Agatha Christie mysteries were always a lot of fun. Throw a bunch of suspects with motives in a confined place and one of them turns up murdered. The first film to really do her hero Hercule Poirot justice was 1974’s “Murder On The Orient Express” starring Albert Finney as the Belgian sleuth. As good as Finney was, the fun quotient was definitely raised when Peter Ustinov took over the role in 1978’s DEATH ON THE NILE. Poirot finds himself on a river barge down the Nile with a who’s who of Hollywood stars, who conveniently all have a grudge against wealthy socialite Linnet Ridgeway, played by Lois Chiles (Moonraker). There’s her Uncle lawyer Andrew (George Kennedy) who wants to make sure his control over her fortune doesn’t waver now that Linnet has married Simon (Simon MacCorkindale, who could have used Poirot around when his Hollywood career was murdered by “Jaws 3”). Meanwhile, Simon’s former fiancé and Linnet’s former best friend Jackie (Mia Farrow) follows the couple to ruin their Honeymoon, bitter that Linnet stole her man. Bette Davis is a rich woman with a penchant for jewelry, Jane Birkin is a loyal maid with a grudge, Olivia Hussey is Rosalie, the loyal daughter of eccentric author Salome Otterbourne (Angela Lansbury) whose latest book is threatened by a lawsuit from Linnet. David Niven is Colonel Race, an ally of Poirot’s who joins the detective in his quest to find a murderer when Linnet turns up shot in the head in her cabin. Niven and Ustinov are obviously having a hell of a good time together and it’s catching for the audience. Maggie Smith and Jack Warden round out the cast, providing even more suspects to be considered along the journey. Smith and Davis are in fine, nasty old woman form skewering each other with one-liners a plenty served up by Anthony Shaffer’s (Frenzy, Sleuth) script. Shaffer would come back to write the 1982 sequel “Evil Under The Sun” also starring Ustinov as Poirot. Director John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno, The Blue Max) gets the whole cast off the boat into some stunning locations including the pyramids and keeps everything moving nicely toward a satisfying resolution to our mystery. Academy Award winner for best costumes and BAFTA nominated for Ustinov’s, Lansbury’s and Smith’s performances. Ustinov is that rare combination of very smart and witty that makes him someone you’d love to hear telling stories for hours on end. He’s flawless, making every word count. A lot of fun for Christie fans and non-fans alike, DEATH ON THE NILE gets a B.

One of the funniest movies I've seen in a very long time, THE DEATH OF STALIN is smart, laugh-out-loud funny and loaded with talent. Writer/Director Armando Iannucci created "Veep" for HBO, making the everyday maneuvering of American politics fall over funny, which is not easy to do today. Iannucci's done the same thing for history here, telling the story of the death of the Russian leader and the explosive battle for power that falls into place with his last breath. Steve Buscemi (The Big Lebowski, Fargo) is at his absolute best as Nikita Khrushchev. Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor (The Larry Sanders Show) and Monty Python's Michael Palin are all brilliant, crawling all over each other in their positioning to assume power. Somehow Ianucci manages to straddle a very fine line between near perfect physical comedy, intelligent wordplay, murderous ambition and historical fact. He also gave this incredible cast plenty of room to improvise as well. Don't let the threat of a historical setting scare you off. Characters don't get more desperate or funny than Tambor's clumsy & insecure Malenkov and Palin's too smart for the room Molotov. The Russian council of ministers push and scrape their way to a new leader in some of the best political satire since Kubrick's " Dr Strangelove" with plenty of 'Veep"'s broader humor and profanity thrown in the mix. Jason Issacs (Harry Potter) is violently terrific as Field Marshal Shukov and Tom Brooke (Preacher) steals every scene he's in as a doctor who can't make a decision (hilariously so). If you love political satire and/or smart humor, it doesn't get ANY better than this. Don't let the title scare you, this is one funny flick. Unlike the Council members, I'll make a decision and give this new comedy classic an A+.

Dark, hilarious and entertaining, 1992's DEATH BECOMES HER is a razor sharp satire of our celebrity culture & obsession with youth, doused with terrific special effects. Robert Zemeckis has always pushed the edge of what movies can deliver visually, and he was at the forefront of digital effects when this hit theatres. Meryl Streep stars as fading mega-star Madeline Ashton. Her current Broadway musical is flopping and she's terrified of aging, spending more time studying the mirror than her lines. After opening night, she meets her life-long rival backstage, writer Helen Sharp, played by Goldie Hawn at her most frumpy. Helen's fiance Dr. Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis) is a famous plastic surgeon at the top of his game, and he's completely enamored of Madeline. Very quickly, Madeline steals Ernest as her husband and Helen falls into many years of self loathing. Zemeckis propels the story forward like a bullet train, jumping forward 7 years in time. A mysterious woman with a magic potion comes into their lives. The ageless Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet) is Lisle, offering eternal youth in a glowing vial. But is it really eternal? What are the side effects? Where's the fine print. Zemeckis uses every make-up and special effects trick in the book to have characters gain hundreds of pounds, drop ten years off their lives and have a lot of fun as we watch vanity run amok. This was his second film to win a Best Special effects Oscar. Willis is terrific playing against type as the terrified husband, who's gone from famous plastic surgeon to only practicing in funeral homes. Who knows, that may come in handy! Director Sydney Pollack has his best on screen role since "Tootsie" as Madeline's physician having a hell of a time finding her pulse. Writer David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible) brings plenty of wit and one-liners to the story, while never confusing us as the story propels forward, covering over 50 years from start to finish. Streep and Hawn tear up the screen as rivals. Some of their best weapons are very quiet one-liners delivered face-to-face. That's saying something when they also face off with shovels and shotguns. Wrapped in a great music score by Alan Silvestri (Romancing the Stone, The Abyss), DEATH BECOMES HER turns out to be an ageless comedy/fantasy nearly 30 years after it's release. It gets an A-.

The shortest, silliest and least successful of the five Dirty Harry films, 1988's THE DEAD POOL has one redeeming grace and that's Clint Eastwood in his iconic role as the take no prisoners San Francisco detective. This time around, Harry is assigned to a lightweight and odd case around an arrogant movie director and an on-set list called The Dead Pool. The film crew is betting on which celebrities will die first. When everyone on the director's list starts getting murdered, Harry goes into action. Liam Neeson has one of his first major roles as the arrogant director, Jim Carrey (billed here as James) plays an off the rails rock star named Johnny Squares who needs a lot of drugs to get through filming. Carrey's facial expressions and physical thrashing were a lot more funny when he used them as Ace Ventura a few years later.... Eastwood has MANY great one-liners and enough sarcastic facial expressions to fill ten movies and steals the entire movie. Patricia Clarkson (Shutter Island, The Green Mile) is dull as a ruthless reporter that falls in with Callahan but Michael Currie returns to play Captain Donnelly as he had hilariously in "Sudden Impact". There is one very cool but totally stupid action sequence with the killer chasing Harry's car with a remote control car loaded with explosives. It's exciting and well staged, but seems like an odd fit for a Dirty Harry movie. The ending sequence in a warehouse is great looking and suspenseful, but the film wraps up out of nowhere, ending a very short 91 minute running time. Maybe they should have waited for a story more worthy of Harry and the character's film legacy. While it made a small profit, THE DEAD POOL managed to kill off the terrific film series. After this and two other Eastwood films, Director (and Eastwood friend) Buddy Van Horn went back to directing the stunts on Clint's films, a job he did until "J Edgar" in 2011. THE DEAD POOL is DOA and gets a C.

One of the best film adaptions of Stephen King's novels, 1983's THE DEAD ZONE is a taut, terrific thriller. Christopher Walken stars as Johnny, a school teacher who falls deep into a coma after a rainy car accident. Awakening after five years, Johnny finds that his fiance has remarried, life has moved on and that he has a very special "gift". When he touches people, he can see major events in their lives, past, present or future. At first, the ability appears to be a gift. Johnny touches a nurse caring for him when he wakes up and sees her daughter at home, trapped in a fire. The nurse rushes home just in time to be save her. Soon however, the visions bring darker events to life and Johnny becomes part of the hunt for a serial killer in his home town. Martin Sheen is great as a slimy politician whose chance hand shake with Johnny drives the film's final act. Walken is very good as Johnny, portraying a good, quiet man with a dangerous power. Unsure how and when to use it, Johnny walks a dangerous and very fine line. Director David Cronenberg is a great fit for the material. It's a far more mainstream film that his other efforts like "Scanners" or "Videodrome" but he carves out a great movie. The Dead Zone is heaven for King fans and a fine thriller for any movie fan. It's aged well and Walken is superb. We'll give it an A.

In the early 80's heyday of Steve Martin's comedy stardom, he made some truly eclectic film choices. 1982's DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID is a goofy little black and white tribute to gumshoe films of the 40's and 50's. Using greenscreen (or maybe it was blue screen that long ago!) Martin inserts himself into film clips of classic detective movies starring Bogart, Alan Ladd, Burt Lancaster and a cavalcade of movie stars. Martin and the legendary Carl Reiner weave the film clips into a very loose story of Rigby Reardon (Martin) and his encounter with femme fatale Juliet Forrest (a stunning Rachel Ward). Her father has disappeared and she and Rigby search through many suspects, interacting seamlessly with stars in many famous clips. By the time Reiner pops up as a Nazi villian, it's all rather silly, but it's a lot more consistently funny than I remembered. Martin is at his best with both physical comedy and comic delivery. The black and white photography is crisp, the story convoluted and the laughs consistent. We'll give Martin's trip through film noir a B-.

1989's thriller DEAD CALM is the opposite of its title. Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) and Nicole Kidman are John and Rae Ingram. In the film's opening moments, they suffer a family tragedy that threatens to tear Rae apart. They escape to the sea on their yacht, seeking solitude to regain their footing after a devastating loss. When they come across a large tourist vessel taking on water, they take aboard its terrified lone survivor Hughie, played by Billy Zane (Titanic). John is an Australian Naval officer and the more he hears Hughie's tale, the more he grows to suspect that everything isn't what it seems. While Hughie sleeps, John takes a smaller boat over to the marooned ship, leaving Rae alone on their boat with the stranger. The following hour is pure tension and thrills as all three people prove themselves to be single minded in their determination. Neill is excellent as John and his many scenes alone on screen are terrific & resourceful, showing all the screen presence the world would come to know the following year in "The Hunt For Red October" and four years later in Spielberg's dinosaur epic. Nicole Kidman was only 21 when she filmed this, her first screen role. She's excellent throughout, busting the boundaries of a traditional "woman in distress" and holding her own against the invader. Zane is all twisted menace as Hughie, flipping on a dime like a sea-bound Sybil and flashing seductive danger at every turn. Producer George Miller, who directed the "Mad Max" series has his fingerprints all over DEAD CALM. It feels like a Miller film, from its imposing main title sequence and Graeme Revell's (The Crow) spooky music score to the crazy sweeping cameras that seem to hover around every angle of their yacht. At just over 90 minutes, DEAD CALM is a non-stop, fast moving thriller that will get under your skin. It's too bad it succumbs to slasher movie stereotypes for its final two minutes, but with all the great scenes that came before, we'll forgive the tacked on "audience-pleaser" ending. DEAD CALM gets an A.

Proof that its possible to have great performances in a questionable movie, DAYS OF THUNDER was a minor hit for young Tom Cruise that still oozes 1990 cool. Cruise is Cole Trickle (insert your Nascar joke here) a rookie driver looking for his break to drive in the big leagues. When he pulls into the pits on a motorcycle, wrapped in slow motion, Hans Zimmer's score and endless smoke and hairspray, Cruise is the epitome of 1990 cool. Robert Duvall gives an excellent performance as Harry Hogge, a wise, seasoned pit chief that becomes Cole's mentor. He always feels authentic, even as some cardboard characters move around him. Nicole Kidman is a doctor that falls for Tom (they have great chemistry that led to marriage off camera), Randy Quaid (Vacation) is the team owner, Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) is a cocky young driver and Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galxy) is Cole's rival on the track. This was one of John C. Reilly's first films and he's terrific as well. It's written by Robert Towne, who also wrote "Chinatown" and 'Shampoo". He's a fantastic writer, but his script is buried in an awful lot of 90's sheen from Director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop). Cruise has also said that most of the script was thrown out and that scenes were rewritten on the fly, which may explain some of the meandering story. Cruise is fine, the action on the track is well shot and the ending is undeniably 'Rocky"-esque and enjoyable. I also loved hearing a lot of those 90's songs on the soundtrack. If you take it all lightly, its still a hell of a lot of fun, cheesy dialogue and all. No one does everyday heroes quite as well as Tom. DAYS OF THUNDER makes left turn after left turn while never straying far from familiar roads, roaring its loud, guilty pleasure path to a C+.

Based on the best selling Frederick Forsyth novel, 1973's THE DAY OF THE JACKAL is one of the most suspenseful thrillers of all time. Edward Fox stars as The Jackal, a British assassin hired by French resistance to kill Charles de Gaulle. Cutting a fast, silent path on his way to the assassination, the Jackal leaves no witnesses in his wake. Michael Lonsdale (Moonraker) stars as Lebel, the detective leading a massive pursuit of the Jackal. With tight direction by Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, Oklahoma) this is an exciting film from start to finish, building throughout its nearly 2.5 hour running time to an explosive climax. Fox is perfect as the Jackal, oozing charm under disguise and cold blooded murder in the blink of an eye. The early 1960's setting is well captured. It's not easy to make the detective work behind preventing an assassination exciting, but like "In the Line of Fire", this delivers. Ignore the horrible, pale 1997 remake "The Jackal" with Bruce WIllis and Richard Gere, its a mess. Stick with this original. One of the best films of the seventies, in my all time Top 100, The Jackal is on target and gets an A+.

This interesting, if strange, thriller gets even stranger when you realize it is the third film collaboration of Director Mike Nichols and Writer Buck Henry after "The Graduate" and Catch-22". How do you follow up those two modern classics? With a thriller about talking dolphins that are beings used in an assassination plot against the President, of course. THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN stars George C. Scott as Dr. Jake Terrell. Along with his wife Maggie (Trish Van Devere, Scott's wife in real life too) and a small crew, Terrell is running a well funded research institute stretching the abilities of two dolphins. When the dolphins start to communicate with speech, they gain the interest of the government and several mysterious factions that descend on their experiments. This is a bizarre film and it was a big budget, massive misfire at the box office. Mike Nichols made some of the best films of the 60's and 70's, "The Graduate", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf", "Carnal Knowledge" to name a few, but he's a very strange fit for this material, taking everything very seriously. That isn't easy to do when you have talking dolphins involved. George C. Scott proves that he's a damn good actor no matter the material and Fritz Weaver and Paul Sorvino have good moments as conspiratorial suit types of varying allegiance. The music score by Georges Delerue is excellent, the photography under and above water is great and those talking dolphins will sometimes tug at your heart, but overall it's a bit of a waste of some serious talents. Buck Henry has told hilarious stories for years about the making of the film, Scott's manic intensity on set and Scott and Nichols legendary battles over the script. If only a bit of the humor from those stories had leaked into the movie. At the conclusion of filming, the two dolphins leap the fence of their pen per the script for three takes and on the last take, swam out to see never to be seen again. Based on the audience and critical reaction to the film, it turned out those mammals were very smart indeed. Dolphin sinks with a C.

Picking up ten years after the conclusion of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES immerses us in a San Francisco dominated by apes in the forests and a small enclave of humans in the city. Caesar (Andy Serkis) is the undisputed leader of the apes, who over the past decade have all learned sign language and are starting to learn to speak. He has a loving mate and a "teenage" son Blue Eyes, who is anxious to follow in his father's footsteps. The genetically evolved apes own the forest territory and are living in relative peace. In the city, a large group of survivors live in the vine covered remnants of downtown San Francisco, led by Gary Oldman as Dreyfus, their inspirational leader. As all power sources threaten to run out in the months ahead, Dreyfus sends a team out to try and reactivate the hydroelectric dam. Unfortunately it's located in the forest and the fragile peace between the apes and humans is soon threatened. Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby) is great as Malcolm, who sees the apes as evolved equals to be partnered with. He is unfortunately surrounded by less evolved humans, who want nothing more than to kill all the apes. Caesar and Malcolm bond, but soon that mutual respect is tested by challenges from both the ape and the human worlds. To say more would be to spoil some of the enjoyable directions that the film takes on its way to an action filled conclusion atop the skyscrapers of San Fran. Andy Serkis is brilliant as Caesar. The computer effects are so sophisticated that the apes generate as much or more emotion than the humans. We have come a very long way from the ape masks of the 1960's! DAWN serves as the "Empire Strikes Back" of the current Apes series, improving on the first and perfectly setting up the next film. The production values are first rate throughout. You film buffs of my age will have fond memories of the vine covered Washington DC of "Logan's Run" when you see the much more realistic vegetation smothered San Francisco. As a long time fan of the Planet of the Apes series, its great to see the franchise in good hands, avoiding the budget crush of the original series where each film after 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes" had smaller budgets and diminishing returns. By also avoiding all the eccentricities of Tim Burton's attempt at a reboot, the current filmmakers continue to build characters you care about. Oldman seems a bit wasted until the finale, Keri Russell and Kirk Acevedo are a bit stuck in one mode, but Serkis and Clarke carry the film so high on their shoulders, you barely notice. Apes riding horses and shooting machine guns could have been really stupid. Not here! This is a great action film with some interesting things to say about loyalty, racism and family beneath the bullets, chases and explosions. DAWN is even better than RISE and gets an exciting A. Already looking forward to what happens next.

There's rarely been a book that has captured the public's imagination the way Dan Brown's thriller THE DA VINCI CODE did in the early 2000's. Combining elements of a thriller, a drama, history and religion, the massive hit was bound to be adapted to the screen and would prove to be a difficult task in 2006. Tom Hanks is well cast as Professor Robert Langdon. An expert cryptologist, Langdon is drawn into a massive conspiracy when a friend he was schedule to meet in Paris is killed in the Louvre. Before he dies, the victim writes Langdon's name in blood on the floor, but it proves to be only the first clue in a fever pitched mystery that leads quickly into an abyss of centuries old deception and lies. The secrets weave a tangled path that are a lot of fun to solve here (not nearly as much fun as they were to discover in the book, but still well told) and Director Ron Howard (Apollo 13, Backdraft, Cocoon) keeps things moving along amazingly well, especially with all the exposition he needs to layout for the viewer. He's helped immensely by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (The Client, I Robot, Cinderella Man) and a terrific cast, especially Audrey Tautou as Sophie, Ian Mckellen as Sir Leigh Teabing, Jean Reno as French police Captain Fache and Paul Bettany as one very twisted Monk. I loved the book and enjoyed the movie when it came out, but I just watched the Director's cut which has been expanded to nearly three hours. This will be bad news for those in the audience that thought the original version dragged, but I thought the extra time allowed the film to better lay the groundwork for some of the best secret reveals. Hanks is truly our generation's Jimmy Stewart, perfect at playing the everyman American caught up in a story much bigger than he is. Like Stewart in "Rear Window" or Cary Grant in "North By Northwest", Hanks creates a professor that rises to the occasion and does the right thing at all costs. Hanks and Howard would team up again to craft further film adaptions of Brown's Langdon novels, including "Angels and Demons" in 2009 and "Inferno" filming now for release in late 2016. THE DA VINCI CODE played even better for me today than it did ten years ago, perhaps I'm more removed from the book or the longer version was just that much better, but this rare commercial & artistic thriller would make Da Vinci proud in its intricacy and gets a B.