In Minority Report director Stephen Spielberg brings to the screen a 1956 sci-fi short story by Philip K. Dick that is his what he calls his “ugliest, dirtiest movie.” The year is 2054, six years into an elaborate experimental program operated in the District of Columbia to fight violent crime before murders are committed, using the […]

Although Low Heights (aka Low Altitude and Ertefae Past in Farsi), directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, is about the hijacking of an airplane, the drama enables filmviewers to assess conditions in contemporary Iran. Based on a true story, Ghaseem (played by Hamid Farokhnejad) has given up hope of ever finding happiness in his native Iran. Although he has funds to migrate to

  Sociopathic personalities try to manipulate others out of fear that they will otherwise be manipulated themselves. In Merci pour le Chocolat, Marie-Clair “Mika” Müller-Polonksi (played by Isabelle Huppert) is a wealthy but alienated president of a Swiss chocolate manufacturing company. Although the story does not explain how she rose to her position, the Müller family

Long Time Dead is a British horror film. As credits roll, 1979 and Morocco are identified as the time and place for mysterious events involving a Ouija board. The film begins with a group of mixed twentysomething youth, who are hanging out together in a London apartment. Soon, they go to a disco and get bored

The Lonely Affair of the Heart, directed by Junichi Suzuki, is filmed mostly in black and white to reflect the boredom and unhappiness of Orie (played by Rumi Sakakibara), a woman in her forties who married her sister’s husband after her sister died. Shiraki (played by Masakane Yonekura), her sixty-four-year-old husband, has given her a

  Every year Hollywood offers a back-to-school film, and for 2002 the scary offering is Swimfan, directed by John Polson. Ben Cronin (played by Jesse Bradford) is a senior at a high school in New Jersey (though the filming is on Long Island); he is a top swimmer. Coach Simkins (played by Dan Hedaya) tells him

  The United States is all about money, not the quality of life, opines Puerto Rican immigrant Victor Rosa (played by John Leguizamo) in an early voiceover monologue as the film Empire begins. Whereas many American films glorify lawbreakers, notably Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The Sting (1973), those involving drugs are often filled with degradation and violence, and Empire is no exception.

  Like father, like son? Do genetics predestine us or do we have a choice? City by the Sea, based on a true story recounted in a 1997 Esquire article written by Michael McAlary, asks both questions. The first is answered more or less in the affirmative, the second by taking the side of free will. To do

Die Another Day, the twentieth James Bond film in forty years, is directed by Lee Tamahori and has extraordinary special effects, keeping everyone awake from possible slumber during the boring parts. James Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan) is sent by M16 to North Korea to track down a diamond smuggling operation. When he arrives, Zao

When a close long-term relationship ends in the death of one partner, the survivor will understandably grieve even after the memorial service, which is supposed to bring closure in ordinary circumstances. In Dragonfly, Dr. Joe Darrow (played by Kevin Costner) is an emergency room physician at Chicago Memorial Hospital whose wife Dr. Emily Darrow (played