[5] James Spader plays a… well, let’s say he plays a big pussy who lets people push him around and shit all over him. But then he meets Rob Lowe, and Rob Lowe teaches him to stand up for himself and be more of a man. The two become friends, going out on the town and bringing babes back to Spader’s pad. And then Lowe …
[8] A curmudgeonly obsessive-compulsive (Jack Nicholson) falls for a charming waitress (Helen Hunt) and strikes up an unlikely friendship with a gay neighbor (Greg Kinnear) in As Good as It Gets, another comedy/drama hybrid from the sometimes brilliant mind of James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News). In lesser hands, this one could have turned out a tonal mess, but Brooks and the cast …
[8] Christian Bale once again transforms himself completely to become former vice-president Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s (The Big Short) new film, Vice. The film is a pastiche of Cheney’s political career, driven in large part by his relationship with wife Lynne (Amy Adams) and daughters Liz and Mary. McKay is careful to keep Vice a pitch-black comedy at all times, but he also does …
[8] Isabelle Huppert stars as a woman trying to learn the identity of the man who raped her. Based on that description, I pegged Elle for a revenge story, but it’s much more complicated and interesting than that. As the film unfolds, we learn Huppert is the producer of sexually violent video games. Then we learn she’s the daughter of a mass-murderer. It’s indicated that …
[7] Mae West stars as an 1890’s club entertainer courting a variety of suitors while a dangerous boyfriend promises retribution if she leaves him. While the suitors keep her covered in diamonds, it’s the man running a mission next door who most strikes West’s fancy. That man is played by Cary Grant, in one of his earliest screen appearances. Based on West’s own stage play, …
[5] Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd star in this sci-fi yarn about people from the future who travel into the past to kidnap the passengers of doomed plane crashes right before they die. When Kristofferson, a plane crash investigator, discovers future technology among the wreckage of a recent flight, the future sends a woman (Ladd) to intervene… and the two fall in love. Millennium is …
[7] Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie star in Nicolas Roeg’s (Walkabout) film about a couple in Venice trying to get along after the accidental drowning of their young daughter. At lunch one afternoon, the couple meet a pair of old women who claim to possess psychic power. They say their daughter is happy and with them, but then they urge caution — that Sutherland’s life …
[6] Carey Mulligan gives an outstanding performance in this adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir. Mulligan plays a sixteen-year-old in 1960s London, pushed by her father to study hard so she can get into Oxford. When she falls in love with a charming man nearly twice her age, she decides to let her education slide. But Prince Charming isn’t all he’s cracked up to be and …
[7] Clint Eastwood directs and stars in The Mule, the story of a 90-year-old man who becomes a drug runner for a dangerous Mexican cartel. The money keeps Eastwood’s character motivated. Meanwhile, his ex-wife and daughter express disappointment with his continuing absence in their lives and the feds start closing in on his illegal activity. Eastwood is playing a character more naive and corny than …
[6] Janet Gaynor and Fredric March star in a love story so good, they’ve made it four times now — most recently with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in the roles. Gaynor plays a small-town girl with dreams of becoming a Hollywood actress. With encouragement from her grandmother, she arrives in Tinseltown bright-eyed and bushy-tailed only to discover what everyone discovers — that opportunity is …
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