Overlooked and Under-Appreciated — Blog

Review: Jack's Back (1988)

This horror thriller from Rowdy Herrington, the director of Road House, plays as an effective, Brian De Palma-esque work.

Aren's Reviews, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromSeptember 10, 2024Jack's Back, Rowdy Herrington, James Spader, Cynthia Gibb, Jim Haynie, Robert Picardo, Rod Loomis, Rex RyonComment

Review: The X-Files (1998)

The X-Files movie remains an effective 1990s sci-fi blockbuster, even for viewers who never watched the TV show.

Review: Cocktail (1988)

This ain’t the liquor talking. Cocktail isn’t a bad movie.

Review: Overlord (1975)

Stuart Cooper’s Overlord is a seamless blend of fact and fiction and one of the definitive World War II movies.

Aren's Reviews, Reviews, Overlooked and Under-AppreciatedAren BergstromJune 11, 2024Overlord, D-Day, Stuart Cooper, World War II, Christopher Hudson, Brian Stirner, Davyd Harries, Nicholas Ball, Julie NeesamComment

Review: Joseph: King of Dreams (2000)

Joseph: King of Dreams should enjoy heavy rotation among families who want to show Bible movies to their children.

Review: Pathfinder (1987)

Retelling a Sami legend, Nils Gaup’s Pathfinder is both an act of cultural preservation and a thrilling action-adventure.

Review: Out of Africa (1985)

Sydney Pollack’s Best Picture winner feels like a film of a different age, and is all the better for it.

Aren's Reviews, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromMarch 18, 2024Out of Africa, Sydney Pollack, Kurt Luedtke, Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen, Judith Thurman, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen, Shane RimmerComment

Review: Night Nurse (1931)

Night Nurse starring Barbara Stanwyck is a reminder of the salacious storytelling of pre-Code Hollywood.

Aren's Reviews, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromFebruary 13, 2024Night Nurse, William A. Wellman, Oliver H.P. Garrett, Charles Kenyon, Dora Macy, Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable, pre-CodeComment

Review: Shipwrecked (1990)

Shipwrecked is a competent boys’ own adventure, played without irony, revisionism, or computer-generated fakeness.

Halloween Horror: Doctor X (1932)

Michael Curtiz’s Doctor X demonstrates the perverse strangeness of pre-Code horror.

Aren's Reviews, Halloween Horror, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromNovember 13, 2023Doctor X, Halloween Horror, pre-Code horror, Michael Curtiz, Robert Tasker, Earl Baldwin, Terror, Howard W. Comstock, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster, Lionel AtwillComment

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

The third Pirates film threatens to spin out of control, but such an eccentric vision of a dark and whimsical fantasy world has rarely been as vividly imagined on screen.

Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAnders BergstromSeptember 8, 2023Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Gore Verbinski, Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Chow Yun-fat, pirates, adventure, fantasyComment

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Dead Man’s Chest is the best film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, a big, fun, rollicking adventure.

Review: American Graffiti (1973)

At 50, George Lucas’s masterpiece of nostalgia is far deeper, more complex, more innovative, and more influential than is often remembered.

Review: The Day After Trinity (1981)

Jon Else’s documentary The Day After Trinity is a useful nonfiction companion to Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Aren's Reviews, Reviews, Overlooked and Under-AppreciatedAren BergstromAugust 24, 2023The Day After Trinity, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer, John Else, documentaryComment

Review: Tightrope

This Clint Eastwood-starring psychosexual thriller interrogates Eastwood’s onscreen persona in a way similar to Sudden Impact.

Aren's Reviews, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromAugust 9, 2023Tightrope, Richard Tuggle, Clint Eastwood, Geneviève Bujold, Dan Hedaya, Alison Eastwood, Jennifer Beck, Marco St. JohnComment

Review: Sudden Impact (1983)

Clint Eastwood’s Sudden Impact, the fourth Dirty Harry picture, combines the rape-revenge film with the reactionary cop picture to fascinating results.

Aren's Reviews, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromMarch 31, 2023Sudden Impact, Clint Eastwood, Joseph Stinson, Earl E. Smith, Charles B. Pierce, Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, Bradford Dillman, Paul Drake, Michael Maurer, Albert Popwell, Audrie J. NeenanComment

James Cameron: Expedition: Bismarck (2002)

In Expedition: Bismarck, James Cameron uses the conventions of television historical documentaries to present a portrait of himself as a storyteller and an amateur scientist.

Aren's Reviews, James Cameron, Overlooked and Under-Appreciated, ReviewsAren BergstromDecember 12, 2022James Cameron, James Cameron Retrospective, Gary Johnstone, Expedition: Bismarck, Bismarck, WWII, Discovery Channel, television, documentaryComment

Halloween Horror: The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death is more effective as a late-night Gothic thriller than as an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short story.