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The Sugarland Express Review

By David Thomas

Excellent

Somewhere between unleashing the homicidal tanker of Duel on television audiences and the man-eating shark of Jaws on moviegoers, a young Steven Spielberg found the time to spin a far more human yarn in his debut theatrical feature The Sugarland Express. Employing the same storytelling techniques here as in the more fantastic fables that would follow, he elevates the material above its fairly routine narrative.

Based on a true story, the film follows the efforts of two married convicts, Lou Jean and Clovis Michael Poplin (Goldie Hawn and William Atherton), to retrieve their son from the foster parents who took custody when the Poplins went into the clink. Having already served her time, Lou Jean springs her husband from jail and, a few tragic misjudgments later, soon she's on the run with him and a kidnapped patrolman, Slide (Michael Sacks).

Continue reading: The Sugarland Express Review

Hanover Street Review

By Christopher Null

Very Good

An obscure Harrison Ford starrer, Hanover Street is a capable rendition of love and war a la The English Patient, but also recalling Catch-22 and the Indiana Jones films.

Directed by Peter Hyams, who hasn't done much of note in his whole career (including End of Days and a bunch of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies), Hanover Street is a pleasant meditation on finding solace in rough times. In London, during WWII, an American pilot (Ford) and a British nurse (Lesley-Anne Down) cross paths moments before an air raid and find each other's embrace not so intolerable. (Never mind that she's married.)

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Slaughterhouse-Five Review

By James Brundage

Very Good

There are certain authors that simply do not lend themselves towards adaptation. The reason for this makes perfect sense: when one reads a book, they are forced by the book to envision the world that the author creates. When one is part of the visual medium of film, the world looks more like reality. Since the world looks more like reality, we are prone to question it in greater detail.

That is why successfully adapting a Vonnegut is one of the Holy Grails of film adaptation.

Continue reading: Slaughterhouse-Five Review