Email Author Andy Klein

1997 Stories by Andy Klein

• Paying the Piper

  published December 25, 1997

  With 1994's Exotica, Atom Egoyan secured his reputation as Canada's leading director; his new film, The Sweet Hereafter, based on a celebrated... More >>

• Never Say Tomorrow Again

  published December 18, 1997

  Now that the Japanese Tora-san series -- with 50-odd entries in 30 years -- has presumably drawn to a close after the death last year of star... More >>

• Gory Gory Hallelujah!

  published December 11, 1997

  Wes Craven's Scream, which opened almost exactly a year ago, was the surprise hit of an overcrowded Christmas season. The success was a triumph... More >>

• Too Crazy After All These Years

  published November 27, 1997

  First, The Heiress was unofficially remade as Washington Square, then Ace in the Hole as Mad City, and The Day of the Jackal as The Jackal. But... More >>

• Simple Pleasure

  published November 27, 1997

  Miramax held on to the Spanish comedy Mouth to Mouth (a.k.a. Boca a Boca) for better than a year before releasing it early this fall -- usually a... More >>

• Czar Crash

  published November 20, 1997

  Over the past three years, 20th Century Fox has built an ambitious new animation studio in Phoenix, putting the promising Don Bluth and Gary... More >>

• Untamed Camera

  published November 20, 1997

  Documentarian Errol Morris is by far best-known for his 1988 feature The Thin Blue Line, which is often described as the only film that ever got... More >>

• Faking Away

  published October 23, 1997

  The true-life story of the Cottingley fairies is so full of possibilities, so thought-provoking and hilarious at once, that it's amazing it has... More >>

• A Fistful of Dolor

  published October 16, 1997

  Jennifer Jason Leigh follows up one of her smallest, and weakest, roles (in A Thousand Acres) with a far more challenging, and formidable,... More >>

• Coming Home

  published October 9, 1997

  The Seventies were so awash in Fifties nostalgia that it's surprising Going All the Way, the 1970 best seller by South Beach resident and FIU... More >>

• Bard Stiff

  published September 18, 1997

  Every film adaption of an existing work has its own unique set of problems. In the case of Jocelyn Moorhouse's A Thousand Acres, the problem is... More >>

• Last Tango in Tokyo

  published July 24, 1997

  At first glance, the new Japanese comedy Shall We Dance? appears to be an Asian remake of the Australian hit Strictly Ballroom. But in fact the... More >>

• Drown Syndrome

  published June 12, 1997

  First the good news: Unlike most action film sequels, Speed 2: Cruise Control is not a mere retread of the original. Now the bad news: Better it... More >>

• Mayday

  published June 5, 1997

  It wouldn't be completely fair to say that the hits produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer from 1983 through 1996 are stylistically... More >>

• Court and Sparks

  published May 15, 1997

  Sidney Lumet has had enough ups and downs in his long, prolific career that it's never safe to count him out ... even after two disappointing... More >>

• Woo Slay Me

  published April 24, 1997

  John Woo has often cited the films of Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) as among his greatest influences -- particularly 1967's Le Samourai -- and... More >>

• Womb with a Viewpoint

  published March 27, 1997

  Nobody is seriously going to accuse writer-director Alexander Payne of being chickenshit. For his first feature, the hilarious Citizen Ruth, he... More >>

• Let's Do Lynch

  published February 27, 1997

  In the two decades since Eraserhead, David Lynch has established himself as American cinema's premier surrealist, our own Wizard of Weird.... More >>

• To See or Not to See

  published January 23, 1997

  Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh) is Prince of Denmark. After his father (Richard Briers) dies, his uncle Claudius (Derek Jacobi) takes the throne and... More >>

• Simply Beastly

  published January 23, 1997

  You can bet that at one point or another some executive wanted the title of this long-awaited nonsequel to 1988's A Fish Called Wanda to be A... More >>

• The Spirit Moves You

  published January 23, 1997

  Lars von Trier is, perhaps consciously and defiantly, one of the least-commercial brilliant directors in the world. His best-known movie, the 1991... More >>

• The Smaller, the Taller

  published January 2, 1997

  Now and again as I sit here on my power perch, having just praised some pleasing cinematic trifle with a mot so bon it could singlehandedly vault... More >>