Rewind: Films of the 60s, 70s, 80s – 11 Harrowhouse (1974)
by RICHARD WINTERS
Heist films are usually a dime a dozen and it seems to have become increasingly difficult to find a new spin on the genre. However, this film, based on the novel of the same name by Gerald A. Browne, is rather ingenious and deserves more attention. The plot revolves around Howard R. Chesser (Charles Grodin, who also co-wrote the screenplay) as a small-time diamond merchant who gets the chance to supervise the purchase and cutting of a large diamond that will be named after its wealthy owner Clyde Massey (Trevor Howard). The diamond ends up being stolen and stored inside the vaults of a large diamond conglomerate called “The system” that is located at 11 Harrowhouse. With the help of an inside man named Charles (James Mason) who works at the vault and has become unhappy with the company, Howard and his daredevil girlfriend Maren (Candice Bergen) pull off a daring heist. Read more 
Movie Review – Total Recall (1990)
by NIR SHALEV
Philip K. Dick was definitely an oddball writer. His works became some of the most influential science fiction tales of the second half of the twentieth century and a nice chunk of them were adapted to the big screen. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” was adapted into Blade Runner, “Minority Report” kept the title but contains a different story entirely, “A Scanner Darkly” remains the one adaptation of his that’s true to its source in almost every way, and recently there’s also “The Adjustment Team” that was adapted into The Adjustment Bureau. Read more
Movie Review – Source Code (2011)
by HELEN GEIB
The story in Source Code concerns investigating the past to alter the future. In that spirit, I will reveal that I write a mental outline of my reviews before I put fingers to keyboard, and that my thinking about Source Code tells me this will be a difficult review to write. First, I’m going to have to break my personal rule against including spoilers and second, it will be tough to be dispassionate. The former because the ending ruins what had been quite an enjoyable movie. The latter because I dislike being taken for a fool. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex in Indiana (April 8, 2011)
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
Spring has sprung, and there is cause for optimism about the variety of films that can be seen in Indiana theaters. Not only do we get an interesting selection of titles this week, it looks like we’ll be getting a consistent selection of cool-sounding movies in the near future… and an Indianapolis theater will have a series of midnight movies sometime soon, which will include two titles not previously seen on the big screen here in Indy (see “Next Week and Beyond” below). For more info, just click here and keep reading…. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex: National Edition (January 7-20, 2011)
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
Early January brought a slightly smaller than usual number of limited release movies to American screens; this column (delayed in part by flash drive woes) covers such films that made it into American theaters from January 7 through 20. As usual, many (if not most) of these titles were in a very small number of theaters before Blu-Ray/DVD/Video on Demand availability. I saw three of the Indian movies mentioned below (No One Killed Jessica, Once Upon a Warrior, and Yamla Pagla Deewana) while they were in town; of the rest, I’m most interested in A Somewhat Gentle Man, The Woodmans, Americatown, Lightning Salad Moving Picture, and Twelve Thirty… but finding the time to see all of them will be difficult, to say the least. Read more
DVD of the Week – Review of TRON: Legacy (2010)
by NIR SHALEV
In the original 1982 classic, Jeff Bridged played Kevin Flynn, a virtual world/game designer whose algorithms and programming codes were stolen by a giant corporation and were used to make millions of dollar in software and games. One day, while attempting to retrieve information that would prove that he’s the original designer, he was teleported into the server that was run by that very corporation. Trapped inside the server, Flynn met Tron, a program that was created by his best friend Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and together they fought against everyone and everything on their path to finding an escape from within the server once and for all. Read more
Rewind: Films of the 60s, 70s, 80s – Straight Time (1978)
by RICHARD WINTERS
Straight Time is an engrossing, highly realistic drama about a parolee by the name of Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman) who gets released from prison and cannot seem to stay away from the allure of crime despite his initial efforts. The movie is based on the novel No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker. Bunker himself was a career criminal who was in and out of jail from 1955 to 1975 and only managed to finally turn his life around when this novel, which he had written while incarcerated and deals with many of his own exploits, got published. Bunker co-wrote the screenplay (and appears in a bit part playing a character with a really bad comb-over by the name of Mickey). Read more
Movie Review – The Dead Zone (1983)
by NIR SHALEV
Back in the early 1980s, someone had thought that it would be a great idea to take a Stephen King novel, turn it into a film for David Cronenberg to direct, and make sure that it would star Christopher Walken. Well, the idea was not just terrific on paper but also on celluloid. Read more
Movie Review – Jane Eyre (2011)
by HELEN GEIB
There’s an eternal debate in film reviewing circles over how much attention to pay to an adaptation’s merits as an adaptation; that is, as opposed to its merits as a standalone work. To a large extent, I find the debate moot because an adaptation by its nature exists in relation to its source. Like it or not, like the original or not, know anything of the original or not, an adaptation is an adaptation is an adaptation- not an original work. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex in Indiana (April 1, 2011)
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
No jokes for April Fool’s Day here- Indiana gets three new limited release films in theaters this week (along with one title that appears to be slightly used)- with even more on the way for next week. For all of the details, read on below…. Read more
