Scott’s Favorites (Rated 9-10)

[10] Two drag queens and a grouchy transsexual brave the Australian outback to perform at a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, Lord of the Rings) plays the drag queen with a secret, Guy Pierce (Memento, LA Confidential) plays the flaming provocateur, and in a brilliant bit of casting, Terence Stamp (General Zod from Superman) plays the grieving post-op woman whose …

[9] If you think of this movie as Jaws on land, as director Steven Spielberg has suggested, it can’t quite compare to that masterpiece. The characters aren’t strong enough. But it’s still a hell of a summer event movie, delivering groundbreaking effects and well-choreographed thrills. The Michael Crichton story focuses on an island theme park where a wealthy entrepreneur (Richard Attenborough) has resurrected dinosaurs from …

[10] Holly Hunter picked up an Academy Award for her performance as Ada, a rebellious mute who finds solace and a means of expression only with her beloved piano in Jane Campion’s gorgeously crafted and erotically charged The Piano. Ada is married off to Stewart (Sam Neill), a sexually repressed land developer in Victorian New Zealand. When she and her young daughter (Anna Paquin) first …

[9] This is a fucking cool-ass movie.  The screenplay by Quentin Tarantino is an exciting blend of violence, sweetness, and dark humor.  Director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide) brings it to life with his usual polished style, and attracts a large ensemble of A-list performers.  Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette play Clarence and Alabama Whorley, a comic book geek and a call girl who …

[9] Jeff Bridges plays a plane crash survivor who helps fellow passengers carry on with their lives, ignoring his own needs until it’s nearly too late. Fearless is from my favorite director, Peter Weir (Mosquito Coast, Picnic at Hanging Rock), and it’s emblematic of everything I love about his work — it’s deeply emotional, it uses music as a key element rather than an afterthought, …

[9] Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith star in this dark comedy of manners that unfolds like a mystery. The entire film is told in flashbacks and montage, with Channing and Sutherland as art dealers regaling their New York upper crust acquaintances with the bizarre story of how Smith’s character came into their lives. Smith enters their apartment seeking help for a knife wound …

[10] Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis headline this supremely dark comedy about two rival women (Streep and Hawn) who take a potion promising them youth and eternal life. But jealousy consumes them and leads to both their deaths. Once they realize their decaying bodies will need constant maintenance, they try to talk their long-suffering mutual love interest (Willis) into staying with them… forever. …

[9] Two HIV positive gay men hit the road together, one fleeing a world he bitterly resents and the other searching his soul about how to carry on after receiving his diagnosis. Billed as “an irresponsible movie by Gregg Araki”, The Living End is a lot of things — savage, absurd, political, comical, sexy, and raw are all adjectives that come to mind. The bizarre …

[10] Jeff Bridges stars as Jack, a shock radio host who inadvertently encourages a mad man to go on a killing spree. Guilt ridden, he teeters on the brink of self-annihilation before an eccentric homeless person named Parry (Robin Williams) helps him see the light. At its heart, The Fisher King is a reluctant buddy movie, but it’s so much more. The Oscar-nominated script by …

[10] “You get what you settle for.” It’s a potent little theme that asks all of us to take stock of our lives. It probably helps that I saw Thelma & Louise at a time when, like the title characters, I was searching for escape and freedom, determined to become my own person and follow what I knew with all my heart was my calling …

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