As the idealized mother, I might choose Irene Dunne as the mother in ‘I Remember Mama’ who strives and not just cooks and scrubs for her children, but who also acts as her daughter’s literary agent. Richard Corliss Read Quote
Before sequels became the most reliable way to make a buck, Bond set the standard for lavish serial adventures. Before Hollywood found gold in multimillion-dollar adaptations of comic-book characters – in the Superman, Batman and Spider-Man blockbusters – Bond was the movies’ first big-budget franchise superhero. Richard Corliss Read Quote
It’s nice that established and emerging stars agree to appear in ambitious low-budget films. Such pro-bono work gives the movie a higher profile and the actors a potentially more distinguished resume. Richard Corliss Read Quote
World War II was a historical event, but also a movie genre, and ‘Fury’ occasionally prints the legend. The rest of it is plenty grim and grisly. Audience members may feel like prisoners of war forced to watch a training-torture film. Richard Corliss Read Quote
Africa is the continent that the rest of the world prefers not to think about. Richard Corliss Read Quote
In ‘Se7en’ and ‘Fight Club,’ Fincher proved his suave mastery of film violence; in Zodiac, his way of clarifying the many clues in a murder thriller. As he showed in ‘The Social Network,’ the director also knows that no wound is more toxic than a friend’s betrayal. Richard Corliss Read Quote
So why am I an A’s fan? Because, from 1901 to 1954, they were the Philadelphia Athletics. Philadelphia is my home town. The A’s were the team I loved as a kid, and no gap of space or time can fray that bond. Richard Corliss Read Quote
I came of baseball age (isn’t it always around first grade?) in the last sputtering years of the A’s Philadelphia tenancy. I probably plighted my fated troth in 1949, when the A’s fluked into a winning season and introduced a pintsize southpaw named Bobby Shantz. Richard Corliss Read Quote
No question that ‘Birdman’ is a breathtaking technical achievement, not a stunt. Shot in 30 days after a long rehearsal period, with the actors’ and the camera’s movements calibrated to the inch and the millisecond so the action flows smoothly, the picture has the jagged energy of a long guerrilla raid choreographed by Bob Fosse. Richard Corliss Read Quote
Nixon, with his mellifluous baritone, was a great politician for radio but creepy on TV. Richard Corliss Read Quote