Email Author Todd Anthony

1996 Stories by Todd Anthony

• Hoods Just Wanna Have Fun

  published November 14, 1996

  "I coulda been a contender," Marlon Brando laments to Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront. Instead, he got "a one-way ticket to Palookaville." ... More >>

• The Good, the Bad, the Duplicitous

  published November 14, 1996

  Mother Night, a loving adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel of the same name, should be required viewing as a companion piece to Casablanca.... More >>

• Love in the Time of Retro

  published November 7, 1996

  The made-on-a-shoestring male bonding comedy Swingers has become a darling of the film festival circuit thanks to the cinematic equivalent of... More >>

• Mushrooms and Munchkins

  published October 31, 1996

  I hate the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. I know, I know -- film festivals are good for us, they give us a chance to see... More >>

• Reform School Rules

  published October 24, 1996

  Let me give you a piece of advice regarding the movie Sleepers: As you settle into your seat for the opening credits and the phrase "based on a... More >>

• The Mother She Never Had (Sniff)

  published October 24, 1996

  When is a soap opera not a soap opera? When it's written and directed by a filmmaker as skilled as Mike Leigh and performed by actors as... More >>

• Independent Filmmaking, Straight Up

  published October 24, 1996

  Tommy Basilio (Steve Buscemi) lost his pregnant girlfriend Theresa (Elizabeth Bracco) to his best friend and former boss Rob (Anthony LaPaglia).... More >>

• Choose One: This Movie or the Death Penalty

  published October 17, 1996

  An earnest, ambitious, and highly principled young lawyer takes on an unpopular case and uncovers evildoing in high places. Question #1: Which... More >>

• Lethal Screenplay

  published October 17, 1996

  You have to admire Shane Black. The guy writes ludicrous, thoroughly implausible scripts that should be laughed out of existence based on their... More >>

• Schmaltzy Is As Schmaltzy Does

  published October 10, 1996

  Tom Hanks's new movie That Thing You Do! is a slight but catchy little ditty that grows annoying with prolonged exposure. In other words, it's a... More >>

• Just Plain Bitter

  published October 10, 1996

  I wasn't even going to review Leon Ichaso's cliche-ridden anti-Castro diatribe Bitter Sugar. Ichaso's Cuban Romeo and Juliet seemed neither good... More >>

• Women Behaving Badly

  published October 3, 1996

  The female protagonists of the darkly funny thrillers Bound, Curdled, and Butterfly Kiss don't fit neatly into the usual Madonna-whore roles... More >>

• Is There a Script Doctor in the House?

  published September 26, 1996

  You're a doctor on duty in a hospital emergency room. Ambulances arrive and disgorge two gunshot victims. One is a cop and the other a... More >>

• Son of Pulp Fiction

  published September 26, 1996

  With his muscled arms, deep-set eyes and wavy black hair, 2 days in the Valley writer-director John Herzfeld looks the part of Starsky's brother,... More >>

• Solid As a Rock

  published September 19, 1996

  American filmmakers born during the baby boom have been trying -- and failing -- for decades to make a really great rock and roll movie. A few... More >>

• Rich Man, Poor Film

  published September 19, 1996

  Too many thrillers start out like gangbusters only to fall apart in the final act. When one finally happens along that ends more cleverly than it... More >>

• The Brothers McFailure

  published September 12, 1996

  For a musician, Tom Petty is one shrewd son-of-a-gun. He knows that movie soundtracks these days frequently become more popular than the movies... More >>

• The Verbal and the Profane

  published September 12, 1996

  David Mamet's 1975 play American Buffalo shocked audiences with its profanity and its unsparing examination of what Mamet characterized as "the... More >>

• Shoot to Kill

  published September 5, 1996

  Massive power crash. Phones down. No TV, no radio, no computers. Chaos and lawlessness ensue. Suburban proto-yuppies Matt and his wife Annie... More >>

• Special Defects

  published September 5, 1996

  I can't believe that with all the money they spent on casting (Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer don't come cheap), the geniuses who remade H.G.... More >>

• Harlot's Web

  published August 29, 1996

  Fans of Zhang Yimou's haunting and visually striking epic Raise the Red Lantern may want to check out Li Shaohong's new film Blush, a lush... More >>

• Wallace & Gromit's Excellent Inventor

  published August 29, 1996

  Multiple Oscar-winner Nick Park's name is well-known in his native England but remains relatively unfamiliar here in the U.S. More Americans have... More >>

• Romeo and Juliet Among the Ruins

  published August 22, 1996

  You won't see a more damning testimony to the mindlessness of war than the final scene of Vukovar. It's a sweeping panorama of burned-out rubble... More >>

• Scripted by Numbers

  published August 22, 1996

  If Jean-Michel Basquiat had chosen rock music rather than painting as his metier, his life story would seem so familiar as to border on cliche:... More >>

• The Emma Award for Best Adaption

  published August 15, 1996

  Emma viewers may need reassurance that they haven't just wandered into a screening of last year's acclaimed Jane Austen adaption, Sense and... More >>