Connie and Carla, as more than a cult classic, may have displaced La cage aux folles and its sequels (1978, 1980, 1985, 1996). Whereas La cage depicts the frustrations and joys of the life of gays who work for a living by performing as women, Connie and Carla is entirely upbeat. Even gays who dislike men who crossdress will find Connie […]
In Carrie (1976) and The Rage: Carrie II (1999), high school students pick on a girl whose revenge comes when she unleashes telekenetic powers. The current Mean Girls, directed by Mark S. Waters, is based on an opposite premise, a “queen bee” girl who picks on others and controls her friends who gets her comeuppance. Regina (played by Rachel McAdams)
When The Machinist begins, Trevor Reznik (played by Christian Bale) is, late a night, dumping into the ocean what appears to be a body wrapped in a carpet. He is spotted by someone with a flashlight, who approaches and asks him, “Who are you?” Then the scene changes to an earlier time, but the mood has been established: The
The Last Shot, directed and written by Jeff Nathanson, is very loosely based on a true story–an FBI sting operation of the Cosa Nostra. When the film begins, December 1985, kingpins of the Castellano family are gunned down at night on a street in New York. In Houston, three months later, ambitious FBI agent Joe Devine
Some two million students take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) each year, hoping for a perfect score of 1,600. So much emphasis is placed on the SAT that a prosperous tutoring industry has arisen to prepare students to improve their SAT scores. In The Perfect Score, directed by Brian Robbins, several students aiming for a score
Finding Neverland, directed by Marc Forster, is a biopic about a critical period in the life of J. M. Barrie (played by Johnny Depp). When the film begins, forty-three-year-old Barrie is nervous about the fate of an opening night performance of his latest play in London during 1903. The play turns out to be a
Mysterious Skin, directed by Gregg Araki, is an intense, nearly X-rated coming-of-age gay story, based on the novel by Scott Heim. The film begins with two Little Leaguers in Hutchinson, Kansas. At the age of eight, Neil McCormick (played by Chase Ellison) is the best player on a baseball team, impressing the coach (played by
Saved!, directed by Brian Dannelly, follows in the footsteps of Mean Girls in presenting a high school queen bee who tries to control everyone but cracks up when unsuccessful. Whereas Mean Girls takes place in suburban Evanston, Illinois, Saved! is located in a Maryland suburb (though filmed in Vancouver). The protagonists attend American Eagle Christian High, a private school, presumably where
Secuestro Express ends with a title that says, “Half the world is hungry, the other half obese. There are two options. Kill the monster or invite him to dinner.” A Venezuelan film, directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, the thesis is driven home by action that focuses on a “kidnapping express” gang. One late evening, betrothed Carla (played
September Tapes, directed by Christian Johnston, was shot in Afghanistan during July 2002. A handheld camera, supposedly discovered by Johnston, has eight tapes; they are screened as Tape 1, Tape 2, and so forth. At the center of the film is Don Larson (played by George Calil), who has the painful experience of hearing his