1997

[6] Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye) and Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2) star in this old-fashioned disaster flick about a volcano that’s about to wipe a small town off the map. Brosnan plays a volcanologist who, in Jaws-like fashion, warns the town of impending doom after discovering a pair of hot spring bathers boiled alive. His boss (The Thing‘s Charles Hallahan), however, doesn’t want to freak out the …

[6] Ben Affleck stars as an indie comic book artist who falls in love with a fellow artist (Joey Lauren Adams), despite the fact that she’s a lesbian. She decides to give him a chance, but when he discovers her sexual past, he panics and throws their relationship in peril. Chasing Amy is written and directed by Kevin Smith of Clerks fame, who makes up …

[6] Sigourney Weaver returns in this fourth chapter of the Alien franchise, this time as an alien/human hybrid clone of her iconic Ripley character. It’s a refreshing change of pace for the character, invigorated by a curious connection to her former foes and a new devil-may-care attitude toward living or dying. In the script credited to Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toy Story), Ripley …

[7] Christina Ricci definitively sheds her child-star persona in The Opposite of Sex, playing a snarky teen who runs away from mother and crashes with her older gay half-brother (Martin Donovan). After she seduces his naïve young lover (Ivan Sergei) and becomes pregnant, she hits the road with her baby daddy, forcing the half-brother and his bitter sister-in-law (Lisa Kudrow) into hot pursuit. The Opposite …

[7] Jeff Goldblum and director Steven Spielberg return for the first Jurassic Park sequel. Goldblum’s character first scoffs at John Hammond’s (Richard Attenborough) request to catalog and study the flourishing dinosaurs at a second ‘Site B’ island. But when he discovers his paleontologist girlfriend (Julianne Moore) is already there, Goldblum launches a rescue mission. Once on the island, our heroes discover Hammond’s desire to preserve …

[6] Harrison Ford stars as the American president in this ‘Die Hard on a plane’ riff directed by Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Outbreak). When a team of old Soviet Union terrorists led by Gary Oldman take over Air Force One, Ford makes them think he escaped, when he’s actually still on board and planning a surprise attack. Back at the White House, Glenn Close plays …

[4] Terrence McNally adapts his play for the silver screen, with direction by Joe Mantello. Love! Valour! Compassion! is about a group of gay men who get together around the holidays at a rustic house in the middle of nowhere. Since the play was written in 1995 and the film released in 1997, AIDS eclipses anything else the story or characters might be about. (Gay …

[7] Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and Harold Perrineau survive a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness where they have to rely on each other for survival against the elements and a bloodthirsty kodiak bear who follows them everywhere they go. So we’ve got ‘man against nature’ and ‘man against beast’ going on. Writer David Mamet and director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors) go one step …

[6] Kevin Kline headlines this comedy about a small-town Indiana drama teacher whose life is turned upside down when a student ‘outs’ him in his Academy Awards acceptance speech. At first the funny thing is that Kline’s character isn’t gay. In fact, he’s betrothed to Joan Cusack. But as the big wedding approaches, Kline meets a gay news reporter (Tom Selleck) and begins to realize… …

[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 …

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