Search for 1997

Will the real Howard Stern please stand up? For, in truth, the man who haunts the airwaves of nearly three-dozen radio stations each morning seems vastly different from the kinder, milder version who graces the screen in Betty Thomas' sweet, often...

It has been several years since I've read a book by John Grisham (I believe the last one was The Client). After three or four of Grisham's novels, I grew tired of the predictable repetitiveness and contrived suspense of the narratives. As a resul...

Rosewood, central Florida, 1923. The town's population numbered about 120, mostly black. It was a prosperous, happy community until a January day when one woman's lie set off a chain of events that would have devastating results. That woman was ...

Scream 2 isn't quite as clever as its predecessor, but it fills the gap with a cutting wit. Death -- even gruesome, bloody death -- can be funny if handled the right way (some will be offended by this statement, but you need look no further than P...

Going into Selena, I didn't know or care much about the life of the late Tex-Mex singer, whose death in 1995 came just as she was attempting to break into the mainstream American pop market. As far as I was aware, Selena's tragic end was just anot...

Shadow Conspiracy marks Charlie Sheen's second consecutive conspiracy thriller. Of course, there are several notable differences between this and The Arrival, the most obvious of which has to do with basic quality. For, while last summer's alien ...

What would it be like if celebrated playwright and screenwriter David Mamet collaborated with Franz Kafka? While we'll never know for sure, The Spanish Prisoner gives a good indication. This film, the fifth to be authored and directed by Mamet (w...

If there was ever an action movie that didn't warrant a sequel, it's Speed. However, the film grossed enough money to be numbered among the big summer hits of 1994, and the unfortunate result is this film, which reunites director Jan de Bont wit...

Whenever a motion picture tackles a literary classic of any genre, fans of the written work hold their collective breaths, hoping for the best, but dreading the worst. On rare occasions, something like The Godfather emerges -- a movie that not onl...

The Sweet Hereafter is film maker Atom Egoyan's most compelling movie to date. Amplifying many of the themes explored in his previous outing, Exotica, the Canadian director/writer/producer shows the powerful effects of grief and anger on a com...