Have You Ever Seen

Step up, step up to hear our chat about a movie that focuses on the, let's say, more unusual circus performers...although Freaks isn't actually about the show the public gets to see. In fact, Tod Browning's revenge story focuses almost entirely on the humdrum lives (and sometimes maniacal actions) of the sideshow characters in this traveling caravan. Just don't cross one of these so-called freaks...

Deadites and Kandarian demons, we're back after a week off with a PG-rated talk about the extremely R-rated Evil Dead II. Director Sam Raimi, star Bruce Campbell & their friends were able to pull off a monumental blend of comedy and horror in this landmark sequel. Actually, the laughs outnumber the shrieks. The gore-soaked set pieces and the  creativity of the low-budget effects get an A+, but the...

We begin our 7th Scary Movie Month with this 461st Ellises' Analysis.  Poltergeist is a slow-burn horror show with an insane finale as  Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg throw a bunch of angry ghosts at the loving Freeling family. The movie also has a sense of humour to balance out at least some of the trauma these little children go through. Full marks to the cast. Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams...

Lady Bird was a perfect way for Greta Gerwig to start her directing career. She got to make a movie based on her own life, set in her home city of Sacramento, with a young woman in the lead role, which succeeded at the box office and was beloved by critics. Mic drop. A huge plus is that Gerwig's caustically funny flick has an atypical ending to a coming-of-age story, contrast to the easy answers t...

We haven't covered a Paul Thomas Anderson movie in over 6 years, so it's high time we found out what's up in his funny opus about a makeshift family doing drugs and shooting porn. Burt Reynolds is fantastic and he's so likable in Boogie Nights, but it was Mark Wahlberg who said to Hollywood "hello, I'm a big, bright shining star" after this ode to the '70s burst onto the scene. The entire cast is...

Spike Lee has spent most of his long career directing movies about racial strife, but 25th Hour isn't really about that. The terrorist attack on 9/11 wasn't even a year old when they were making this movie, so Lee instead chose to lace those complicated feelings throughout what is otherwise a quiet character study about one man's last day of freedom. Edward Norton is strong (as he always is) in th...

Fittingly for Labour Day, we're talking about eating the rich and helping out the poor. Even with his butler job in My Man Godfrey though, the suave William Powell isn't exactly Johnny Lunchbox. He gets to wear a tuxedo and work in the ritzy house of a wealthy family of zany idiots. It could be worse. We were overdue to cover a Carole Lombard film, although her committed comic performance is a bit...

Before you pop the 456th Ellises' Analysis into your ears, we offer a trigger warning if you still root for a certain Floridian man-child. His name was often besmirched and we didn't pull too many punches in comparing him to the way Queen Anne is portrayed in The Favourite. Olivia Colman is dynamite (and won a surprise Oscar) playing the whiny royal in Yorgos Lanthimos' sex-filled-yet-unsexy dark...

While we probably wouldn't be thrilled if the characters played by Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite in The Florida Project were our next-door neighbours, we absolutely loved watching them in this film. In this and in Tangerine, director Sean Baker has shown he really knows how to make an authentic and enjoyable movie with inexperienced actors. Here they're desperate people in impossible circumsta...

Adrian Lyne directed plenty of sex thrillers in his career, but none of them were quite the zeitgeisty blockbuster that Fatal Attraction was. Glenn Close's legendary performance as a disturbed woman who falls hard for Michael Douglas' unfaithful man remains one of the most fascinating things she's ever done. Her movie annoyed feminists though, especially when Close (against the actress' will) did...

In Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes pays loving homage to sumptuous 1950's Douglas Sirk melodramas. This movie is actually more ambitious than anything Sirk ever did though. Haynes tackles multiple controversies in his "Issues Film", including closeted homosexuality and romance between a black man & a white woman. The actors---especially Julianne Moore---are excellent. Moore, Dennis Quaid and Dennis H...

Unlike many of the immature '80s t een comedies that were obsessed with sex, the star-making Fast Times At Ridgemont High stands out for not treating it like a leering joke. Amy Heckerling's first film actually cares about the young women in the huge cast, especially Jennifer Jason Leigh. Sean Penn is uncharacteristically hilarious in one of his characteristically Method roles, but this movie belo...

Some movies stand out for being great, some stand out for being terrible and some stand out for how juicy the behind-the-scenes stories are. There's always been more gossip about the behaviour of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane co-stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford than there's been talk about the movie itself. And art imitated life because the actresses playing the sisters in Robert Aldrich's th...

Bradley Cooper started his journey to become one of the most-versatile and most-respected actors of his generation when he starred in Silver Linings Playbook. In so many movies since then (and several films before then, really), he's been far better than a 5/10. Writer/director David O. Russell expertly mixes romance & comedy with serious issues like mental illness & irrational rage. Cooper, Jenni...

There might not be a better accomplishment than to make a movie that has cynics like us want to stand up and chant "USA, USA!" Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One does just that. Harrison Ford's dogged toughness and his humanity as perhaps the most-popular president in film history is the key here, but the rest of the large cast (especially Gary Oldman as a Russian terrorist) is pretty great too. Th...

Alfonso Cuaron's remarkable career was still in its opening act when he made this beautifully raunchy movie, which inspired us to record a fairly raunchy podcast. Y Tu Mama Tambien is drenched in sex and youthful machismo, but at least there's an older leading lady to offset that with loveliness and soul. Her 2 eager boy toys are fun, dumb and ready to rock at all times. Maribel Verdu puts a fresh...

It's hard to argue with the fact that CODA is a heartwarming and inclusive film about a family of fishers. Sian Heder's cast of legitimately deaf actors (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant) gel well with the only hearing member of their family (Emelia Jones). As for Heder's story, it's a well-worn one about strife between people who truly love each other, despite the disputes. You also c...

Hero (or "Heroes", as it SHOULD have been called...maybe even "Superheroes") was a ballyhooed Chinese blockbuster that followed in the golden footsteps of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Both are beautiful, lyrical and impressive technically, but Yimou Zhang's cool-as-a-spinning-swordsman opus tops Ang Lee's remarkable accomplishment...from an aesthetic standpoint anyway. We just wished Zhang's st...

The one that made movie stars out of Damon & Affleck has been discussed by nearly everybody for the past 25 years, but we managed to find several new wrinkles in this well-written dramedy about friendship, love, grief and advanced math. Matt & Ben won Oscars for their quotable script and so did Robin Williams for his heartfelt performance as Damon's therapist. Williams is at his best in Good Will...

Invite all your monkey friends out for a day of river rafting as the 444th Ellises' Analysis dives into the goings on in "Apocalypse Before". Werner Herzog was still fairly new to making movies that are filled with verisimilitude when he made this incredibly authentic cult favourite deep in the Peruvian wilderness with his "best fiend" Klaus Kinski. The two of them had famous battles during this a...

The Quiet Man is not the greatest collaboration between the Johns (Ford & Wayne, natch), but it IS probably their most light-hearted. It's also a film jammed with Irish stereotypes. Of course, the director himself was Irish, so some slack should be cut. Other aspects of the story and the performances that don't age very well, however, are more of a problem. At least Maureen O'Hara is no shrinking...

Growing a conscience when you're an alcoholic, ambulance chaser is a longtime movie trope (right?), but very few of those guys have been played by Paul Newman. Unfortunately, not even one of the world's greatest actors could overcome some problems with David Mamet's script, namely that Newman's motivations for taking a "let's just settle" civil case to trial are selfish and wrongheaded. Taking on...

Orson Welles followed up his monumental Citizen Kane with this similarly-themed film about money, privilege, self-destruction and---say it with us---comeuppance. One of the most-influential directors of all time didn't even get to finish The Magnificent Ambersons though because the studio took it away from him in post-production. We can't have a talented-but-iconoclastic kid go and make 2 masterpi...

The Player turns 30 later this week and this satire hasn't lost very much of its punch. Hollywood is the land of phony (now more than ever!) and that atmosphere can be poison to artistic integrity, sure, but most other films of this type don't feature a guy getting away with literal murder. Yup, we wondered if Robert Altman's comeback film is even cleverer than it first appears. Could most of or e...

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead wasn't peered at by very many eyeballs 15 years ago, but Sidney Lumet's final film deserved to be seen by many and deserved to be a hit. Kelly Masterson's subtle script is award-worthy and the late & very great Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent as the lead of this tremendous cast. He shares the screen with pros like Hawke, Tomei, Finney and Shannon. The talent...