favorite movies

[9] This ensemble road trip comedy of errors is the sophomore effort from writer/director David O. Russell (Three Kings, Silver Linings Playbook), and stars an impressive troupe of actors who make the whole film feel wondrously improvised. Ben Stiller plays a new father who is searching for his biological birth parents. When an adoption agency rep (Tea Leoni) believes she has located them, Stiller and …

[9] Here we have a horror film so classy, it won the Oscar for Best Picture.  Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster each deliver career-defining performances as Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, the central characters in author Thomas Harris’ perverse contemporary retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  The screenplay balances their provocative banter with a well-constructed mystery surrounding the identity and whereabouts of a serial killer …

[9] To save her sick child and move her home from the path of the farmer’s plow, a timid field mouse seeks out a colony of hyper-intelligent rats who are the product of medical experimentation. The Secret of N.I.M.H., based on Robert C. O’Brien’s Newbery Award winning novel, came along during a great Disney dryspell, when the most profitable animated films were a couple of …

[9] Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway star as the legendary real-life bank robbers in Arthur Penn’s volatile Bonnie and Clyde. With its anti-hero point of view and graphic violence, this film helped lead the charge for grittier, more realistic fare that cropped up throughout the ’70s. While the film certainly sensationalizes the criminals, it also humanizes them. It’s easy to see how a bored waitress …