Simon Axler (Pacino) has invested his whole life in acting. He eats, sleeps, and breathes the craft, so when he finds his faculties failing, he’s at a loss. What can he do with himself if he can’t act? And how can he act if he can no longer remember his lines or maintain the energy …
Now, I enjoy football as much as the next gal (Go, Seahawks!), but I also know it is a game and it isn’t the end-all/be-all of the New World Order. Or at least it shouldn’t be. But Oliver Stone takes football very very seriously. He has footage of football players interspersed with gladiators fighting to …
I remember hearing things when The Godfather: Part III was being made—unflattering things that hinted at disorganization and potential failure. Psst. Francis Ford is fiddling with the script as they go. Hey, did you hear? Winona Ryder’s sick, they’re bringing in Sofia Coppola. His DAUGHTER. She’s AWFUL. Somehow those words set something off in me, …
Pacino plays Will Dormer (the name a clever play on the French verb “to sleep”), a veteran cop from LA, who is called to a case in Alaska, the land of the midnight sun, as a favor to a friend in a small town police force. There’s been a murder of a teenage girl, unthinkable …
There are movies you watch and movies that happen to you. Dog Day Afternoon first happened to me late one night in junior high as I was flipping channels during Saturday Night Live. I watched the entire movie perched on the end of the bed, about two feet from the screen. It never occurred to …
Heat begins with a love scene between Al Pacino and Diane Venora so steamy that it makes me weak in the knees just to think about it. I can’t believe she got paid to be kissed like that by him! Vincent Hanna (Pacino) is not only a good kisser, he’s a dedicated police lieutenant who …
Isn’t it weird how some films reflect the times in which they were made, and others just become dated? And Justice For All suffers from the latter. I had a feeling I needed to watch this movie by myself, and I’m glad I did. The tone is strangely off-key, Jack Warden is utterly out of …
I love the Revolutionary War. It has all the tragedy, glamour, and pomp, leaving none for the other wars. In fifth grade, my best friend and I made armies out of twigs and played Revolutionary War at recess. I have seen The Patriot seven times. Guess who made a movie about the Revolutionary War? Al …
I’m starting to think 88 Minutes was designed as some sort of gauntlet for Al Pacino’s talent. It seems like someone actually sat down and said, “Hey, let’s give Al this really weak script, send him out of make-up with his hair too poufy, and see if we can throw him off his game. Ooh! …
When The Devil’s Advocate first came to video in the late nineties, my co-workers at a tiny independent video store literally fought over who got to keep the screener. Yes, a VHS screener that periodically ran the words “property of Warner Home Video” right over pivotal scenes and threatened death and doom if one were …