional, full of the specific texture of working machinery that Cameron consistently brings to his industrial environments.