REVIEWS IN A HURRY Back to First Page & Alphabetical Index
	Oscar (1991, 109 min, PG) ** - Directed by John Landis, tarring Sylvester Stallone and William Atherton.  Moderately amusing comedy about a ‘30s mobster (Stallone) trying to go straight, mostly involving who is in which room of his house.  Stallone is decent at best in a rare comic turn, but there simply aren’t enough laughs. Out of the Past (1947, 97 min, NR, B&W) **** - Directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Jane Greer.  “Do you know a way to win?”  “I know a way to lose slower.”  Trashy pulp noir par excellence that puts the jaded, weary cynicism of the noir hero front and center, just behind a heavy veil of cigarette smoke.  A former private eye (Mitchum) trying to start a new life is drawn back into the schemes of a femme fatale (Greer) and her grinning gangster boyfriend (Douglas).  The labyrinthine plot of murders and doublecrosses is almost unfathomable, but it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is the sleepy, passionless resignation Mitchum uses to respond to the world; he doesn’t believe for a second that he can escape his fate and acts only so he won’t regret not trying later.  Priceless and endlessly quotable “can’t win, don’t try” dialogue. Owning Mahowny (2003, 104 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed by Richard Kwietniowski, tarring Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Hurt, and Minnie Driver.  A Canadian banker (Hoffman) is addicted to gambling–not to winning, but to playing with high stakes.  He eventually turns his whole life into a gamble by stealing from his own bank to cover his addiction.  PSH, so strong in supporting roles, is given the chance to carry a movie all on his own, and does not disappoint as a man who is almost a machine in his attempts to bring on his own destruction.