Terminator

[Spoilers below!]

Kyle: "Come with me if you want to live."

I love science fiction, time travel stories, and strong female characters. And I'm a romantic. So you can imagine how I've always felt about this movie.

The whole freaking story is a paradox. How could John Connor even exist in the first place if John himself had to send his father back in time to rescue and impregnate his

Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi

[This review includes spoilers.]Han: "A Jedi knight? I'm out of it for a little while, and everybody gets delusions of grandeur."I hate Ewoks. I hate their cute, fuzzy little faces and their squeaky little voices. And why? Because they almost single-handedly turned the heaviness volume way down on this movie. This one could have been the best of the trilogy. Instead, it was the weakest

Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back

[This review includes spoilers.]

Leia: "I love you."
Han: "I know."

It's a middle movie. But it never felt like one.

The opening battle on the ice planet Hoth with the imperial walkers is just stunning. I remember being totally floored when I saw it in the theater. (Yes, I'm old enough to have seen Empire in the theater.) And I was shocked down to my socks three times -- when Vader cut

Star Wars 4: A New Hope

[This review includes spoilers.]

Leia: "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

I feel somewhat inadequate to the task of reviewing a movie whose impact has been felt for decades all over the world. Those are pretty big shoes for a melodramatic science fiction movie with aliens and robots, but let's face it, Star Wars is very, very special.

The big thing that works about the

Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith

[This review includes spoilers. And it was written right after I saw it in the theater.]

Padme: "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause."

I just saw Revenge of the Sith, and I can't get it out of my head. For me, it's up there with Empire, which has always been my favorite. This one is darker than Empire. It had to be. George Lucas deserves some heavy-duty praise after all

Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones

[This review includes spoilers.]Obi-Wan: "Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?"I have to come down on the side of those who liked it. (Am I a Pollyanna, or what?) What I thought was particularly strong about this movie were (1) the visuals, of course; (2) the careful, accurate way it set up Episode 3, as well as the original trilogy, and (3) little Darth Christensen.I

Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace

[This review includes spoilers.]Obi-Wan: "I have a bad feeling about this."Probably most sci-fi geeks do just what Dan and I do every time we watch this movie: debate what went wrong.Let's see. We have a boy with a great talent, leading a dull and pointless existence on a backwater planet. A great mentor and wise man comes along and sets him on his path before sacrificing his own life. The

Pleasantville

Jen: "We're supposed to be at home, David. We're supposed to be in color."

A long time ago when I still liked Reese Witherspoon, I was bowled over by Pleasantville. It's still one of my absolute favorite fantasy movies. The first part of the movie is hilarious and original, while the second part explores some pretty serious topics and goes in unexpected directions. I've often wondered why

RoboCop

[This review includes spoilers.]

Murphy: "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

I don't care for heavy-duty violence in movies. But I've always had a soft spot for RoboCop. It should have been a forgettable B movie, and it wasn't. It was clever, bitingly satirical, moving and visceral. It stayed in my head a long time after I first saw it.

Murphy is the only truly human character in

Highlander: The Source

(Movie : 2007)

Guardian: "There can be only me."

This review contains spoilers. But don't let that stop you. You don't want to waste your time by actually watching this movie.

Highlander doesn't have the greatest of reps when it comes to movies. They're all B movies. Sometimes C. The second Highlander movie was an F. I'd say this one was a D minus. I swear, the freaking

Highlander 3: The Final Dimension

(Movie : 1995)

Alex: "'There can be only one.' Only one what?"

Realizing the ghastly mistake they had made with Highlander 2, the very same producers decided that the answer was to just re-make the first movie. Yes, it was a smart decision to retcon the entire second movie, but remaking the first one was not the way to go.

The Final Dimension had Christopher Lambert reprise his role as

Highlander 2: The Quickening

(Movie : 1991)Omigod, what a terrible movie. The original release of this movie was so colossally bad that I am amazed that it didn't sink the franchise before it truly began. Even the "renegade version" is freaking awful. Mercifully, I've forgotten a lot of the details, and I wasn't able to force myself to watch the whole thing in order to write a review.I guess I could explain why I think

Highlander

(Movie : 1986)Brenda: "What can you tell me about a seven foot lunatic hacking away with a broadsword at one o'clock in the morning in New York City in 1985?"Connor: "Not much."As B-movies go, this one isn't all that good. But it did something extraordinary: it introduced a unique fantasy universe that has captivated fans for years. I've spent a lot of time fantasizing about the

Fahrenheit 9 11

Go see this movie. You owe it to yourself.If you don't care much for Michael Moore, don't worry -- you won't see much of him here. Moore narrates, and his opinion of the current administration is a strong one, but his viewpoint is not what makes this documentary so effective. What I found overwhelming were the visuals, things that we're not seeing on CNN: documents about the connections

Blade Runner

Roy Batty: "All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain."

Blade Runner is my favorite science fiction movie. It is so rich and powerful that it lends itself to repeated watching and analysis. It asks the big questions. What is a human being? What is not? Where do we draw the line?

As likable as Harrison Ford is in every other movie he's ever made, I never liked him in

Emotional Arithmetic

Also known as: Autumn Hearts: A New BeginningIn English (2007)Jakob: "I should not have said 'remember'. I should have said 'live'."Emotional Arithmetic is about the reunion, in Quebec and over forty years later, of three Holocaust survivors of a French transit camp called Drancy. Melanie (Susan Sarandon) and Christopher (Gabriel Byrne) were imprisoned as children and cared for by a young man

Shake Hands with the Devil

In English (2007)This movie is about the experiences of General Romeo Dallaire (Roy Dupuis) during the Rwandan genocide, and the effect it had on his life. I decided not to watch it because the content is just too upsetting for me personally. Rather than not cover the movie at all, I asked members of the Roy Dupuis fan list Amis par Roy to contribute their impressions, and got several

That Beautiful Somewhere

In English (2006)Harold: "To be healed, you have to die and be reborn."I had read a number of reviews of this movie, and not single one was good, so I wasn't expecting a lot. But actually, I thought this movie just missed being really good. It was interesting and deeply romantic, in a suicidal and depressing sort of way.Conk (Roy Dupuis) is a police detective and veteran haunted by his

Maurice Richard

Also known as The RocketIn French, with English subtitles (2005)Lucille: "You shatter records, fill arenas, but the league doesn't protect you. Why? They protect every star player but you."This is a period biopic about Quebecois hockey great Maurice Richard, starting and ending with the 1955 riots in Montreal when Richard was suspended unfairly for a fight he didn't start.Maurice Richard was

Les Etats Unis d'Albert

In French, with English subtitles (2005)Jack Dekker: "Partial amnesia. I'd give anything to forget Arizona and get back my virginity."This is an absurd and occasionally raunchy screwball comedy. I laughed all the way through it.It is 1926, and Valentino had just died. On his way to Los Angeles to become a movie star, young Albert (Eric Bruneau) meets and falls in love with a lovely,