Email Author Peter Rainer

1997 Stories by Peter Rainer

• Post-Pulp

  published December 25, 1997

  If Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown didn't arrive weighted with post-Pulp Fiction expectations, it might be easier to see it for what it is: an... More >>

• Sink Piece

  published December 18, 1997

  Explained Biblically, the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic 400 miles off the southern coast of Newfoundland in 1912 is an act of divine one-upmanship.... More >>

• Slave Labor

  published December 11, 1997

  Steven Spielberg's Amistad is being given the Big Picture treatment--Schindler's List Big, not Jurassic Park Big. Last week's Newsweek featured... More >>

• Primary Killers

  published December 4, 1997

  A team of Russia-based international bad guys wants to knock off someone at the very top of the U.S. government. Who you gonna call? The... More >>

• Monster Mash

  published November 27, 1997

  You can't exactly call Alien Resurrection a pleasurable experience, but, then again, you wouldn't say that about its predecessors, either.... More >>

• Half-baked Bean

  published November 6, 1997

  Family films are often pitched for "the child in us all," but Bean doesn't have an ounce of "inner child" in it. It's been worked out to appeal... More >>

• Reactionary Pop Gunnery

  published November 6, 1997

  In Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, based on the late Robert Heinlein's 1959 sci-fi opus, the killer arachnids upstage the humans. Not that... More >>

• The XXX Philes

  published October 30, 1997

  Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights opens with a sinuous, breathlessly extended tracking shot that swoops us into a San Fernando... More >>

• Cliche-spotting

  published October 23, 1997

  Stylishness without substance can become wearying real fast. Twenty minutes into A Life Less Ordinary, the new movie from the... More >>

• Lama's Boy

  published October 9, 1997

  Seven Years in Tibet feels more like Seven Days at the Movies. It refuses to come to life--not even when prodded by Brad Pitt, hirsute as a yak,... More >>

• Compact High

  published October 2, 1997

  Oliver Stone's low-budget, hopped-up film noir, U-Turn, is being billed as a change of pace for the conspiracy dude, but actually it looks quite... More >>

• The Next New Wave

  published September 25, 1997

  Everybody likes to run down Canadian movies, but Canadian film festivals--I speak of Montreal and Toronto--are something else again. How can a... More >>

• New Studio, Same Old Stuff

  published September 25, 1997

  The Peacemaker is the first feature from DreamWorks, the studio headed by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. It stars George... More >>

• The Big Sleazy

  published September 18, 1997

  The 1950s-era Los Angeles of L.A. Confidential is Noir Central. Its denizens are tattooed by shadow; the play of light and dark in the streets,... More >>

• Waiting for McGuffin

  published September 11, 1997

  The Game is a puzzle picture, and beyond its premise there isn't much you can divulge without giving the show away. I'm not one of those critics... More >>

• Real Girls

  published September 4, 1997

  Mike Leigh's new film Career Girls is compact and minor. I don't mean that as a slam, exactly. After the dawdling expansiveness of last year's... More >>

• Snatch 22

  published August 28, 1997

  Excess Baggage, Alicia Silverstone's first feature from her First Kiss Productions, turns out to be a rather shaggy and uninvolving jaunt. As... More >>

• Cad Litter

  published August 28, 1997

  In the Company of Men is about Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy), two thirtysomething white-collar execs who have recently been passed... More >>

• A Second-Generation Filmmaker Under the Influence

  published August 28, 1997

  If you're nostalgic for the cockeyed, let-it-all-out gabfests of the late John Cassavetes, She's So Lovely will seem like dejà vu all over... More >>

• The Lass Action Hero

  published August 21, 1997

  In G.I. Jane, Demi Moore's Naval Intelligence officer, Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, is recruited as a test case to be the first female Navy SEAL. She... More >>

• Palookaville

  published August 14, 1997

  The cops in Cop Land carry on like a bunch of goombahs. On the take from the Mob, they mimic the Mob. The fuzzy line dividing cops and crooks is... More >>

• Aloft Cause

  published July 24, 1997

  Not satisfied with the president you have? Here's Harrison Ford's James Marshall in Air Force One: Vietnam war hero, straight as a ramrod, devoted... More >>

• Heavens Can Wait

  published July 10, 1997

  A lot of ink has been shed in the press lately about the "seriousness" of the new Robert Zemeckis film Contact, starring Jodie Foster as an... More >>

• Stranger Danger

  published July 3, 1997

  The special effects in the sci-fi comedy Men in Black are an orgy of animatronics, mechanical effects, practical effects, miniatures, computer... More >>

• Whacks and Wayne

  published June 26, 1997

  Bring earplugs to Batman & Robin. A pair of noseplugs wouldn't hurt, either. The fourth installment in the Batman franchise is one long,... More >>