CAST: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden, Ginnifer Goodwin, Dominic West, Juliet Stevenson, Marian Seldes
SYNOPSIS: A Wellesley College professor (Roberts) in the 1950s convinces her female students that education is more than just preparing to marry well.
WHAT WE SAID: St. Petersburg Times film critic Steve Persall gave the film a C-. "No other actor working today can coast on a twinkle and smile as thoroughly as (Roberts) can, or make as much money for herself and the lucky, lucky studio hiring her while doing it," he wrote, calling the film "too bland to laugh about, too predictable to cry over. It's hard enough sitting for two hours in the presence of Saint Julia, trying to muster a smile."
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sexual situations, brief profanity, mature themes
RUNNING TIME: 117 min.
Schindler's List
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Embeth Davidtz
SYNOPSIS: Neeson portrays Oskar Schindler, a German war profiteer whose factory became a haven for hundreds of Jewish prisoners. Filmed in stark black-and-white, which makes the concentration camp horrors even more nightmarish and unforgettable.
WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave Schindler's List an A-plus in his January 1994 review. "Schindler's List is complex, brutal, fascinating and finally uplifting," Persall wrote then. "What sets Schindler's List apart from any other Holocaust drama is what it doesn't show us. Spielberg declines to rely upon tragic cliches. We never see the typical shot of a Jewish prisoner's concentration camp identification tattoo; that's a too-simple symbol of their incarceration, rather than the dense aura of steadily enclosing evil that Spielberg creates. Adolf Hitler is only seen once in a photograph in the background, as the director refuses to use a single familiar figure to illustrate a society gone mad.
"Most strikingly, Schindler's List doesn't merely portray the Jewish prisoners as timid lambs being led to slaughter, or stoic victims that beg us to admire their courage. For these people, fear leads to resourcefulness as they struggle to escape detection, detention and poverty. . . . Spielberg's staggering masterpiece is as tragically and monumentally unforgettable as the Holocaust should be."
The film won seven Academy Awards: best picture, director, cinematography, art direction, film editing, original score and adapted screenplay. The American Film Institute ranks Schindler's List as the ninth greatest film, behind Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, The Wizard of Oz, The Graduate and On the Waterfront.
MPAA RATING: R for violence, nudity, profanity, sexual situations
RUNNING TIME: 193 min.
DVD FEATURES: Available in widescreen or full-screen format. The "Collector's Edition" gift set includes Schindler's List: Images of the Steven Spielberg Film book and CD soundtrack. DVD extras include a 77-minute Voices From the List feature and a look at the Shoah Foundation, which Spielberg formed after making the film.
