|
|
|
Streets of Gold
|
|
|
Waterdance
: essential video:This 1992 drama written by Neal Jimenez and codirected by him and Michael Steinberg (the two worked together on the underrated Bodies, Rest, and Motion) stars Eric Stoltz as a successful novelist who becomes paraplegic following a hiking accident. Jimenez, who personally lives with the same condition, gives us an insider's point-of-view on the first terrible days, weeks, and months of adjusting to paralysis, and its effect upon relationships, work, and sex. But the film is also about ...
|
|
|
To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything
: :This clunky road movie about three drag queens (Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguziamo) who get stranded in a sleepy Nebraska town on their way to a beauty contest, is too uplifting for its own good. Released during drag's mid-'90s heyday when RuPaul and the Wigstock documentary were all the rage, To Wong Foo aimed straight for the mainstream with its inoffensive camp and 'can't we all get along' moralism. While gay-activist groups howled about straights getting the lead ...
|
|
|
Undisputed (2002)
: :Rocky gets a prison-block makeover in Undisputed, and the generic combination packs a vicious one-two punch. Owing much to the macho, gut-busting B movies of Hollywood's golden age, this no-nonsense drama gets right down to business, beginning when heavyweight champ 'Iceman' Chambers (Ving Rhames) enters Sweetwater prison on a rape charge. The prison has a boxing program, and convicted killer Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes) is the 10-year undefeated champion. A challenge bout is coordinated by an aging mobster prisoner (Peter ...
|
|
|
Wildcats
: :Goldie Hawn plays a physical education teacher who gets a chance to coach an inner-city high school football team. If that sounds contrived, it is, but in the hands of director Michael Ritchie (Smile), the jokes all fire, and there's plenty of comedy teased out in details. (The cheerleading squad has some funny moments just belting out their morale-boosting chants.) The supporting cast has a couple of significant up-and-comers: Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes. --Tom Keogh
|
|
|
White Men Can't Jump
: :Writer-director Ron Shelton's 1992 follow-up to the baseball comedy-drama Bull Durham involves a different sport: basketball, as played on the neighborhood hustler circuit. Woody Harrelson is Billy Hoyle, a good shooter using his white complexion to fool black players into thinking he can be stomped in easy bets. Billy's banter-filled matchup against Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) on a public court leads to a partnership in which Sidney becomes Billy's manager, taking the white outsider on a tour of the tougher ...
|
|
|
Disappearing Acts
: :He's a semi-employed construction worker and she's a music teacher with ambitions for a singing career. But when they meet at her Brooklyn brownstone their socio-economic differences melt away--or do they? This is the question that drives this 112-minute HBO movie based on Terry McMillan's best-selling novel. Zora wears fabulous clothes, decorates her hardwood-floored apartment with unusual furniture, and dines with her girlfriends at chichi restaurants, while Franklin can't even make regular child-support payments to his estranged wife. She's college ...
|
|
|
Down in the Delta
: :This family drama begins in a gritty Chicago neighborhood with a jobless, hopeless mother (Alfre Woodard) pouring her efforts into the bottle and various drugs rather than her troubled daughter and wise-beyond-his-years son. But the movie soon heads south, as the title suggests, when Mom and kids are sent to live with an uncle for the summer. Their lives change, of course, but that's the only predictable aspect of this 107-minute film. First-time director Maya Angelou brings her poetic sense ...
|
|
|
Blade 2
: :Aptly described by critic Roger Ebert as 'a vomitorium of viscera,' Blade II takes the express route to sequel success. So if you enjoyed Blade, you'll probably drool over this monster mash, which is anything but boring. Set (and filmed) in Prague, the plot finds a new crop of 'Reaper' vampires threatening to implement a viral breeding program, and they're nearly impervious to attacks by Blade (Wesley Snipes), his now-revived mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), and a small army of 'normal' ...
|
|
|
Demolition Man
: :Searching for new directions, Sylvester Stallone starred in this farcical, 1993 SF piece about an ex-cop (Stallone) freed from 36 years of forced hibernation to help catch a criminal (Wesley Snipes) who released himself from a similar incarceration. The futuristic story finds Los Angeles a sea of Taco Bells and enforced peace, and within that satiric overview Stallone's character becomes a gun-toting fish out of water. The film plays like a live-action cartoon, and while there is nothing particularly wrong ...
|
|
