[6] Writer/director Colin Higgins (Harold & Maude, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) serves up an office space comedy starring national treasures Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as three women who enact revenge on their sexist, egotistical boss (Dabney Coleman). The script works best in the early stages, when the women bond over their mutual misery. High points include their pot-smoking chill session …
[8] Hollywood often waters down characters and storylines to make them universally appealing. Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson with Licorice Pizza, or David O. Russell with Joy and The Fighter, are challenging that notion with stories of tremendous specificity — specificity of character, location, obstacle, and endeavor — that find universal appeal without dilution. In pursuit of that specificity, Anderson casts two unknown actors as …
[5] Bill Murray stars in and co-directs (with screenwriter Howard Franklin) this comedy of errors about a trio of bank robbers who successfully pull off a heist, only to find themselves utterly jinxed in their escape from New York City. Geena Davis and Randy Quaid co-star as Murray’s co-conspirators, with Jason Robards playing the retiring police chief hot on their tails. Quick Change isn’t a …
[7] In this satiric dark comedy from director Adam McKay (Vice, The Big Short), Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as astronomers trying to warn the planet of an extinction-level comet headed straight for Earth. Meryl Streep plays a Trump-like narcissistic president who at first doesn’t want news of the comet to tank her presidency, but then ends up using the crisis to try and …
[6] Screenwriter Callie Khouri’s much anticipated follow-up to her Oscar-winning script for Thelma & Louise is a more conventional romantic comedy, but not one without bite. Julia Roberts stars as Grace, a busy wife and mother who discovers her husband (Dennis Quaid) is cheating on her. Her family encourages her to keep it a secret and deal with it privately, but that’s just not Grace’s …
[7] Charlie Chaplin made the leap to feature films writing, producing, directing and scoring The Kid, in which Chaplin’s famous Tramp character finds and cares for an orphaned child (Jackie Coogan). While The Kid doesn’t quite escape the episodic quality of Chaplin’s short films, it’s got a connecting throughline where it counts the most — the heart. At first the Tramp tries many ways to …
[6] McKenna Grace stars as twelve-year-old Phoebe, the granddaughter of a recently-deceased hermit she discovers has a connection to the original film‘s Ghostbusters, who have long since disbanded. When her mother inherits the grandfather’s decrepit farmhouse, Phoebe learns he wasn’t the mad man people thought he was. He was actually doing everything in his power to stop an ancient evil from taking over the world. …
[7] Meryl Streep plays a drug-addicted actress forced to stay with her celebrity mother (Shirley MacLaine) in order for insurance companies to allow her to continue working in Hollywood. Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) directs this pseudo-autobiographical story written by Star Wars‘ Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher (based on her novel). Nichols captures Fisher’s decidedly snarky, self-deprecating tone on what could …
[6] Cary Grant plays a widower who remarries seven years after his first wife (Irene Dunne) disappears at sea. While on his honeymoon with wife number two (Gail Patrick), he’s shocked to discover Dunne survived her ordeal and is ready to rejoin her family. This comedy of errors co-written and produced by Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth) sees Grant charged with bigamy and on the …
[6] Michael Keaton leads an all-star ensemble in this Ron Howard comedy/drama about newspaper staff trying to balance their high-stress job with the challenges of every-day life. Over the course of twenty-four hours, Keaton’s character chases an exclusive while his pregnant wife (Marisa Tomei) worries if he’ll be there for her and their new family. Glenn Close plays the hard-ass who feuds with Keaton over …
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