A scrappy group of kids go treasure hunting in order to save their homes from evil developers.
Ah, yes. Steven Spielberg’s ’80s, a time when imaginative young boys regularly save the world from destruction at the incapable hands of their baby boomer parents. In this flick, the developers of a coastal Oregon town want to evict local residents and convert their homes into a golf course. The homeowners haven’t the money to fight back. But they do have kids. And those kids have moxy. (more…)
A working-class genius learns to abandon his bad-boy lifestyle and embrace his brain.
Matt Damon plays Will Hunting, an MIT janitor from South Boston who seems like your average working class misfit, except he can solve complex math equations in his sleep. Every day, after a balanced breakfast and some routine calculus exercises, Will hitches a ride with best friend Chuckie (Affleck) and their buddies, so they can spend all the live long day cruising around South Boston, boozing it up at the local watering holes and hitting on skeevy Southie chicks with tight pants and big hair. (more…)
A young marine goes through basic training, then a tour of duty in 'Nam, Kubrick style.
“Are you a faggot? Do you like to suck dick?”
The film opens on Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (played by R. Lee Ermey), blaring these questions point blank at new recruits, while they stand quivering in their skivvies. Those who make it past his harrowing inquisition can look forward to the joys of Marine Corps basic training. (more…)
Budding rock star battles inner demons and finds love.
It’s the classic tale of boy meets girl, boy slaps girl around, boy performs sexually-charged ’80s funk/rock, girl and entire viewing public forgive boy because he’s Prince, dammit, and he can hit whomever he wants as long as he keeps making that sweet, sweet music. (more…)
A young woman runs from her abusive husband.
J. Lo stars as Slim, a waitress that makes good by marrying a wealthy customer at her diner. He sweeps her off her feet, marries her, they have a kid, and then things start to go south. She finds out he’s cheating on her with some French woman, and when she confronts him, it’s clobbering time. (more…)
Eight aging intellectuals meet up for dinner and to swap sex stories.
The movie opens on our four male and four female protagonists. The men, all university professors, are preparing dinner at their fashionable Canadian cottage while their four female friends/spouses work out at the gym. The men are clearly past their prime, but act like they’re still back on the varsity squad. The women are all beautiful, but they know the dude with the sickle is patiently waiting for them to get off the treadmill. The storyline that unfolds is simple and anti-climactic, but writer and director Denys Arcand uses clever banter to keep the movie flowing. (more…)
In a near-future Japan, the government forces high school kids to fight to the death.
The youth culture in a near future Japan has grown unruly. The government decides that the only rational course of action is to institute the B.R. Act, where once a year a class of freshmen is kidnapped and taken to an island where they are forced to fight to the death. Once there, they are given food, water, maps, one weapon a piece, and a collar that will explode if they try to remove it, stay in one area for too long, or if there is more than one survivor at the end of three days. (more…)
Minnesota nebbish hires two guys to kidnap his wife, and the plan immediately goes horribly awry.
Welcome to winter in Minnesota, where Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) is deep in the money hole. Stuck in a lackluster sales position at his father-in-law’s car dealership, and lacking the balls to ask his family for help directly, Lundegaard hires two shady characters named Carl and Gaear (Buscemi, Stormare) to kidnap his wife for a ransom of $80,000, to be paid by the father-in-law. The deal (brand new tan Sierra, straight off the lot, and half of the $80k) goes down in a Fargo pub—hence the title.What Carl and Gaear don’t know is that Jerry is secretly going to tell the father-in-law that the ransom is a million dollars. Of course, his plan depends on the henchmen never contacting the father-in-law directly. Got all that? (more…)
Emotionally disturbed teen discovers love, fear, and the principles of time travel.
Donnie Darko is a teenager with emotional problems, the kind that make him want to burn stuff. Like houses. He’s on meds and in therapy, both of which he resents. To kick things off, Donnie hallucinates a giant spooky rabbit named Frank. Frank lures Donnie from his home to a golf course, in order to tell him that the world is going to end in precisely 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. In short, on Halloween, 1988. (more…)
A shy waitress helps others find happiness while struggling to find her own.
Amelie is a spritely young lady who sees wonder everywhere. She is the product of home-schooling, an emotionally reclusive father, and a mother who died tragically in a Canadian tourist’s suicide attempt gone awry, so it’s a wonder that fair Amélie hasn’t already developed a serious glue habit. Instead, she skips stones off of abandoned canal streams, stares at people in darkened movie theaters, and imagines that the pictures on her wall can talk. To make rent, she waitresses at a tiny Paris café. Oh yeah: she’s French. The movie’s French. Everybody in the movie is French. (more…)