The Sixth Sense is a ghost story, but unlike The Blair Witch Project the ghosts are visible (along the lines of Dickens' restless specters) and the...
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The Blair Witch Project, co-writer/director/editors Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick's faux documentary about an urban legend, has created its own...
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Three Kings is a visual anti-war statement filled with techno tricks and restless zest. The film provocatively questions the rationale of Operation...
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The Big Chill, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, written by Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek, is a recurring subject for Dramatica questions,...
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The Manchurian Candidate, reputedly John F. Kennedy's favorite movie-suppressed for twenty-five years after his death-illustrates the maxim "paranoia...
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American History X, written by David McKenna and directed by Tony Kaye (also the cinematographer), is a highly polished presentation of an ugly...
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"Welcome to America's Weirdest Home Videos"-an apt line from American Beauty-director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball's stark art set piece of...
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Forget academics. When it comes to high school, the rule is to be cool. For main characters Angela in the My So Called Life episode "Self-Esteem"...
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"The fun has arrived." And the fun really is for all ages. The superb animation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan transcends the Saturday matinee...
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William Wordsworth expressed: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Passion (overall story concern-innermost desires) denied...
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The real menace in the latest Star Wars saga is the non-existent Dramatica grand argument story. There is an objective story, although I'm not quite...
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What's Up Doc?, written by Buck Henry with David Newman and Robert Benton, is director Peter Bogdanovich's affectionate nod to screwball comedies,...
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Go. Go-go girl dance hits, head-trips, and stop-and-go motion drive this one night stand of a film. Writer John August and director and photographer...
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Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, is written by the infectiously funny Mike Myers (with cowriter Michael McCullers) and directed by Jay Roach....
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"Want to see it again little girl? It shouldn't frighten you." The opening scene of a crying Jack in the Box toy forebodes the strangeness yet to...
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John Sayles' modern version of the western is rich in complex characters and thematic conflicts. Lone Star contains a textured plot layered with...
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"The Lord is my shepherd/I shall not want." This is the hymn to which musician Franta Louka (main character) plays (mc concern-doing), but they are...
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Central Station, a Walter Salles film, wrought with obvious religious symbolism and certain dialogue that does not translate well, is nevertheless a...
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"I'll be back." The "Ahnuld's" ominous warning and forbidding persona in James Cameron's The Terminator makes it one of the most memorable sci-fi...
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You have seen this movie before. Whether it was My Fair Lady, Pretty in Pink, the dance sequence from Footloose, whatever, it all rings a bell. Which...
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In the 1998 film season of very bad dads (Affliction, Happiness) and father figures (American History X), Roberto Benigni's portrayal of profound...
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(Quotations used in this article are from the development script dated 12/4/96 by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.) The film delivers an intellectually...
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The title of Todd Solondz's 1995 film, Welcome to the Dollhouse, serves as ironic commentary on main character Dawn Wiener's situation (mc...
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Nominated by the Academy for Best Original Screenplay, Boogie Nights is this reviewer's pick to win. This '70s joyride through Lala land's porn scene...
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Pre and Z are American heroes. Steve Prefontaine, the dramatic biographical subject of Robert Towne's Without Limits, and Z, Dreamworks' insecure...
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Shakespeare in Love, a fictional account of the life that inspired the art-Romeo and Juliet, is an excellent and lamentable original screenplay by...
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Akin to the ingredients for her "recipes, romances, and home remedies," Laura Esquivel's 1993 screen adaptation of her "novel in monthly...
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Ronin, John Frankenheimer's political thriller, is more Mission Impossible than his 1962 critically acclaimed The Manchurian Candidate. The objective...
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I had always attributed the odd feeling of Psycho to the conventional explanation-Hitchcock killed off his star and story's heroine early into the...
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Pecker is a Dramatica grand argument story emanating from John Waters' weird, yet very real, world. Pecker (main character) is a "snappy go...
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Happiness is anything but. Writer/director Todd Solondz' disturbing depiction of American life and the odd assortment of those who populate it,...
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Regardless of what one may think about Woody Allen's personal peccadilloes, as an auteur, he does turn out smart movies. Celebrity is no exception....
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