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The Ballad of Narayama, a 1958 Japanese film from director Keisuke Kinoshita, is revered in some critical circles because of its extreme stylization – using the art of kabuki theater to form a template for the exploration of Shichiro Fukazaw...

Controversy is swirling around Bandit Queen, likely to be one of 1995's most discussed features. Supposedly based on the real-life experiences of a modern Indian folk hero named Phoolan Devi, the authenticity of the film's script is now unde...

Barb Wire has the cleavage of a Russ Meyer film without the jiggle. If someone was going to make a campy version of Casablanca, you'd think they'd at least have the decency to make it fun. Unfortunately, other than a couple of very obvious, ab...

In my original, unpublished review of Basic Instinct (dated March 21, 1992), I wrote the following: "There's a fine line between eroticism and exploitation, and Basic Instinct treads it, using nudity, sex, and violence to cover up the limitations o...

Basquiat, the fictionalized biography of graffiti artist-turned-international sensation, Jean Michael Basquiat, is the latest in a long line of "suffering artist" motion pictures, following closely on the heels of last year's controversial Tota...

The superheroes of DC Comics have been very good to Warner Brothers. In 1978, Superman became a major motion picture event, packing theaters and resulting in a franchise that generated three sequels before collapsing under the weight of bad writin...

With Batman and Robin, the fourth entry in the recent Batman movie series, the profitable franchise appears poised to take a nosedive. This film, which places yet another actor in the batsuit, has all the necessary hallmarks of a sorry sequel...

It's lighter, brighter, funnier, faster-paced, and a whole lot more colorful than before. There's a new actor underneath the cape, a new girlfriend on his arm, and a new partner by his side. The director is different and the composer has changed....

The box office performance of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman assured there would be sequel but Burton’s desire for greater creative control caused the production of Batman Returns to linger in development longer than Warner Brothers preferred. In ad...

Filtered through a prism of Italian neo-realism, The Battle of Algiers is an unflinching portrayal of how high-minded ideals get trampled underfoot in the heat of war. The film is relevant to modern-day audiences not so much in the specificity ...