MovieMasterEd

When Star Wars was first released on the Wednesday before Memorial Day in 1977, it arrived in theaters with good reviews and excellent advance word. It didn't take long for it to become a phenomenon (although, admittedly, 1997's publicity for the Special Edition dwarfs that of the original 1977 release). It was a true family film -- perfect for kids and parents, a throwback to the space serials of the past and a look ahead to what the future might hold. Adults appreciated Lucas' masterful, magical movie-making. Children loved all the strange creatures. Suddenly, Star Wars was everywhere; there were bed sheets, lunch boxes, trading cards, action figures, comic books, picture books, posters, records, and just about anything else you could imagine. The Star Wars fad, such as it was, lasted into the early '80s, and the original film received two additional theatrical runs. Then it was on to the small screen. But watching the movie on videotape, which has been the exclusive viewing experience of just about anyone under the age of twenty, isn't the same as seeing it in a packed theater. Now, however, with the advent of the original movie's twentieth anniversary and the promise of new films in another two years, Star Wars is as hot as it has ever been. Those predicting anything less than a financial windfall for the Special Edition don't have the world's pulse. Star Wars borrows from numerous sources, but the most obvious inspirations are the serialized adventures of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Arthurian legends, Greek mythology, and Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. There are also multiple nods to Westerns and the dogfights of World War II movies. But, like all great craftsmen, Lucas has managed to fashion this material in a manner that not only honors the original sources, but makes it uniquely his own. Hacks rip off other movies; artists synthesize and pay homage to their inspirations. Compare Independence Day to Star Wars and the difference will become apparent. During its original period of theatrical release, Star Wars' special effects were described as everything from "eye popping" to "mind blowing". And, indeed, for their time, they were. (Keep in mind that King Kong's rather cheesy visuals had won the Academy Award just two months before Star Wars was released.) In fact, they're not bad even by today's standards. But "not bad" wasn't good enough for Lucas, and his vision of what they should have been fills the screen in the Special Edition. This is most notable during three key sequences: Luke and Ben's entry into the city of Mos Eisley, Han's heretofore unseen hanger bay meeting with Jabba the Hut, and the final attack on the Death Star. However, in scenes both with and without effects improvements, Star Wars is just as compelling and invigorating a movie experience today as it was when it first came out, and the new stuff blends in seamlessly with the old. Like all great craftsmen, Lucas has managed to fashion this material in a manner that not only honors the original sources, but makes it uniquely his own. Hacks rip off other movies; artists synthesize and pay homage to their inspirations. Since 1977, there have been many science fiction movies, but none has managed to equal Star Wars' blend of adventure, likable characters, and epic storytelling. Like some indefatigable King of the Hill, it stands alone and triumphant, regardless of the many imitators that assail its position. As is true of Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind, Star Wars will endure long after its creators are gone. And watching this new edition today is like coming home after a long journey and finding everything just as you remember it -- if not better.

Arguably, some of the issues addressed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are not as relevant in 2016 as they were in the mid-1970s, but that realization in no way diminishes the film's dramatic impact. This was the second English language film for Czech-born filmmaker Milos Forman, who would go on to win two Oscars (one for this movie and one for Amadeus), and was the picture that catapulted him onto the A-list for directors. The negative aspects of mental health care impugned by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are largely no longer in place today (electroconvulsive therapy is rarely used, frontal lobotomies are not performed), but the film's other themes are germane. On the surface, the movie is about the struggle of wills between patient R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Beneath the surface, it's about the attempts of an autocratic force to squash the individual. Jail is a frequent residence for McMurphy, whose latest conviction is for statutory ****. Rather than spending time behind bars, he decides it might be easier to serve his time in a psychiatric hospital, so he "plays mad." The plan works, but McMurphy soon discovers that life isn't so great in an asylum. The rules are looser, but some of the privileges he associated with prison - like being able to watch the World Series on TV - do not apply. Undaunted, McMurphy begins to make himself the most popular man in the ward, appealing to types as diverse as the diminutive, talkative Martini (Danny DeVito) and the tall deaf-mute American Indian, who is known as "The Chief" (Will Sampson). There to thwart McMurphy at every turn is Nurse Ratched, whose methods of treatment are so proscribed by rules and regulations that she can't see she's sometimes doing more harm than good. The most evident conflict throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is that between Ratched and McMurphy. They are natural antagonists. She's a strait-laced, by the book individual and he's a freespirit and rule breaker who pushes the envelope at every opportunity. (The reason he's in prison is evidence of that - having sex with a 15-year old.) For much of the film, they probe one another, each winning minor skirmishes. As the narrative accelerates toward its conclusion, McMurphy risks all in a final gambit. When he loses, we know it's over for him. For all that she is the film's villain, Ratched is not inherently malevolent. She's cool and unemotional, but she believes what she is doing is for the betterment of the patients. She's one of those individuals who does bad things while thinking she's doing good. That makes her more complex and interesting than a character who represents evil incarnate. On a less concrete level, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about an issue that was prominent in the 1970s (and has re-asserted itself with some force in the 2000s): the struggle of the individual against the establishment. This is a standard theme for movies and literature; what's different here is that the establishment wins. After McMurphy, representing the fly in the ointment, wins an occasional engagement, he is ruthlessly crushed. Ratched is victorious, as she must be in a tale like this. Like Terry Gilliam's Brazil, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a cautionary allegory of what happens when too much power is ceded to the government. In the Watergate atmosphere of the Nixon administration, this theme resonated forcefully. 30 years later, with many traits of Nixon's presidency replicated in the George W. Bush administration, this aspect of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (unlike that of the state of mental health care) has relevance. Ken Kesey, who wrote the book upon which the 1963 Broadway play and the subsequent movie were based, was displeased with the screenplay credited to Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben (Milos Forman also had a hand in writing it). He felt it detoured too far from what he had written, and refused to participate in publicizing the finished product. Nevertheless, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest became one of the most celebrated movies of the 1970s, winning the "Big Five" Academy Awards (Actor, Actress, Director, Picture, and Screenplay) and being nominated for an additional four. Although the picture has not aged as well as some of its contemporaries, its themes remain germane, the story has lost none of its punch, and the performances retain their freshness. Viewed 30 years after its release, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest remains a very good motion picture, although one that perhaps just misses the pinnacle of greatness where its reputation suggests it resides.

You can forget both the creepy "The Last Great Invasion Of The Last Great War" tagline and the slow-motion, feel-good trailers created for Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. They're advertising a different movie. Saving Private Ryan is a brutal film, free of the gooey-eyed romanticism suggested by its promotional campaign. In fact, large portions of Saving Private Ryan are given to calling into question the attitudes played upon by its ads. Tom Hanks plays an American army captain who, after taking part in the invasion of Normandy—portrayed here in what are likely some of the most viscerally affecting scenes ever put to film—is ordered to find the titular Private Ryan (Matt Damon), a paratrooper whose whereabouts are unknown, and whose three brothers have died in the war. As they travel deeper into the war zone, the soldiers Hanks leads on the mission (Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Adam Goldberg, Jeremy Davies, and others) question their public-relations-oriented task. Packed with about as many moral ambiguities as a Spielberg movie can handle, Saving Private Ryan provides a startling grunt's-eye view of war, refusing to subscribe to simplistic, blindly patriotic notions of honor and duty while working toward an understanding of what those words really mean. Of the many fine supporting performances, Davies (Spanking The Monkey, Going All The Way) is particularly notable as a dangerously innocent translator. By the time Saving Private Ryan wins the Best Picture Oscar next year, it will probably be smothered in the sort of overstated, reverent praise that can obscure any movie, no matter how good. Calling it the greatest war movie ever made does a disservice to other, equally worthwhile, lower-profile films (Sam Fuller's The Big Red One, for instance). But it's still an excellent movie, as effective in battle scenes as it is in that of soldiers ruminating on an Edith Piaf song. It should be seen for what it is while it still can be.

If there is a primary quality needed to bring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to the screen, it is vision - an attribute possessed in abundance by director Peter Jackson. In more than 100 years of motion pictures, few cinematic campaigns of this magnitude have been mounted. Not only has Jackson faced the daunting task of creating and populating an entirely new world based on Tolkien's blueprint, but he has contended with the real-word rigors of a two-year shooting schedule and an initially nervous group of purse string holders. The popular and critical success of The Fellowship of the Ring vindicated Jackson's perseverance. Nevertheless, even as the Oscar nominations came pouring in, the director was moving on. The plaudits heaped upon the first installment would lose their luster if either of the succeeding episodes, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, failed to live up to expectations. And, considering the high ground occupied by The Fellowship of the Ring, the bar would be at an astronomical altitude for the other movies. Of the three pieces of the Middle Earth puzzle, The Two Towers is the one with the biggest handicap. It is afflicted with the "middle chapter syndrome" - an inherent obstacle for the second episode of any trilogy. The Two Towers has no real beginning or end. (This is as true of the book as it is of the movie.) It takes situations and characters introduced in The Fellowship of the Ring and prepares them for The Return of the King. The trick is to immerse audiences "in the moment" and keep them from looking ahead - a daunting task, to be sure, but one that Jackson is up to. In nearly every way that counts, The Two Towers is The Fellowship of the Ring's equal. In terms of tone, pacing, character development, plot advancement, and visual splendor, there is no drop-off. More importantly, the continuity is seamless (one advantage of filming the trilogy as a single project), allowing a viewer familiar with the first movie to flow effortlessly into the second. Of course, therein lies a drawback, as well. The Two Towers cannot stand on its own. Familiarity with The Fellowship of the Ring is not just advisable, it is mandatory. Anyone attempting to watch The Two Towers without having seen (or read) the first installment is headed for confusion and disillusionment. Jackson has added dashes of mirth and romance to the film - two elements in short supply in the novel. Most of the humor, which is decidedly low-key, involves Gimli, who occasionally seems to be around as much for comic relief as anything else. For example, in the middle of the battle of Helm's Deep, he is infuriated that his number of kills can't keep pace with Legolas'. On the romantic front, Aragorn, who is promised to the elven princess Arwen (Liv Tyler), finds himself the object of attention for Theoden's niece, Eowyn (Miranda Otto). This sets up a triangle. The Two Towers starts out a little slowly, but the rousing second half, which gathers momentum like a boulder racing downhill, will leave audiences craving more when the end credits roll. Combined, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers represent one of the most engrossing and engaging six-hour segments of cinema I have ever enjoyed. If the final third of the puzzle is the equal of the first two, this will go down as one of the crowning achievements of cinema. Like its predecessor, The Two Towers is a great motion picture, and not to be missed by anyone who appreciates fantasy adventure.

A companion piece in the truest sense of the term, The Godfather Part II garnered as much adulation as its predecessor, if not more. Receiving twelve Academy Award nominations, and again winning Best Picture (and this time Best Director for Coppola as well), the second installment has been rightfully hailed as the best sequel of all time. The Godfather Part II is a more ambitious production than the original since it attempts not only to tell a pair of completely disconnected stories, but to do so in parallel. The less time consuming of the two presents the early life of Vito Corleone (played by Robert DeNiro) in Sicily and New York, and shows how he came into power. The other tale picks up approximately a decade after the conclusion of The Godfather, and shows the means by which Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), now secure in his position, attempts to expand the family empire into Las Vegas and Cuba. Michael lives his life and runs his business by two of his father's creeds: "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man" and "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." There are times, however, when those precepts fail as guiding principles, such as when a betrayal occurs from within the family. Broken trust arising from so intimate a source can be devastating. In The Godfather, family was more important than anything to Don Vito Corleone. Michael has inherited his father's values and as Part II opens, he is surrounded by the Corleone clan as they gather for his son's first communion. A symmetry between the first and second films is established here - both open with a family assemblage, and each quickly establishes where the power lies as the don "holds court." The traditional elements of the Tragedy introduced in The Godfather reach their maturity in Part II. Much of the humanity remaining to Michael at the outset is leeched from him with each deception and setback. Late scenes with a resentful Fredo (John Cazale) and a bitter Kay (Diane Keaton) emphasize the price for Michael of continuing his father's dominion. His flaw is his imperceptiveness and, as is the case for any hero in a story of this nature, its effects are crippling. Primarily due to the scope of events, Part II is not as tightly-scripted as Part I. While most of the first film takes place in New York (with a few excursions elsewhere), here the settings vary: Sicily, Ellis Island, New York, Nevada, Cuba, Miami, Washington DC. In letting their characters escape the confines of the "old neighborhood", Coppola and Puzo lessen the intimacy of certain interpersonal conflicts. Visually, many of Michael's scenes have a more gloomy appearance this time around. Especially during the latter portions of the film, the don is shown in severely underexposed settings, appearing as a silhouette. His is a voice from the darkness - a photographic mirror of what's happening beneath the surface. As the beginning of Part II echoes the opening of The Godfather, so too does the end. Because of the manner in which circumstances are handled and considering the people involved, the impact here is more forceful. The tragic flaw has accomplished its poisonous, inevitable designs. Coppola punctuates both movies with a gut-twisting exclamation point. Combined, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II represent the apex of American movie-making and the ultimate gangster story. Few sequels have expanded upon the original with the faithfulness and detail of this one. Beneath the surface veneer of an ethnic period piece, The Godfather is not so much about crime lords as it is about prices paid in the currency of the soul for decisions made and avoided. It is that quality which establishes this saga as timeless.

Action movies were a different breed in the pre-1981 years than they are today, and one of the reasons for their transformation had to do with Raiders of the Lost Ark. Before this movie, James Bond ruled the roost and the Bond formula was the accepted path that any self-respecting action movie would follow. The first Indiana Jones outing changed that. The film was constructed as a series of cliffhangers with narrow, death-defying escapes. Not since the era of serials have audiences so often asked the question, "How's he going to get out of this one?" It's unfair to claim that the 007 outings were unexciting, but, compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark, they come across as sedate. Raiders transformed the action movie landscape. In the years that followed, nearly every action movie would try to generate the same sense of suspense and tension. Even the Bond movies would catch on. As played by Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones represents a different kind of action hero. By hearkening back to the protagonist from those black-and-white serials, Lucas and Spielberg created the model for the future. Jones is as close to an "everyman" as you're likely to find in an action movie. He's tough, but not that tough; he has women problems; he wears natty, "lived-in" clothing; he doesn't drink martinis, regardless of whether they're shaken or stirred; he frequently gets bumped, beaten, and bruised; and he doesn't have biceps like a Mr. Universe. One has to wonder if someone like John McClane (Die Hard's fly in the ointment) could have existed if Ford hadn't trailblazed this road. Certainly, there wouldn't have been any Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas' character in the best of the Raiders re-treads, Romancing the Stone) or Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser in The Mummy). The film, which transpires in the late 1930s, opens with a wonderfully tense, pulp-inspired sequence inside a ruined temple as archeologist adventurer Indiana Jones seeks to avoid a number of pitfalls and traps on his way to recovering a priceless artifact. Tarantulas, gaping pits, lethal spikes, arrows, and a huge rolling boulder are a few of the dangers he overcomes, only to lose possession of the statuette to his arch-rival, Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), once he emerges. Indy escapes relatively unscathed, but returns home with his tail between his legs, disappointed at being unable to retrieve the prize. His consolation, however, is that the U.S. government would like him to track down the Ark of the Covenant, and they are willing to pay handsomely for him to do so. Indy's journey in search of the Ark reunites him with an old flame, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), who holds a key piece of the puzzle necessary to pinpoint the artifact's location. Then it's on to Cairo, where he teams up with an old friend, Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), who gives him information on the **** dig site, supervised by none other than Belloq. It becomes a race between Indy and Belloq for the prize - a race that Indy wins before Belloq steals away the spoils, leaving Marion and him trapped in near-darkness surrounded by thousands of hissing snakes. But Indy isn't finished, and, after escaping from Belloq's trap, a chase ensues involving planes, trucks, ships, and a submarine. In the end, the **** get the Ark, but learn that sometimes it's better to lose than to win. Certainly, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a breathless, white-knuckle experience of a movie. It is also perfectly paced. There's enough time in between the frequent action scenes to provide the minimum of exposition and character development for us to understand what's going on and to appreciate the relationships between the individuals who populate the screen. There's none of the frantic quick-cutting that has since become a staple of action movies (thank you, editor Michael Kahn!), and the production does not seem frenzied and out-of-control. This isn't a case of cardboard figures running around in circles and blowing things up. We care about Indy and Marion in ways that we rarely care about protagonists in this genre. When Marion "dies," it stings. Which brings us to one of Raiders' great strengths: the performances. No Oscar nominations were awarded, but it's hard to imagine any group of actors doing a better job. By the time Raiders of the Lost Ark was made, Harrison Ford had filed off the rough edges that were apparent in his first outing as Han Solo. The deserved popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark resulted in a huge box office bonanza for Paramount Pictures. This is the kind of movie that, even today, audiences immediately fall in love with. It has all the right ingredients: a smart script, a likable hero, a dash of romance, more than a touch of comedy, and a lot of fast-paced action.

Although it lacks the pioneering "newness" of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back is in many ways a superior motion picture. The storyline is more interesting and ambitious, the characters -- little more than appealing types in the original -- are allowed to grow and develop, the special effects are more mature, and the tone is deliciously dark and downbeat. It's the latter quality that has made The Empire Strikes Back the least favorite among young Star Wars fans -- excepting Yoda, there's nothing cute to be found, and the film definitely doesn't leave viewers with a warm, fuzzy feeling. In the first film, good triumphed decisively over evil; here, it's almost the other way around. For the Special Edition, Lucas has chosen to do considerably less re-engineering than he did with Star Wars, which is evidence that Empire, as originally presented, was close to his vision. The soundtrack has been digitally beefed up, a few new scenes have been inserted (including some extended shots of the Wampa ice creature's attack), and certain effects sequences have been noticably enhanced (the Millenium Falcon's approach to the Cloud City being the most obvious). In general, however, the changes to Empire are less obvious than those to Star Wars, which were subtle enough in their own right. There's nothing in the Special Edition that changes the scope, quality, or intent of the film. It's a little bigger, a little brighter, and a little louder. The defining moment of The Empire Strikes Back occurs in the final fifteen minutes, and, during screenings in 1980 (before the nature of the secret became public knowledge), one particular scene provoked collective gasps. In terms of the mythological antecedents that Lucas based much of his Star Wars trilogy on, there was nothing startling about Vader's origins, but, considering the darkness it would inevitably inject into the series, it was a bold stroke. The scenes that begin with the Luke/Vader lightsaber duel and end with the young hero's despairing decision to allow himself to plummet out of Vader's reach represent the most compelling sequence offered by any of the three movies. The structure of The Empire Strikes Back is more complex than the relatively linear path traversed by Star Wars. Instead of keeping the heroes together, as was the case in the first film, Lucas, along with director Irvin Kershner and screenwriters Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, elects to split them up. As a result, we have Han and Leia fleeing through asteroid fields, flying headlong at Star Destroyers, and facing betrayal in the Cloud City, while Luke fights Imperial Walkers and trains to become a Jedi. Everything comes together at the end, and there's a reunion of sorts, but The Empire Strikes Back concludes with so many unanswered questions that it's tantamount to a cliffhanger. The visual effects in The Empire Strikes Back are far more impressive than those of Star Wars. From the approach of the imposing Imperial Walkers to the escape from the Cloud City, there's a lot here to delight the eye. Likewise, John Williams' score, which uses multiple cues from Star Wars, displays the richness and maturity necessary for a darker, more operatic motion picture. "The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)" is the standout new track, giving a unique musical sound to the chief villain. Seventeen years after its intial release, The Empire Strikes Back is still as thrilling and involving as ever. Because of the high quality of the original product, it doesn't show a hint of dating. Neither the first nor the third chapters (or, properly, the "fourth" and "sixth") of the Star Wars saga were able to match the narrative scope of Empire, which today remains one of the finest and most rousing science fiction tales ever committed to the screen.

When The Silence of the Lambs took the Academy Awards ceremony by storm in 1992, winning in five major categories (Best Picture, Best Director - Jonathan Demme, Best Actor - Anthony Hopkins, Best Actress - Jodie Foster, and Best Adapted Screenplay - Ted Tally), it beat the odds in more ways than one. Granted, 1991 was a slow year for movies, and many pundits have remarked that the Oscar field was among the weakest ever (the other contenders were Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Bugsy, JFK, and the overrated The Prince of Tides), but the strong showing of The Silence of the Lambs was a surprise to almost everyone. In the first place, it was released in February 1991, a date thought to be beyond the short memories of the Academy members. Secondly, it is a dark psychological thriller - the kind of movie that occasionally receives a Best Picture nomination, but almost never takes home the statuette. Although The Silence of the Lambs is brilliantly constructed and powerfully acted, and became one of the most recognizable thrillers of the '90s, it was neither the best movie of the year (a citation I would award to Beauty and the Beast) nor even the best thriller (overall, Dead Again impressed me more). The Silence of the Lambs contains a number of inarguably great scenes, but the screenplay, adapted from Thomas Harris' novel, suffers from a split personality. The scenes featuring Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) are the stuff of legends. However, the rest of the movie, which concentrates on the pursuit of serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), has a familiar, derivative feel. In truth, the climax couldn't be more mundane. There is little doubt that the most memorable aspect of The Silence of the Lambs is Anthony Hopkins' incomparable performance as Lecter. Taking over for Brian Cox, who was effective, but not especially memorable, as the good doctor in 1986's Manhunter, Hopkins instantly makes the role his own, capturing and conveying the charismatic essence of pure evil. To his dying day, no matter how many roles he plays in the interim, Hopkins will forever be known for this part. (It is a credit to Hopkins' ability as an actor that this part did not result in stereotyping. His post-Silence career has been greatly varied, with roles as widely diverse as a stodgy butler in Merchant-Ivory's The Remains of the Day and an action hero in The Edge.) I can throw out any number of superlatives, but none of them do justice to this chilling performance, which I labeled as the best acting work of the '90s. Want to feel the icy fingers of terror stroke your heart? Watch this mixture of brilliant eloquence and inhuman cruelty. As portrayed by Hopkins, Hannibal is both a suave, cultured gentleman and an unspeakable fiend. He is gracious and monstrous at the same time. (Hopkins also provided one of the most quotable lines in recent film history with "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti", which was followed by an inimitable slithering slurp.) The Silence of the Lambs consistently looks good, builds suspense, and does not outstay its welcome. Many two-hour thrillers have dead patches, but that's one characteristic of the genre this movie avoids. Instead of using the common tactic of priming an audience by employing "boo!" moments (fake scares, such as when an animal darts out from behind trash cans), Demme uses what he calls "deceptive cutting" to enhance the tension. There are also little cues that hint at bigger dangers, such as when Clarice receives a nail **** while sliding under the partially-closed door to the garage where she finds Gumb's first victim. Since its 1991 release, much has been written about The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling, and the relationship between them. Thomas Harris was so intrigued by the characters that he wrote the sequel, Hannibal, which soared into the top spot on best-seller lists countrywide as soon as it was released. The motion picture follow-up, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Hopkins and Julianne Moore (replacing Foster), is set to open on the 10th anniversary of the release of The Silence of the Lambs. If it's half as involving, it will be a success. The Silence of the Lambs may not have been the best thriller of the year, but it was the most chilling and creepy, and there's no denying that the most celebrated aspect of the film - the Clarice/Hannibal connection - could not have been accomplished with greater skill.

Almost every filmmaker in the history of cinema would be thrilled by the knowledge that a feature of his (or hers) is considered an undisputed classic - a benchmark by which other, similarly themed movies are judged. Director Martin Scorsese, considered by many to be the finest American film craftsman working today, can claim a unique distinction - he has been responsible for a classic during each of the last three decades of the 20th century. In the '70s, it was Taxi Driver. In the '80s, it was Raging Bull. And in the '90s, it was Goodfellas (the most lauded, at least in terms of official awards and nominations, of the director's features). No one else, not even greats like Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, and Eric Rohmer, can make a similar claim. With patience, care, and strict attention to detail, Scorsese has staked out an impregnable position in the history of motion pictures. It is not a coincidence that Scorsese's three masterpieces all star Robert De Niro. These two men, who have worked together eight times, bring out the best in each other. Even their "lesser" collaborations, such as Casino and The King of Comedy, possess an energy and intensity that shows how well they understand one another. Scorsese is at his best when directing De Niro, and De Niro is at his best when being directed by Scorsese. The pair has become inextricably linked in the public consciousness because of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas. There are essentially two kinds of Mafia movies: those that romanticize the life and those that depict it with gut-wrenching clarity. The best known and most accomplished of these films, The Godfather, stakes out its territory firmly in the first area, leaving Goodfellas to stand atop the other. Both pictures have fully realized, three dimensional characters and strong atmospheres, but Francis Ford Coppola's effort embraces the mythos of the gangster, while Scorsese's exploration is more pragmatic. Violence is a key component of each, but it is a more brutal companion in Goodfellas than in The Godfather. Clearly, the different approaches adopted by the directors result in films that, while populating the same genre, are dissimilar in temperament and tone. Goodfellas is, as we learn at the very beginning, based (however loosely) on a true story. Developing the screenplay's skeleton from the events related in the novel Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi (who also co-wrote the script), Scorsese has used the facts from an infamous '80s case involving an important mob informant to develop a rich and multi-layered study of three characters and the culture that shaped their lives. It's a fascinating exploration of a lifestyle that has beguiled Americans for most of this century, whether in movies, in novels, or on television. oodfellas is as compelling and absorbing as any crime drama I have ever seen. The script shows all the facets of these characters; they are all fully developed individuals capable of great good and great evil. The moral ambiguity of their lifestyle is treated with a shrug. Goodfellas is not about Mafia dons, but about those who exist on a lower level. It's about the bonds that are formed between compatriots in crime, and how betrayal is the most heinous offense imaginable. The mob is a fraternity - an all-boys club where everyone looks after each other. The story, which spans a quarter of a century, has an epic feel despite its intimate perspective. The first forty minutes, which detail Henry's childhood and his acceptance into mob life, is presented almost as a fairy tale, using the same kind of romanticized approach embraced by The Godfather. The purpose of this segment is to forge a bond between the audience and the main character while he is still relatively innocent. Henry does not grow up to be a nice man, but, because of the way Scorsese has structured the early portions of the film, we remain sympathetic to him throughout. For character-based dramas such as Goodfellas to rise above the level of a well-crafted melodrama, strong acting is a necessity, and this movie contains several unforgettable lead performances plus solid support by those in lesser roles. The most flamboyant portrayal is turned in by Joe Pesci as the often out-of-control Tommy. Pesci won an Academy Award for his work here, crafting a character that can be charming at times and unexpectedly violent at others. (Pesci virtually replicated this part for Scorsese's Casino.) The brilliance in the performance is how easily and rapidly Tommy shifts from one mode to the other. A single minor thing - an action, a word, etc. - can set him off. Pesci makes the sudden transition seem credible rather than jarring. Taken individually, each represents an amazing motion picture accomplishment, with Goodfellas standing alongside The Godfather as one of the two greatest mob stories told on film.

There are only a handful of filmmakers capable of infusing spectacle with ideas, and among those, director Christopher Nolan feels uniquely tapped into the anxieties of the day. Two separate but related millennial fears drive Nolan’s ambitious, mostly dazzling new opus Inception: We have no control over our lives, and reality as we used to understand it no longer exists—or at least has been fundamentally destabilized. Squaring the beautifully engineered puzzles of Memento and The Prestige with the chaos and anarchy brought by the Joker in The Dark Knight, Inception takes place largely in a dreamscape where thieves of the mind fend off attacks from rebellious agents that clutter the subconscious. It’s a metaphysical heist picture, staged in worlds on top of worlds like nothing since Synecdoche, New York, and executed with a minimum of hand-holding. Without so much as a title to orient the audience, Nolan dives into the multiple realities of Leonardo DiCaprio, a master thief who’s made a business out of extracting secrets from people’s minds while they’re in a vulnerable dream state. His latest assignment offers a much greater challenge than usual: Instead of retrieving information, DiCaprio and his team are asked to plant an idea in someone’s head, which involves fooling the brain into believing it generated and nurtured the idea itself. (Hence the title.) In order to pull it off, DiCaprio recruits Ellen Page, an architect of sorts who can build dreamscapes densely layered enough for DiCaprio, his partner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a forger (Tom Hardy), and other co-conspirators to commit the ultimate in corporate sabotage. However, the ghosts in DiCaprio’s own subconscious wreak havoc on the operation. Nolan sets up a uniquely difficult challenge for himself: In order for Inception to work, it has to reconcile the rational and predictable (represented by Page and her maze-like constructs) with dangerously fluid, irrational impulses (represented by DiCaprio and his fevered psyche). The Nolan of The Prestige and Memento is more naturally suited to the former than the latter; the vast cryptogram of Inception has a core of real emotion, but it isn’t always matched by an abundance of visual imagination. Nonetheless, the film is an imposing, prismatic achievement, and strongly resistant to an insta-reaction; when it’s over, Nolan still seems a few steps ahead of us.

There have been numerous documentaries and dramatic productions focusing on the Holocaust, including a television mini-series which many consider to be the definitive work. As a result, in deciding to film Schindler's List, director Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) set an imposing task for himself. His vision needed to differ from that of the film makers who preceded him, yet the finished product had to remain faithful to the unforgettable images which represent the legacy of six million massacred Jews. Those who see this motion picture will witness Spielberg's success. Spielberg elected to film this motion picture in black-and-white, and it's impossible to argue with his choice. Director of Photography Janusz Kaminski has made effective use of shadow and light, meticulously limiting the application of hue. The opening scene is in color, as is the closing sequence (which features the surviving "Schindler Jews", each accompanied by the actor who played their character, placing a stone on their savior's grave). There are also two instances when color is allowed to bleed into the blacks, whites, and grays. One little girl's jacket appears red so that she stands out from the masses, and a pair of candles burn with orange flames. When color is used, it makes a point and an impression. Schindler's List gives us three major stories and a host of minor ones. First and foremost, it tells the tale of the Holocaust, presenting new images of old horrors. These are as ghastly and realistic as anything previously filmed, and Spielberg emphasizes the brutality of the situation by not pulling punches when it comes to gore. The blood, inky rather than crimson in stark black-and-white, fountains when men and women are shot in the head or through the neck. The second story is that of Oskar Schindler, the **** businessman who saved 1200 Jews from death. Schindler starts out as a self-centered manufacturer, concerned only about making money. He hires Jews because they're cheap, not because he likes them. But his perspective changes, and he risks losing everything to save as many lives as he can. His eventual lament that he couldn't save more is heartbreaking. The third story belongs to Amon Goeth, the **** commander of Krakow, a man who teeters on the brink of madness. Despite his intense hatred for Jews, he is inexplicably attracted to his Jewish housekeeper, Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davidtz). Disgusted by his feelings, he lashes out at her with a display of violence that is almost Scorsese-like in its blunt presentation. As written, Goeth could easily have become a conscienceless monster, but Spielberg works carefully to show unexpected depth and complexity to his character. Often, the experiences of the minor characters provide the most lasting images. Helen's story is memorable, as is the plight of young Danka Dresner and her mother as they strive to avoid death while staying together. There's a Jewish couple that marries in the Plaszow camp, even though their chances of survival are dim, and a Rabbi who survives a close encounter with a **** gun. Of course the Holocaust images are grim, but scenes of mass graves and exhumed bodies are not unique to Schindler's List. While it's impossible to deny their power, potentially more distubing are the instances of callous, individual murder. Spielberg doesn't spare his audience when it comes to sudden violence or the dehumanizing factors involved in such events. After all, Jews were viewed as "vermin." Schindler's List is replete with moments like this. The acting is uniformly excellent. Liam Neeson's Schindler is shown in all his complexity, and his transformation is played with studied control. This is no sudden reversal of philosophy, but a matter of conscience that slowly dawns on the man. With a keen sense of Schindler's character, Neeson depicts the metamorphosis from self-centered businessman to driven messiah. Ralph Fiennes stuns with his intricate, savage portrayal of the **** commander, a man fascinated by power and murder. Fiennes' Goeth has the rare ability to both mesmerize and repulse, and this is a performance that will long be remembered. Despite the grisly subject matter, this movie is essentially about uncovering a kernel of hope and dignity in the midst of a monstrous tragedy. The story of Oskar Schindler's sacrifices for the Jews sets this apart from other Holocaust dramas. Uncompromising in its portrayal of good, evil, and all the shades in between, Schindler's List offers a clear view of human nature laid bare: hatred, greed, lust, envy, anger, and, most important of all, empathy and love. Because this film touches us so deeply, the catharsis has a power that few -- if any -- other moments in film history can match. And that's what establishes this as a transcendent motion picture experience.

After scoring an art-house hit with the small-scale, tightly plotted, highly enjoyable thriller Bound—which took off once the requisite overdone Zalman King-style lesbian sex had been taken care of—the Wachowski Brothers (Andy and Larry) have gone big, made a movie for über-producer Joel Silver, thrown in loads of special effects, and cast Johnny Mnemonic star Keanu Reeves in the lead. And damned if it doesn't work. In The Matrix, a surprisingly tolerable Reeves plays a pasty computer hacker who begins to receive mysterious messages from an unknown source. Shortly after encountering a bunch of identical-looking authority figures, he hooks up with a mysterious band of outsiders led by Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss (Models Inc.) who clue him in that nothing around him is as it appears. Story-wise, nothing in The Matrix will surprise too many people: In addition to resembling both in concept and content the worthwhile Dark City, there's not much more to it than ideas about the subjectivity of reality reworked from Descartes, Philip K. ****, and William Gibson and channeled into an operatic science-fiction metaphor about non-conformity (and drug use). But the Wachowskis do it so playfully well, keeping The Matrix's potentially confusing plot intelligible, intelligent, and suspenseful, that it doesn't matter. As far as sheer spectacle goes, it's the most exciting thing to come along in quite a while. Where other films are done in by the freedom offered by computer effects, The Matrix integrates them beautifully, making fetus-tending robots, helicopters gently collapsing into buildings, and elaborate, gravity-defying kung-fu fighting seem like perfectly plausible elements of the universe it creates, a universe that deserves to be seen.

Peter Jackson's final installment in his "The Lord of the Rings" represents that filmmaking rarity -- a third part of a trilogy that is decisively the best of the lot. With epic conflict, staggering battles, striking landscapes and effects, and resolved character arcs all leading to a dramatic conclusion to more than nine hours of masterful storytelling, "King" is an urgently paced 200-minute film without an ounce of fat -- until unfortunate multiple endings that go on and on, as if Jackson couldn't bear to let go. In the rarefied world of large-scaled cinematic triptychs, three in the modern era quickly come to mind that, initially at least, combined striking cinematic prowess with enormous public enthusiasm: “The Godfather,” “Star Wars” and “The Matrix.” In the first two instances, the second film was by general consensus the best and most adventurous, while the third was by far the weakest across the boards. What Jackson and New Line so boldly did right was to shoot all three in one continuous stretch rather than start from scratch each time. Of all the wonders associated with this trio of films — the literate, generally well structured overall script, the perfection of the New Zealand locations, the visionary scenic designs, the exceptional visual effects, the costumes, hair and armor, and the excellent cast — perhaps the most impressive feat of all has been Jackson’s ability to keep it all in his head through the years and deliver a cohesive work with a proper sense of balance and proportion. Unlike his predecessors in the trilogy business, of course, Jackson had a ready-made three-part text to work from, one constructed to pay off in the climactic installment. And pay off it does, in ways guaranteed to satisfy the multitudes around the world who embraced the first two films, and even to impress non-card-carrying members of the massive Tolkien-Jackson cult. Still, anyone who hasn’t seen the first two pics won’t have a clue what’s going on at the outset of “The Return of the King.” With much struggle behind him but the worst yet to come, Frodo (Elijah Wood) is increasingly feeling the weight of being the Ringbearer as he and his faithful friend Sam (Sean Astin) make their way toward Mount Doom, the place where the Ring was made and the only place it can be destroyed, thus thwarting Sauron’s attempt to destroy humankind. In a way new to the trilogy, the emotional momentum surges along with the physical action. After early ambivalence over his responsibility for the Ring, Frodo grows into the job; after long dodging his royal inheritance, Aragorn finally rises to the occasion; Sam, especially, emerges as a three-dimensional character of intense devotion to Frodo even after he has been tricked by the Iago-like Gollum and exiled by his closest friend; and the ineffectual Hobbits Pippin and Merry take on some size, figuratively if not literally. The building sense of dread is palpable. With the belching Mount Doom and its all-powerful hovering Eye in the distance, humankind and Orcs alike traverse an already stark landscape that will shortly become scorched. Dreadful giant screeching dragons, called Fell Beasts, flap down out the sky to pluck hapless soldiers off their feet and horses. And the Orcs are assisted by yet more monsters, including Hulk-like Trolls and towering, long-tusked mastodons known as Mumakil, that strike terror and make resistance seem futile. The siege of Minas Tirith may well be the mother of all cinematic battles; certainly no pre-CGI war film ever featured a scene involving upwards of 200,000 soldiers. But that’s how many Orcs maraud the city, and the details are extraordinary: the huge stones catapulted at the fortifications from mobile towers; the fire-breathing dragon battering ram that crashes through the main gates; the earth-shaking Mumakil that raze all before them with scythe-like tusks and carry dozens of men; the gradual movement of the battle from the ground to the upper levels of the exquisitely designed citadel. All of “The Lord of the Rings” has been building to this, and it delivers entirely. There are a few nits to be picked. With the forces of humankind vastly outnumbered, Aragorn is forced to seek the help of innumerable “dead” but still loyal soldiers to help out against the Orcs. Even in a work of fantasy and myth, this device just doesn’t wash, a circumstance not helped by the fact that the unconvincing effects used to represent them on the battlefield make them look like a bunch of green ghosts dashing across the field. All the outstanding technical and craft achievements that have been duly honored in the previous installments are at least equaled and sometimes trumped here, especially in regard to how involved the creatures are this time. There has been no let-up in creativity, only intensification. So Jackson has done it.

Partially adapted for the screen once before by Ralph Bakshi in an unsuccessful 1978 animated version, Tolkien’s 1,000-page yarn poses all manner of challenges for a screen transfer — imaginative, logistical and financial. With the final bill likely to come in somewhere near $400 million when production and marketing costs are all tallied, one has to credit New Line Cinema with a tremendous amount of guts for shooting the moon for all three pictures with a young New Zealand director with only one genuinely notable, and small-scaled, film (“Heavenly Creatures”) to his credit. But Jackson must have convinced someone that he would do it right, a view thoroughly borne out by what’s up on the screen. Evocatively delineating the many aspects of Middle-Earth on tremendously diverse locations in New Zealand in resourceful collaboration with a massive crew, Jackson keeps a firm hand on the work’s central themes of good versus evil, rising to the occasion and group loyalty in the face of adversity, and always keeps things moving without getting bogged down in frills or effects for effects’ sake. Pic’s main problem, however, is inherent in the odyssey-like structure of the tale; the “and then, and then, and then” nature of the narrative becomes necessarily repetitive and even a bit wearisome at times, and ultimately arbitrary in the sense that one battle more or less with the Orcs, Ringwraiths or Uruk-Hai wouldn’t have made much difference. Lack of dramatic arcs involving rising action, relaxation and interconnecting story strands unfortunately makes the film’s running time feel pretty much like the three hours it is. The film also very well handles the matter of perspective and height differentiation between the Hobbits and Dwarfs, for example, who are meant to be less than four feet tall, and the human-scaled characters, something that must have been as difficult as many other more obvious effects. Andrew Lesnie’s lensing has its slightly murky moments but is predominantly muscular in putting forceful images on a large canvas. While he has perhaps not written a classic epic adventure score in the manner of Korngold, Rozsa or Steiner, Howard Shore has composed two hours of music that is constantly supportive, creative and complementary to the action. As such, it represents an object lesson that handily points up how unnecessarily intrusive and insufferably distracting John Williams’ work is in “Harry Potter.” One place where “Harry” outflanks “Rings” is the in the starriness of its cast, but the film is nonetheless capably served. One hallmark of the players is their startlingly blue eyes, especially those of Wood, McKellen and Blanchett. Wood’s Frodo spends most of “Fellowship” coming to terms with his unwanted responsibility as Ringbearer, and is generally uncertain and frightened as a result, something that will no doubt change over the course of the two remaining installments. McKellen delivers Gandalf with great relish and gusto, giving the picture a shot in the arm whenever he’s around, which is often. Mortensen and Bean cut dynamic figures as Frodo’s expert swordsmen, Rhys-Davies is a barrel of fierce defiance, while horror vet Lee is silkilysuperb as the chief nemesis in a black tower. Blanchett and Tyler have relatively little to do, at least in this first episode, and the small attempts at humor, particularly with the tag-alongs Merry and Pippin, seem half-hearted and rote. Still, New Line and company should be able to breathe a sigh of relief after the picture comes out, and there is little doubt that those who grab the “Rings” at the start will anxiously await Frodo’s trip into ever more perilous territory a year hence.

A picaresque story of a simpleton’s charmed odyssey through 30 years of tumultuous American history, “Forrest Gump” is whimsy with a strong cultural spine. Elegantly made and winningly acted by Tom Hanks in his first outing since his Oscar-winning “Philadelphia” performance, Robert Zemeckis’ technically dazzling new film is also shrewdly packaged to hit baby boomers where they live. Pic offers up a non-stop barrage of emotional and iconographic identification points that will make the postwar generation feel they’re seeing their lives passing by onscreen. Paramount’s target audience is obvious, and boffo B.O. should ensue. In a part Dustin Hoffman might once have killed for, Hanks plays a kind of semi-imbecile whose very blankness makes him an ideal audience prism through which many of the key events of the ’50s through early ’80s can be viewed. Lacking any ideology or analytical powers, Gump is the immutable innocent moving in a state of grace through a nation in the process of losing its innocence, an Everyman who acts instinctively in an age defined by political divisiveness. Although hard to pigeonhole, the picture unavoidably recalls the idiot-savant classic “Being There,” and significantly resembles “The World According to Garp” in tone. Most often mentioned, however, will be its similarity to Woody Allen’s “Zelig,” as some of the biggest laughs stem from wizardly interpolations of the Gump character into newsreel and TV footage of several U.S. presidents and other leading figures. As Gump narrates his story to a succession of listeners at a Savannah, Ga., bus stop, a most curious life is revealed in evocative, often jokey flashbacks. Gump is raised in an old plantation mansion, now a boarding house, by his abandoned mother (Sally Field), who tells the boy that he’s no different from anyone else despite his 75 I.Q. Outfitted with leg braces and shunned by other boys, young Forrest finds his only friend in a beautiful little girl, Jenny, herself the victim of abuse at home. Once Forrest, in a startling scene, literally breaks free of his leg shackles, he becomes “a running fool,” darting about wherever he goes at terrific speed. Even though he doesn’t understand the rules, he becomes a star running back on the high school and college football teams, and it’s at the U. of Alabama that the grown-up Forrest has his first date with destiny, as a dopey-looking bystander next to Gov. George Wallace as the first black students are admitted through the school’s doors. After another encounter, with JFK, Forrest heads for Vietnam, where his dim-wittedness makes him the ideal Army soldier. On the way, he meets Bubba Blue (Mykelti Williamson), another not especially swift fellow who’s like Forrest’s black brother, a man whose dreams of a shrimping life give Forrest something to aspire to once they’re back. After an intense battle, Forrest saves the lives of several men, including his commanding officer, Lt. Dan (Gary Sinise), who nonetheless loses his legs, and Forrest returns home to receive the Medal of Honor from LBJ and have a chance reunion with Jenny (Robin Wright), who’s become a camp follower of SDS and Black Panther types. Through it all, Forrest retains his love and idealized image of Jenny. She, however, indulges in the try-it-all excesses of the era, becoming a stripper, hippie, activist, druggie and more. Jenny keeps popping into Forrest’s life at intervals, never quite ready to settle for his unquestioning love until it’s almost too late. Meanwhile, Forrest’s eventful life comes to embrace a stint as a champ ping-pong player, a down-and-out period with Lt. Dan in New York, a hilarious key role in the Watergate saga, amazing success as a shrimp boat captain, the resumption of his life as a runner, which sees him become a sort of mystical guru figure to the jogging set, and finally the unexpected arrival of fatherhood. In covering so much ground, literally and figuratively, Eric Roth’s intelligently structured, finely tuned screenplay also serves up innumerable cultural touchstones that will have most viewers in the 30-50 age range melting in recognition. Main themes here have to do with the impulse to recapture the past; the wish to return to one’s childhood, or at least the site of it; the desire to fulfill your life with your original true love; the need to refashion the simple feeling of homeafter many aimless years; and assuming the responsibilities of parenthood after much delay. Just short of 2 1/2 hours, pic is a bit indulgent, long and excessive at times, but this is more than compensated for by its humor and sharp-witted storytelling. For the minority of nay-sayers the film will encounter, pic’s key problem will be its preoccupation with lost innocence and certain other self-centered hang-ups.

The danger of having as successful and explosive a debut as Reservoir Dogs is that expectations are invariably high - sometimes unrealistically so - for the follow up. Quentin Tarantino, however, has managed the near-impossible: improve upon the extraordinary. Pulp Fiction shows what can happen when a talented and accomplished filmmaker reaches his apex. This film is one wild ride. An anthology of three interconnected stories that take place in a modern-day Los Angeles tinted by echoes of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the movie impresses in every possible way. Writer/director Tarantino has merged film noir with the gangster tale and pulled them both into the '90s. As definitive as Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather saga was for the '70s, so is Pulp Fiction for today's generation. Pulp Fiction's three tales are structured to intersect and overlap at key points, even though they are not presented in chronological order. Tarantino arranges his initial scene to dovetail with his final one in a remarkable example of closure. Those confused by the structure will see everything clearly once the final line is spoken. "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife" is the first story. It opens with Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) out on a hit for their boss, Marsellus (Ving Rhames). Along the way, Vincent confesses that he's uneasy about an upcoming job - taking out Marsellus' young wife Mia (Uma Thurman) while the main man is out of town. The source of the nervousness lies in a story circulating that Marsellus had a man thrown out a fourth story window for giving Mia a foot massage. One wrong step and Vincent could find himself in deep trouble. "The Gold Watch" is about a boxer, Butch (Bruce Willis), who is handsomely paid by Marsellus to throw a fight. Only at the last moment does it become more profitable to renege on the deal. So, along with his French girlfriend, Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros), Butch goes on the run, hoping to live long enough to spend some of the fortune he has suddenly gained. "The Bonnie Situation" ties together a few loose threads. It also introduces Harvey Keitel as a suave problem-solver named Wolf and Quentin Tarantino as Jim, a man worried that his wife will come home from work to find a dead body in a blood-spattered car in his garage. Sometimes, it appears, helping out Marsellus is not without its complications. As was the case in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino's crisp dialogue sparkles. The vulgarity-laced monologues and conversations ripple with humor and are ripe with points to ponder. Foot massages, hamburgers, comfortable silence, a gold watch, pot bellies, divine intervention, and filthy animals - all these and more receive the writer's attention as he presents meaningless issues in an intensely-fascinating and almost lyrical fashion. Who else (except perhaps David Mamet) can make profanity sound so poetic? For anyone who thought they knew the breadth of Bruce Willis' and John Travolta's acting ability, a surprise awaits. Whether it's an effect of the script, the direction, or something else, these two turn in surprisingly strong performances. And they're not the only ones. Uma Thurman, Rosanna Arquette, Ving Rhames, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Eric Stoltz (who has a Tarantino-related triple play with Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe, and Sleep With Me), and the director himself are all excellent. And then there's Samuel L. Jackson, who seems to get better with every outing. All the details are executed to perfection. Ironies abound in the smallest situations. One death is caused by, of all things, a poptart. And it takes a director of rare talent to find the comedy in so many macabre situations. This goes beyond gallows humor. Mixing the original with the derivative, Tarantino pushes Pulp Fiction in directions that are equally anticipated and unexpected. Relentless in its pace, Pulp Fiction is as exhausting as it is exhilarating. In between all the shootings, Mexican standoffs, and other violent confrontations exist opportunities to explore various facets of the human experience, including rebirth and redemption. With this film, every layer that you peel away leads to something deeper and richer. Tarantino makes pictures for movie-lovers, and Pulp Fiction is a masterpiece.

Rarely can it be said that a film has defined a genre, but never is that more true than in the case of The Godfather. Since the release of the 1972 epic (which garnered ten Academy Award nominations and was named Best Picture), all "gangster movies" have been judged by the standards of this one (unfair as the comparison may be). If a film is about Jewish mobsters, it's a "Jewish Godfather"; if it's about the Chinese underworld, it's an "Oriental Godfather"; if it takes place in contemporary times, it's a "modern day Godfather." If The Godfather was only about gun-toting Mafia types, it would never have garnered as many accolades. The characteristic that sets this film apart from so many of its predecessors and successors is its ability to weave the often-disparate layers of story into a cohesive whole. Any of the individual issues explored by The Godfather are strong enough to form the foundation of a movie. Here, however, bolstered by so many complimentary themes, each is given added resonance. The picture is a series of mini-climaxes, all building to the devastating, definitive conclusion. Rarely does a film tell as many diverse-yet-interconnected stories. Strong performances, solid directing, and a tightly-plotted script all contribute to The Godfather's success. This motion picture was not slapped together to satiate the appetite of the masses; it was carefully and painstakingly crafted. Every major character - and more than a few minor ones - is molded into a distinct, complex individual. Stereotypes did not influence Coppola's film, although certain ones were formed as a result of it. The Corleone with the most screen time is Michael (it's therefore odd that Al Pacino received a Best Supporting Actor nomination), and his tale, because of its scope and breadth, is marginally dominant. His transformation from "innocent" bystander to central manipulator is the stuff of a Shakespearean tragedy. By the end, this man who claimed to be different from the rest of his family has become more ruthless than Don Vito ever was. Despite the likes of Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, ...And Justice for All, and Scent of a Woman on his resume, Pacino is best remembered for the role he created in The Godfather (and subsequently reprised in two sequels). While this is not his most demonstrative performance - indeed, he is exceptionally restrained - the quality of the script makes Michael Corleone notable. Next to Humphrey Bogart's Rick from Casablanca, Oscar winner Marlon Brando's Don Vito may be the most imitated character in screen history. The line "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" has attained legendary status, as has the entire performance. With his raspy voice, deliberate movements, and penetrating stare, Brando has created a personae that will be recalled for as long as motion pictures exist. Don Vito is a most complicated gangster. In his own words, he is not a killer, and he never mixes business with personal matters. He puts family first ("A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man") and despises displays of weakness. He understands the burden of power, and his wordless sympathy for Michael when he is forced to assume the "throne", is one of The Godfather's most revealing moments (about both father and son). The Godfather had three Best Supporting Actor nominees, all well-deserved. The first was Pacino (who probably should have been nominated alongside Brando in the Best Actor category). The other two were James Caan and Robert Duvall. In a way, it's surprising that Duvall wasn't passed over. His presence in The Godfather isn't flashy or attention-arresting. Like his character of Tom Hagen, he is steady, reliable, and stays in the background. Not so for Caan's Sonny, whose demonstrative and volatile personality can't be overlooked. Family responsibility. A father's legacy. The need to earn respect. The corrupting influence of power. These are some of the ingredients combined in Francis Ford Coppola's cinematic blender. They are themes which have intrigued the greatest authors of every medium through the centuries. We come to The Godfather like Kay Adams - outsiders uncertain in our expectations - but it doesn't take long for us to be captivated by this intricate, violent world. The film can be viewed on many levels, with equal satisfaction awaiting those who just want a good story, and those who demand much more. The Godfather is long, yes - but it is one-hundred seventy minutes well-spent. When the closing credits roll, only a portion of the story has been told. Yet that last haunting image (Kay's shock of recognition), coupled with Nino Rota's mournful score, leaves a crater-like impression that The Godfather Part II only deepens.

With its kinetic style, visceral approach, compelling storyline, and powerful social message, Fight Club makes a commanding case to be considered the '90s version of A Clockwork Orange. In a time when so few motion pictures leave an impact, Fight Club refuses to be ignored or dismissed. The experience lingers, demanding to be pondered and considered, and, unlike 95% of modern-day thrillers, there is a great deal here to think about and argue over. Fight Club presents an overload of thought-provoking material that works on so many levels as to offer grist for the mills of thousands of reviews, feature articles, and post-screening conversations. Pre-release interest in Fight Club was understandably high, primarily because of those involved with the project. Jim Uhls' script is based on an influential novel by Chuck Palahniuk (a book that, while not required material in schools, has consumed the free time of countless readers). The lead actor is the ever-popular Brad Pitt, who makes his strongest bid to date to shed his pretty boy image and don the mantle of a serious thespian. Those dubious about Pitt's ability to pull this off in the wake of his recent attempts in Seven Years in Tibet (which is briefly referenced as an in-joke during Fight Club) and Meet Joe Black will suffer a change of heart after seeing this film. Pitt's male co-star, Edward Norton, is widely recognized as one of the most intelligent and versatile performers of his generation. And Fight Club's director, David Fincher, has already made a huge artistic impression on movie-goers with only three features to his credit: Alien 3, Seven (starring Pitt), and The Game. Mix these elements together in Fox's publicity blender, and Fight Club will not carry the title of "Best Movie of 1999 That No One Saw." In addition to lead actors Pitt, Norton, and Bonham Carter, all of whom do impeccable work, there are a pair of notable supporting players. The first is Meat Loaf (yes, that Meat Loaf), who portrays the ineffectual Bob. It's a surprisingly strong performance, with the singer-turned-actor capturing the nuances of a complex character. Jared Leto, who is becoming better known to audiences (he was recently in The Thin Red Line), is the blond Angel Face. Told in a conventional fashion, Fight Club would still have been engaging. However, Fincher's gritty, restless style turns it into a visual masterpiece. The overall experience is every bit as surreal as watching Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. This is a tale that unfolds in an eerie alternate universe where the melodies of life have the same rhythm as in ours but are in a different key. Fincher also shows just enough restraint that his flourishes seem like important parts of the storytelling method instead of gimmicks. And there are a lot of them. In one scene, a character's apartment is laid out like a page in a furniture catalog, complete with text blurbs superimposed on the screen describing the various pieces. There are occasional single frame interruptions that flash by so quickly that they may pass unnoticed. The film opens with a truly inventive close-up - one that literally gets under the skin. Also in play: a non-linear chronology, a voiceover by a narrator who might not be entirely reliable, frequent breaking of the fourth wall, and an occasional freeze-frame. As was true of Fincher's other three films, Fight Club is dark and fast-paced. There's not a lot of time for introspection. One could call this MTV style, but, unlike many equally frantic movies, there's a reason for each quick cut beyond preventing viewers from becoming bored. Perhaps the most discussed aspect of Fight Club will be its attitude towards and graphic depiction of violence. Even before the film's official premiere, voices have been raised claiming that the movie glorifies violence by portraying it as something positive. This was the complaint leveled against A Clockwork Orange, which, less than three decades after its controversial release, is universally regarded as a classic. There's no denying that Fight Club is a violent movie. Some sequences are so brutal that a portion of the viewing audience will turn away. (The scene that caused me to wince was when one character reached into his mouth and pulled out a loose tooth.) But the purpose of showing all this bloody pummeling is to make a telling point about the bestial nature of man and what can happen when the numbing effects of day-to-day drudgery cause people to go a little crazy. The men who become members of Fight Club are victims of the dehumanizing and desensitizing power of modern-day society. They have become cogs in a wheel. The only way they can regain a sense of individuality is by getting in touch with the primal, barbaric instincts of pain and violence. Fight Club is a memorable and superior motion picture - a rare movie that does not abandon insight in its quest to jolt the viewer.

Consequences. In real life, these ramifications emanate from every action like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. Often in movies, especially those that feature characters who don't play by the rules, such penalties are suspended. However, in Christopher Nolan's Batman universe, decisions and actions have consequences. The Dark Knight, arguably the moodiest and most adult superhero motion picture ever to reach the screen, illustrates this lesson in ways that are startling and painful. This is a tough, uncompromising motion picture - one that defies the common notions of what is expected from a "superhero" film. While there are plenty of action sequences and instances of derring-do, The Dark Knight's subtext has a tragic underpinning that would intrigue Shakespeare or the Greeks. It's about power and impotence, sanity and madness, image and reality, selfishness and sacrifice, and - yes - consequences. It has often been said that Tim Burton's vision of Batman was the darkest representation we were ever likely to see of a superhero. Compared to how Nolan sees the character, Burton's version was a pantomime. For many long-running franchises, Burton's included, the second volume stands tallest. Nolan has followed up on his gritty and successful Batman Begins with one of the best all-time sequels, and perhaps the most impressive mainstream entertainment experience since 2003's The Return of the King. The Dark Knight builds upon the themes and premises founded three years ago. With the introductions and origins dispensed with in Batman Begins, Nolan uses this opportunity to expand upon his portrait of Batman as a haunted individual who, driven by forces rooted deep in his psyche, must dispense justice according to his own strict code. Often in superhero movies, there's a sense that, no matter what challenges the protagonist must face, all will be right in the end. That certainty is missing here, and its absence may represent Nolan's most impressive accomplishment. Batman is fallible and his world is dangerous. No character, no matter how well-established in Batman lore, is safe. This director's Gotham City may be less garish and gothic than Burton's, but it is in many ways a bleaker and more oppressive place. It's a joyless venue and the hero takes his demeanor from his city. Batman is a grim, brooding superhero. He rarely speaks while in costume and, when he does, his voice quivers with menace and his words are devoid of the quips and one-liners audiences have come to associate with action heroes. Of the newcomers, the Joker is the biggest addition. One could argue that it's impossible to make a Batman series without facing the main character against the Joker at some point. No superhero and villain are more inextricably linked. Yet this Joker is unlike any we have previously encountered. Cesar Romero's interpretation of the character (in the '60s TV series) was that of a deadly prankster. Jack Nicholson's over-the-top performance made 1989's Batman all about the bad guy. The late Heath Ledger, however, gives us something darker and more twisted - a role that would have been no less memorable had it not been his last and most grueling. There's nothing humorous about this freak. No flowery lines like "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?" This is no caricature - The Joker is a frighteningly vicious and intelligent monster who represents a legitimate match for the title character. For all of the heavy lifting done by the movie's screenplay, dealing as it does with substantive issues and existential questions, there's still plenty of the meat-and-potatoes content of any superhero movie: action sequences. There are numerous fights, chases, and races. The Batmobile gets its share of screen time as does a new Bat-cycle. Batman takes on bad guys singly and in bunches. And there's a heart-pounding sequence in which the Caped Crusader must race against time to save a life, where the price is almost as terrible if he succeeds as if he fails. Nolan's inherent sense of how to transform a relatively mundane fight scene into something involving is in evidence here, much as was the case in Batman Begins. He avoids flash editing and allows the action to evolve in a coherent manner, drawing the viewer in rather than keeping him guessing what's going on. 2008 may be the year that the superhero movie comes of age. Iron Man represents the best screen adventure of a Marvel hero. Now, D.C. has answered with The Dark Knight, a film so impressive in every significant facet that it makes one wonder why it took so long for the genre to reach this high level. Christopher Nolan has provided movie-goers with the best superhero movie to-date, outclassing previous titles both mediocre and excellent, and giving this franchise its The Empire Strikes Back.

With a legion of titles like Pet Sematary, Firewalker, Sleepwalkers, Maximum Overdrive, and Children of the Corn, it's reasonable not to expect much from Stephen King-inspired motion pictures. Adaptations of the prolific author's work typically vary from mildly entertaining to virtually unwatchable. There are a few notable exceptions, however; two of which (Stand by Me, Misery) were crafted by widely-respected director Rob Reiner. While The Shawshank Redemption is not a Reiner movie per se, it is a production of Castle Rock Pictures (Reiner's film company), and ranks among the best filmed versions of any King stories to date. (This statement has not changed since I first wrote it in 1994.) Spanning the years from 1947 through 1966, The Shawshank Redemption takes the "innocent man in prison" theme and bends it at a different angle. Instead of focusing on crusades for freedom, the movie ventures down a less-traveled road, concentrating on the personal cost of adapting to prison life and how some convicts, once they conform, lose the ability to survive beyond the barbed wire and iron bars. As one of the characters puts it: "These [prison] walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them, then you start to depend on them." Filmed on location in a disused Ohio prison, The Shawshank Redemption is set in a place of perpetual dreariness. What little color there is, is drab and lifeless (lots of grays and muted greens and blues), and there are times when the film is a shade away from black-and-white (give credit to cinematographer Roger Deakins, a longtime Cohen brothers collaborator). It's ironic, therefore, that the central messages are of hope, redemption, and salvation. First time feature director Frank Darabont helms a fleet of impressive performances. Tim Robbins, as Andrew Dufresne, plays the wrongly convicted man with quiet dignity. Andy's ire is internal; he doesn't rant about his situation or the corruptness of the system that has imprisoned him. His unwillingness to surrender hope wins him the admiration of some and the contempt of others, and allows the audience to identify with him that much more strongly. Ellis Boyd Redding (Morgan Freeman), or "Red" as his friends call him, is the self-proclaimed "Sears and Roebuck" of the Shawshank Prison (for a price, he can get just about anything from the outside). His is the narrative voice and, for once, the disembodied words aid, rather than intrude upon, the story. Serving a life sentence for murder, Red is a mixture of cynicism and sincerity - a man with a good soul who has done a vile deed. His friendship with Andy is one of The Shawshank Redemption's highlights. William Sadler (as a fellow prisoner), Clancy Brown (as a sadistic guard), and Bob Gunton (as the corrupt warden) all give fine supporting performances. Newcomer Gil Bellows, in a small but crucial role (that was originally intended for Brad Pitt), brings the poise of a veteran to his portrayal of Tommy Williams, Andy's protege. Ultimately, the standout actor is the venerable James Whitmore, doing his finest work in years. Whitmore's Brooks is a brilliantly realized character, and the scenes with him attempting to cope with life outside of Shawshank represents one of the film's most moving - and effective - sequences. Unfortunately, following a solid two hours of thought-provoking drama, the movie deflates like a punctured balloon during its overlong denouement. The too-predictable final twenty minutes move a little slowly, and writer/director Darabont exposes a distressing need to wrap up everything into a tidy little package. "Salvation lies within," advises Warden Norton at one point. It is the presentation of this theme that makes The Shawshank Redemption unique. Prison movies often focus on the violence and hopelessness of a life behind bars. While this film includes those elements, it makes them peripheral. The Shawshank Redemption is all about hope and, because of that, watching it is both uplifting and cathartic.