In this adaptation of Joyce Cary’s novel, writen by Alec Guinness and directed by Ronald Neame, Guinness plays an unscrupulous artist named Gulley Jimson, who believes that talent and genius should be served at all costs. Jimson’s paintings were drawn by John Bratby, and the music is adapted from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije. Oscar Nominations: 1 […]

David Anspaugh’s against-all-odds sports melodrama, which is conventional and works too hard to please, “Hoosiers” centers on a small town Indiana high-school basketball team that has been consistently losing games.

Former stuntman Hal Needhma directs this star vehicle, in which Burt Reynolds plays an aging stuntman, Jan-Michael Vincent as youngster who challenges him, and Sally Field as his romantic interest (also in real life at the time). Oscar Nominations: 1 Sound: Robert Knudson, Robert J. Glass, Don MacDougall, Jack Solomon   Oscar Awards: None Oscar […]

Filmed over a period of five years, this extraordinary film chronicles the true-life story of two African-American boys whose ultimate dream is to play in the NBA. Boasting an epic scale and length (running time is close to three hours), Hoop Dreams, which I saw at its world premiere in the Sundance Film Festival, has more passion, compassion, and suspense than most Hollywood fictional pictures.

TriStar Pictures Steven Spielberg adapted J. M. Barrie’s famous fable of “Peter Pan” through a distinctly modern but disappointing sensibility, resulting in a charmless picture (and one of the director’s artistically weak films). In this version, Peter Pan is Peter Banning (Robin Williams), a middle-age lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, constantly on his cellular […]