Movies
Showing articles 121 - 140 (148 total)
30Jul3:24 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
Starring Kenneth Branagh (in total "auteur" mode as lead and director), as well as Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, Campbell Scott, even a minor role for Robin Williams, Dead Again (1991) is certainly worthy of a viewing. The film takes risks, as Branagh is known to do, but succeeds with its convicting and talented cast. via imdb.com Mike...
23Jul10:34 amEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
The Last Seduction (1994) is one of those film 1990's noirs I love that seemingly very few have seen. You do not want to miss the talented and sexy Linda Fiorentino’s classic performance as a monstrous femme fatale, along with the perfectly-cast Peter Berg and Bill Pullman. via imdb.com A devious sexpot steals her husband’s drug money and...
16Jul4:10 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
Locked Up Abroad (original title, Banged Up Abroad) has been a running documentary TV Series since 2006 on the National Geographic Channel. Also available on Netflix and Amazon, most of the 60-minute episodes follow a similar format, with a mix of interviews from the real-life people portrayed in the series amid a dramatic reenactment. The...
10Jul10:40 amEST
Sunday Matinée at Market Chess Cinemas
Recent discussions about race in America has me thinking of one of my favorite all-time films: In the Heat of the Night (1967). The film is in the mystery genre with a backdrop of racial tension in the south from the mid-twentieth century. A black detective from up north, played by the brilliant Sidney Poitier, is asked to investigate a...
02Jul7:32 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
On this Fourth of July weekend, it is worth going back to just before the American Revolution with The Last of the Mohicans (1992), set in 1757 during the French and Indian War. Fought mostly here in present-day America, the result of the war (a British victory over France, with both sides fighting alongside Native American allies) would...
25Jun11:15 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
You are in for a treat tonight, seeing as Stairway to Heaven (1946) [A Matter of Life and Death (original title)] apparently is in the public domain--The full version of the film can be seen below. So feel free to enlarge the video screen and enjoy one of the best films of the 1940s, starring the great Raymond Massey. via YouTube and...
19Jun11:36 amEST
Sunday Matinée at Market Chess Cinemas
Following in tradition for this website Father's Day, the great father/son tale told in Road to Perdition (2002) is worth a viewing (or a repeat viewing). My own father died in 2002, not long before this film was released. I often wonder if he would have liked it as much as I think he would have. I suppose I will always associate this film with...
12Jun12:03 pmEST
Sunday Matinée at Market Chess Cinemas
Unforgiven (1992) is arguably the best anti-violence film ever made; ironic since on the surface it appears to be a rather violent film. In light of the mass shooting overnight in Orlando, I am going to pick Unforgiven again, in case you still have not seen it. Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, along with great performances from...
04Jun8:33 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
Saving Private Ryan (1998), Director Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ dramatic World War II epic, makes sense to watch (and re-watch) with the D-Day Anniversary approaching this Monday (from June 6th, 1944, when the Allies put into action the long-awaited Normandy Beach Landings into Nazi-controlled Europe). The jaw-dropping cast features...
29May11:54 amEST
Sunday Matinée at Market Chess Cinemas, Memorial Day Edition
There are many great ones from which to choose on Memorial Day Weekend, but I still say that The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) presents a great tribute to those who lost their lives in combat by, ironically, showing how much life has changed for those veterans who survived the second world war. The story is gripping, heartbreaking, but...
21May9:16 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
Even if you are not the most steadfast basketball fan, I still recommend the well-crafted "Bad Boys: 30 for 30," courtesy of ESPN, available on Netflix, among other places to watch. During arguably the Golden Age of the NBA in the 1980s into the Michael Jordan-dominated 1990s, the Detroit Pistons won back-to-back Championships in 1989 and...
14May6:57 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
The untimely death of Garry Shandling earlier this year saw the world losing an incredibly underrated comedian. It is truly unfortunate that The Larry Sanders Show, in which Shandling played the lead, ran on HBO as a sitcom from 1992-1998, before the era of ubiquitous streaming television shows for all to watch. Thus, its brilliance will likely...
07May6:53 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
On this Mother's Day Weekend, one of the more common points of feedback I receive from female readers is that the weekend film recommendations are almost never anything remotely resembling a "Chick Flick." So let's tackle that issue tonight, with Next Stop Wonderland (1998), a very underrated and under-watched film which is certainly worth...
30Apr9:54 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
While Citizen Kane (1941) is the film most famously associated with Orsen Welles, Touch of Evil (1958) is as good as they come, complete with Charlton Heston playing a Mexican and Welles himself as one of the stars. Below, you will find the official trailer to the movie, followed by another video with the famous opening "long shot." Note...
23Apr7:24 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
Geoffrey Rush's performance, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar, on a standalone basis makes Shine (1996) worth seeing. Rush would rise to a more prominent status in Hollywood after this role, as pianist David Helfgott, who makes a riveting comeback to the piano after enduring a breakdown at a younger age. This film is based on the...
17Apr12:44 pmEST
Sunday Matinée at Market Chess Cinemas
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) combines one of my favorite writers, directors, film genres all together for an enjoyable viewing. The genre is technically a neo-film noir, stylish and sharp and harkening back to Hollywood yesteryear, directed by Carl Franklin (of One False Move fame). The film is based on Walter Mosley's novel of the same name...
09Apr10:19 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
A new Major League Baseball season underway is good enough reason for me to recommend one of my all-time personality favorites, Eight Men Out (1988). We have looked at the work of auteur John Sayles before, with Lone Star (1996). But this one really brought his career into focus and earned him considerable respect in Hollywood in the...
02Apr9:20 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
Rushmore (1998) is a light-hearted but sharp-tongued original comedy, starring Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman as the memorable Max Fischer. I have great memories of the film, as I saw it in a packed theater right when it was released while I was in college, with a spirited crowd roaring to each scene. Directed by Wes Anderson and...
26Mar8:53 pmEST
Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas
I just finished watching the first two seasons of Bosch , a television series produced by Amazon Studios. Based on three of Michael Connelly’s novels: City of Bones, Echo Park, and The Concrete Blonde, Bosch is incredibly impressive on many levels and is not your run-of-the-mill detective drama (of which there are plenty these days). Titus...
20Mar12:46 pmEST
Sunday Matinée at Market Chess Cinemas
Nearly twenty-five years later, I can vividly remember sitting in a theater being mesmerized by the cinematography in the film, A River Runs Through It (1992). Based on the true story of Norman Maclean’s life in Missoula, Montana, Robert Redford directs a gripping period piece about fly fishing and the different paths that two brothers take...