ReelViews for NR movies

When it comes to Citizen Kane, one question eclipses all others: Is it the best film ever made? For years, I have avoided writing a review of this movie, intimidated perhaps by its immense reputation. Having missed the 1991 fiftieth anni...

Note to readers: this review contains spoilers. While I do not believe the revelation of certain plot points will in any way compromise the viewing experience, those who wish to see The War Zone without having previous knowledge of a key element w...

The Hidden Fortress is the third-most influential of Akira Kurosawa's films (behind Rashomon and The Seven Samurai). Unlike many of the great Japanese director's best-known efforts, The Hidden Fortress has not been remade in another language, but ...

In 1927, with much fanfare, The Jazz Singer was released. As every movie-lover knows, this otherwise unremarkable motion picture possessed one crucial asset: it was the first film to use recorded sound, and ushered in the "talkie" era. The trans...

Calling The 400 Blows a "coming-of-age story" seems somehow inadequate. The label, while accurate, does not indicate either the uniqueness or the cinematic importance of this motion picture. These days, the average coming-of-age story tends to be...

Every year around Christmas, there are two stories guaranteed to show up somewhere, sometime on television: A Christmas Carol (of which there are several good versions) and It's a Wonderful Life (of which there is only one). After its copyrig...

Wars, no matter when they are fought or which weapons are employed, share many common characteristics. One is that the cheapest currency is human life. Another is that even the winners pay a toll. And a third is that many soldiers, upon returnin...

Pre-Victorian writer Jane Austen, who died in 1817, has had more books adapted for film in the last twelve months than prolific contemporary authors Michael Crichton and John Grisham. In a very real sense, the movie world is undergoing an "Austen ...

The most popular cinematic export from Japan is inarguably the samurai movie. Whole books have been devoted to the genre, and more than one mail-order video business has made a tidy profit shipping samurai tapes and DVDs around the world. The mos...

By 1952, movie-goers knew exactly what to expect from a Western: a clean-cut, self-assured hero facing down a good-for-nothing villain in a climactic shoot-out, lots of action, gorgeous scenery, and not much in the way of thematic depth. This was...