The Lost Boys (1987)
Mar 12, 2002Teen Vampires
Popular 80s vampire film that suffers the curse of Joel Schumacher. A promising opening dissolves into posturing cool, flashy visuals with zero substance underneath
Dianne Wiest
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Jul 5, 2002Alienated Artificial Boy
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp in one of their best collaborations. Burton creates this sweet oddball fable that is a take on Frankenstein where the monster becomes an alienated youth with scissors for hands
Practical Magic (1998)
Jun 19, 2000Modern Witches
Chick Flick with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as two sisters from a family of witches. The film never really settles on a consistent tone between comedy, thriller or romance and veers all over the place
The 10th Kingdom (2000)
Dec 26, 2014Fairytale Parody Mini-Series
Hallmark mini-series set in a world 200 years after the classic fairytales have occurred, this wittily deflates or contrasts classic story elements with the present-day
Category 6: Day of Destruction (2004)
Aug 20, 2005Superstorm/Disaster Mini-Series
A disaster tv mini-series about the most powerful storm in recorded history descending on Chicago just as a hacker disables the power grid. Most of this plays by the cliches of the genre.
Robots (2005)
Apr 11, 2005Animation/Cute Robots
Enjoyably likeable animated film from Blue Sky Studios set in a world inhabited by robots. Lots of visual invention and madcap slapstick
Passengers (2008)
Feb 18, 2015Haunted Plane Crash Survivors/Deathdream
Well-cast, nicely made film that seems to be setting out as a supernatural variant on Fearless, which had Jeff Bridges as a reinvigorated plane crash survivor, only to fall apart in a groan-worthy twist ending that has become tediously overused in recent years
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Apr 4, 2009Meta-Fiction and Surrealism
Mind-bending Charlie Kaufman meta-fiction in which Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a vast theatre project that drags on for years and starts to merge into his own life
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
Aug 14, 2012Magic Child Appears Out of the Garden
On one level, this sets out to be a warm-hearted fantasy about the appearance of a magic child to a childless couple. On another possibly unintentional level, it is a rather unlikeable film about how two parents continually force a child to conform to the social expectations of those around them