|
12%
|
Sphere (1998)
|
"Lacking genuine drama in the dynamics of story and characer, there really is little left for the audience to do but notice its flaws"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
77%
|
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
|
"a real treat for anyone who genuinely enjoys and appreciates the cinema"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
37%
|
Ravenous (1999)
|
"It's hard to ignore entirely, though it may well strike you in the wrong mood and simply seem like a waste of time and talent"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
56%
|
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
|
"Too ridiculous to be taken seriously, too serious to be campy entertainment, the film suffers from an inflated sense of its own ability to generate tension"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
96%
|
Sling Blade (1996)
|
"predictable, parabalistic tale which raises various moral questions about tolerance, charity, physical and emotional abuse, and friendship"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
35%
|
Murder at 1600 (1997)
|
"It moves swiftly, has plenty of action and keeps changing the prime suspect every fifteen minutes or so, making sure everyone is still awake"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
95%
|
Village of the Damned (2004)
|
"not sure enough of its material to give full vent to the questions of human behaviour which seem intrinsic to the subject"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
——
|
The Young Master (Shi di chu ma) (1980)
|
"Not a film for all tastes, but great fun if you're in the right frame of mind."
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
94%
|
Three Kings (1999)
|
"It is easy to miss amid the noise and haste, but there is a very conventional story in here with little that is genuinely original and nothing that is truly subversive"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
48%
|
The Way of the Gun (2000)
|
"Its nihilism may be ironic and postmodern and its clichés may raise the odd unintended chuckle, but it is a strong film which manages to be clever without being smarmy"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
66%
|
Stuart Little (1999)
|
"Minkoff keeps the pace and tone lively despite the occasional sermonising"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
45%
|
The Cell (2000)
|
"the elaborate set ups and decoration belie how shallow and unrevealing it all is"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
30%
|
Screamers (1996)
|
"providing the requisite conceptual richness and some fascinating plot possibilities which are not entirely capitalised upon"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
79%
|
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
|
"so devoutly obsessed with its own intertextuality that it becomes painfully transparent"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
79%
|
Shanghai Noon (2000)
|
"Most of it is very cartoonish, with Jackie struggling gamely with his English-language dialogue against Wilson's vocally sophisticated performance"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
81%
|
Wonder Boys (2000)
|
"a nice little movie which slips through a lot of generic and otherwise definitive cracks"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
98%
|
All About My Mother (1999)
|
"plays with the conventions of the genre by emphasising unusual emotional responses and manipulating identification"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
86%
|
Jackie Brown (1997)
|
"This is a serious film, and this seems to have surprised a great many critics and viewers alike"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
75%
|
The Mighty (1998)
|
"Moving and occasionally quirky drama from Funny Bones director Peter Chelsom"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
80%
|
Private Parts (1997)
|
"Entertaining if self-serving biography of radio superstar Howard Stern"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
76%
|
Amistad (1997)
|
"it is so obvious that Spielberg is trying to push our buttons that we pull back from him and get hostile"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
73%
|
In & Out (1997)
|
"Given the wacky and frequently surreal style of humour in the first half, what prompts the sudden reliance on long dialogue scenes in the latter?"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
70%
|
Shaft's Big Score! (2000)
|
"The story doesn't hold the viewer's attention and though professionally put together, it lacks a real sense of character"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
100%
|
Le Samouraï (The Godson) (2005)
|
"maintains a sombre, effective tone throughout"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
96%
|
The Insider (1999)
|
"Mann seems aware of how to generate atmosphere, but doesn't have the vision to integrate fragmentary moments into a satisfying work of cinema"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
71%
|
The Last Days of Disco (1998)
|
"Stillman is like a preacher on a street corner in heavy traffic. It's hard to hear him clearly and it might not be worth it anyway"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
95%
|
Antz (1998)
|
"one of the few genuine attempts to articulate political concepts though anthropomorphism"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
80%
|
Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)
|
"really more a series of anecdotes than an actual narrative, but it is filled with amusing insights and entertaining incident"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
75%
|
The North Avenue Irregulars (1979)
|
"very much the type of 'family film' to which Disney had increasingly turned in this era and which paid off relatively well"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
78%
|
The Thin Red Line (1998)
|
"a unique and powerful film, as might be expected from the director of Badlands and Days of Heaven"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
56%
|
A Perfect Murder (1998)
|
"for the most part a well worked thriller which takes familiar ingredients and adds enough narrative flourishes to keep it interesting"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
90%
|
Days of Being Wild (A Fei zheng chuan) (1990)
|
"concerned not with the resolution of conflict or even of ideas, but with an exploration of the conflicting patterns of need in dissatisfied human beings"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
93%
|
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
|
"There is some rich material here, but it is in constant danger of being lost"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
55%
|
Pitch Black (2000)
|
"sincere enough in intention to avoid the taint of snigger-up-the-sleeve exploitation which mars so many genre films working with this level of budget"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
85%
|
Billy Elliot (2000)
|
"there is a certain pleasure to be had from watching the unfolding of the spectacle of dance itself which mainstream cinema has been deprived of for far too long"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
75%
|
The Negotiator (1998)
|
"It is hardly the pinnacle of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking, but it fills a gap on a slow night."
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
81%
|
Scream 2 (1997)
|
" It's not just that we've seen it all before in various genre films, we have seen it first time round in Craven/Williamson form, and that's the gag"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
64%
|
EdTV (1999)
|
"better organised and less pretentious than The Truman Show, but no less moot"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
96%
|
Chungking Express (1996)
|
"The intersecting lives of several Hong Kong denizens are detailed with a series of coups de cinema designed to make it all seem much more interesting than it really is."
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
68%
|
The Crucible (1996)
|
"the real power of the piece is still in its literary and theatrical qualities, namely its structure and pointed dialogue, performed admirably by a top cast"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
95%
|
Fireworks (Hana-bi) (1997)
|
"Takeshi's latest film continually reminds us that he possesses one of the most distinctive and unique visions in contemporary world cinema"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
93%
|
My Life to Live (It's My Life) (Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux) (1962)
|
"Godard amuses himself by playing with the conventions of cinematic representation"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
64%
|
The X-Files - Fight the Future (1998)
|
"slackly narrated and prone to irritating leaps in logic which one is meant to presume are deliberate"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
95%
|
Richard III (1995)
|
"certainly worth watching as an important moment in the postmodern evolution of The Bard"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
84%
|
Erin Brockovich (2000)
|
"Its deliberate sacrifice of political resonance in favour of a portrait of successful female self-realisation may not endear it to some, but it is engrossing"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
88%
|
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
|
"a simplistic homage to a woman's right to choose to the extent that she can become not only a man, but a better man than any biological male"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
56%
|
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
|
"It has definite cult possibilities because while there is much that is both striking and spectacular and it is quite cinematic, it is also disorganised"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
71%
|
eXistenZ (1999)
|
"Videodrome for the Playstation generation, a vision of the near future where the war between realpolitik and escapism is being fought over video games"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
41%
|
The Ninth Gate (1999)
|
"Meticulously crafted but poorly scripted yarn"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
|
42%
|
Bean (1997)
|
"It's not so much a bad movie as not a movie at all"
|
Harvey O'Brien
|
79%
74%
61%
52%
27%
4%
