Becky Johnston Movies

Typically impressive natural vistas from director Jean-Jacques Annaud (some secretly filmed on location in Tibet) highlight this adaptation of the memoir by Heinrich Harrer. Brad Pitt stars as the arrogant Heinrich, a famed Austrian mountain climber who leaves behind his wife and infant son to head a Himalayan expedition in 1939, only to fall into the hands of Allied forces as a prisoner of war. He and a fellow escapee, Peter Aufschnaiter (David Thewlis), make their way to the Forbidden City in Tibet, where Peter finds a wife and Heinrich befriends the Western culture-obsessed teenage Dalai Lama (Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk), the spiritual leader of his Buddhist nation. As Heinrich waits out the war, his friendship with the Dalai Lama begins to transform him from haughty to humble, but a crisis with China looms. A controversy over the revelation of the real-life Harrer's Nazi Party affiliation brewed during the film's production, forcing Annaud to briefly deal with the subject in the film. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Barbra Streisand directed and stars in this love story about two people of dissimilar backgrounds who form a connection based on their unhappy experiences. Adapted from the novel by Pat Conroy, the story concerns Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte), a rudderless, unemployed football coach. Stuck in a loveless marriage with a wife (Blythe Danner) who feels nothing for him, and unable to move forward with his life, he is suddenly jarred out of his lethargy when he travels to New York because his twin sister (Melinda Dillon) has just tried to kill herself. In New York, he meets her psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein (Barbra Streisand), who is married to a snobbish husband (Jeroen Krabbe). Susan and Tom become attracted to each other out of their loneliness. As his relationship with Susan blossoms, Tom learns to deal with his mother Lila (Kate Nelligan), who is the sole emotional center of his life. In the past, Lila was married to an abusive alcoholic. When she left her first husband, she married a rich man whose abuse was mental rather than physical. Tom hates Lila, but he can't free himself of his attachment to her. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Independent filmmaker, artist, and critic Lizzie Borden made her feature-film debut with this bold fusion of science fiction and feminist politics. In the near future, America is celebrating the tenth anniversary of a socialist revolution that has changed the political fabric of the nation, but some aspects of life have evolved much more than others. As some Americans become disenchanted with the new order, racism and sexism are on the rise, and though the new leaders may talk a good game about economic justice and equality in the workplace, women find they're still working harder and being paid less, and their jobs mysteriously vanish when they complain. Adelaide Norris (Jeanne Satterfield) is an educated African-American woman who is also a blue-collar laborer; fed up with the double standards that control her life, Norris helps form the Women's Army, a revolutionary feminist group that serves as a vigilante force to protect women on the street and a paramilitary unit to fight the powers that be. The Women's Army are successful enough in protecting women against rape and assault to gain the unwelcome attention of the FBI. The FBI succeeds in putting Norris behind bars, where she's killed in a shadowy incident, but New York City's female-run underground media rises up to make sure the people know the truth about her death. Eric Bogosian and Kathryn Bigelow each made their screen debuts in Born in Flames, with minor supporting roles - the former as a technician at a television studio, and the latter as an editor. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The "underground" of the title refers not to crime but to the half-hidden world of two-bit hustlers, "artistic" poseurs, aberrant lifestyles and shattered dreams. Small-time Manhattan opportunist Eric Mitchell latches onto Patti Astor, a once-popular movie star fallen into penury. He briefly lifts her spirits, but in the final analysis betrays her. Astor sorrowfully decides that she'd rather not live any longer. Lensed in 16 millimeter by producer/ director/ star Eric Mitchell, Underground USA is occasionally effective, though for much of the proceedings it suffers from trying too hard to be the Big Apple counterpart to Godard's Breathless. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi