REVIEW: Clueless [1995]

I totally paused! I’m not sure why we picked Amy Heckerling‘s Clueless five days after it opened (I save my ticket stubs), but I do remember enjoying it. Not in spite of assumptions either—unless we went because it was the only PG-13 film out (I became a teenage six months earlier). Maybe my love of cinema as more than superficially reductive genres with targeted demographics existed even then since that two-week span also included Apollo 13 and Nine Months. And because I wouldn’t have known about Jane Austen or Heckerling’s…

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REVIEW: Alien: Resurrection [1997]

“You’re a beautiful, beautiful butterfly” An obvious predecessor to screenwriter Joss Whedon‘s revered “Firefly”, Alien: Resurrection breathes new life into a franchise that could have easily been left alone. Reviving the iconic Ellen Ripley through the hot button topic of cloning, his script found a way to coax Sigourney Weaver back with a uniquely dark spin on the character. Part alien, part human, and all Petri dish, ‘Number 8’ is cognizant of her former self’s rage against the xenomorphs two hundred years before while also acknowledging her role as mother…

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REVIEW: Blood Simple. [1984]

“I ain’t done nothin’ funny” It took Fargo—thirteen years later—for the Coen Brothers to finally get recognition at the Oscars with three nominations culminating in a win for Best Screenplay. Then it was another eleven before their first Best Picture win. And if you look at that victory with No Country for Old Men alongside their more recently acclaimed A Serious Man, you should force yourself to go all the way back to 1984 for a glimpse at their genetic originator. You can’t help but see the dark noir atmosphere…

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