Once Upon a Time in America has a chequered history, having been chopped from its original 229-minute director's cut to 139 minutes for its theatrical release. The longer edition presented here benefits from having the complete story (the short version has huge gaps) about turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants in America finding their way into lives of crime, as told in flashback by an ...
Milos Forman's 1979 film of the 1968 musical Hair is far more watchable than it has any right to be. Controversial though the original stage version might have been at the time, it has not dated well. It was written back when most people thought the Vietnam War was a good idea and long hair on men a signifier of a hopelessly corrupt society, rather than the other way around. By the time the ...
After a foolproof scam turns sour, Jimmy the Saint (a soulful but miscast Andy Garcia, who mainly acts with his hair) and his hard-bitten crew must put their various sordid affairs in order before facing their final bloody curtain call. It's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, but Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead is a terminally wise-ass (and extremely violent) caper flick, and ...
Following in the reptilian slime trail of Anaconda, this derivative monster movie from early 1998 plays like a cross between Titanic and Tremors, with parts of Aliens tossed in for good measure. Director Stephen Sommers couldn't recognise an original idea if it swallowed him whole--which, by the way, is exactly what happens to a lot of passengers on a luxury ship that ...