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John Wayne's swan song is a poignant Western about an aging gunfighter, who is dying of cancer and who is wanted dead by many people. He chooses to reside in a boarding house in Carson City, run by a widow (Lauren Bacall) and her son (Ron Howard), a boy who ends up idolizing Wayne for his exploits as a professional gunslinger. Wayne however can't get a moment's peace, because of all the people who can't wait to see him bite the big one. He is also afraid of dying slowly and painfully of cancer, so he decides to gather his old enemies for one final showdown.The Duke not only makes a brave last stand in the picture as a character, but as an actor as well. Playing a role that is slightly more tender then his rough-and-ready cowboys of the past, he leads a great ensemble cast which, besides the divine Bacall and the boyish Howard, includes James Stewart as the town doctor, John Carradine as the ghoulish undertaker waiting to pick at Wayne's bones, and Harry Morgan in a hilarious turn as a sheriff, who is incredibly blunt about what he thinks of Wayne and his reputation. Still, there has rarely been a Western as elegant, nor as fitting a farewell for an actor whose career spanned 50 years and almost 200 films.
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By far Jim Carrey's best film, mainly for the great blend of state-of-the-art special effects and Carrey's zany antics. Filmed partly like an old MGM cartoon, partly like a comic book, Carrey plays nebbish Stanley Ipkiss. Ipkiss is a complete loser, who has fallen head over heels in love with a sultry young singer (Cameron Diaz), who is the girlfriend of a brutal gangster. Then, after an incredibly lousy night, he finds a mystical-looking mask that changes him from a nerd to a super-cool, swinging human cartoon. Sporting a yellow zoot suit and a huge assortment of tricks and wonders, "The Mask" ends up being a wisecracking superhero, taking on the mob and capturing the heart of Diaz.The film works because of the eye-popping visuals, the outstanding special effects, Carrey's non-stop antics and a gifted dog named Milo, a sort of canine sidekick for The Mask. Carrey also does an impressive metamorphosis from a geekish, average type of guy to the outlandish, fun-loving Mask. Diaz is a perfect sex bomb and Peter Riegert and Richard Jeni are great additional comic support, as (respectively) a police officer tracking The Mask and Carrey's best buddy. Compared to much of his later work, Carrey deserves at least some sort of award for his impeccable comic performance here.
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This is the type of movie that you have to slog through for nearly an hour, before you realize it isn't going anywhere. A Pulp Fiction wannabe, this attempts to throw in every Quentin Tarantinoesque plot device there is, including Tarantino as a sort of "hip" guardian angel for all the other characters in the picture. The plot deals with an escaped convict (Dylan McDermott), who returns to his old stomping grounds in Las Vegas to reclaim two things. A large sum of money, which he stole with his slightly eccentric partner (James LeGros) and his old girlfriend (Nancy Travis). Problem is that LeGros went nuts and lost the money in a "cosmic" event, while Travis is now the main squeeze of a sleazy casino owner (James Belushi, chewing up the scenery like there's no tomorrow).Most of the actors attempt to outdo each other and they, like Belushi, chew up the scenery. Tarantino, still trying to be Robert De Niro and failing miserably, not only chews up the scenery but swallows it whole. As for the script, it's full of cliched slang that seems left over from a bad 1950's biker movie. Take LeGros' observation about the swimming pool where Tarantino magically pops out of: "That's not a swimming pool. That's the devil's watering hole". Real profound stuff there! The line is meant to be funny. Maybe in the 50's!?. Perhaps it would have been funny, had the delivery not been so clumsy. I feel sorry for Jim Belushi the most, who is so damn likable, he's totally unconvincing as a bad guy. The main problem of this film is that they chose the wrong people for these characters, and the wrong director too. Tarantino might have been able to juice it up if he had either directed or scripted this lame project. So much for asking for small favors.
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The title stands for "So Fucking What", which is the most apt title for this unfunny and terribly depressing muck. Stephen Dorff plays a slacker, who becomes a cult hero after he is taken hostage by a terrorist group for a month. The terrorists take videos of the hostages, particularly Dorff who is full of sarcasm and inane "wit". He falls in love with another hostage (Reese Witherspoon), while attempting to keep his sanity. When he dispatches the terrorists, he finds himself thrust into the spotlight. For what possible reason I cannot comprehend, owing that his "philosophy" sounds like so much drivel, and it makes me wonder why a lot of people would worship morons like this.The film attempts to get across its message: Media manipulation and the public feeding frenzies on survivors of tragedy. Two problems with this: (1) It has been done before with a much better grasp on how to get the message across - sometimes subtly (like in the French production Man Bites Dog) - sometimes not so subtly (Natural Born Killers), but always with better acting, filmaking techniques, dialogue, storyline, editing and directing than with this production.
(2) The film gets its message across loud and clear in the first two minutes, then tortures it to death for the next 90 minutes, brutally and without mercy. Why anybody would try to sell this depressing, muddled mess as "comedy" is beyond me. Is there anything good in this? Witherspoon makes a much worthier effort for a decent performance than the incredibly lame Dorff. But she is on for such a minimal amount of time in the picture, that any hope for her saving this picture is lost immediately after her one minute scenes are over.
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A Sci-Fi time travel classic, with plenty of nostalgia and comedy to hold you over. Michael J. Fox plays Marty McFly, a regular teenager whose family is a hopeless bunch of losers. His only buddy, the slightly loony Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), invents a time machine out of an old DeLorean. Through a series of mishaps, Fox ends up becoming the first human time traveler. Sent back to 1955, he meets up with his parents (Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson). But the way he meets his parents nearly destroys the balance of time, which could cause a paradox that will insure that Fox never exists. With the help of the younger (though still looney) 1955 version of Lloyd, Fox sets about to restore the past so he will exist, help his dad stand up to the town bully Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) and get back to the future.Full of plenty exciting, cliffhanger moments and touching scenes involving before-and-after nostalgia and a talented group of then-young performers (Fox, Thompson, et al.), as well as seasoned veterans (Lloyd, in a standout performance). The best scenes involve the comic differences between the innocent world of 1955, and the slightly tainted one of 1985. A good beginning to one of the best Sci-Fi series ever! An excellent Huey Lewis soundtrack helps!!
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A fast-paced sequel that, although it isn't better than the original, it certainly has enough feeling from the original to make it great entertainment. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) journey to the future 2015, in a newly customized time machine (now a flying-hovering DeLorean). Fox must save his son from mishaps that could destroy his life. Meanwhile, Fox's old nemesis Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) steals the time machine and changes the world of 1985 into a horrific nightmare. Because of this paradox, Fox and Lloyd must take a trip back to 1955 to fix the mess Wilson caused.A more interesting story, better special effects (including a scene involving three different versions of Fox) and a fleshing out of Lloyd and Fox's friendship is offered up in this second go around. As entertainment, it's dynamite. I should warn against trying to take this seriously. It's mostly tongue-in-cheek comedy. Extremely funny tongue-in-cheek comedy! It even has a great cliffhanger and a brief preview of Part III at the end.
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Recently watching the entire Back to the Future series in one sitting, I noticed that each film seemed to be entirely different pictures. That's not to say that the connections weren't there, nor that one was better or worse than another. It's the plot. The plot of each one takes entirely different courses than expected. Take the storyline for this...When we last left Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), he was stuck in 1955, trying to convince the shocked '55 version of old buddy Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) that he has to be sent back to the future again. But then Fox discovers a note from the 1985 version of Lloyd (who was zapped into the past by a lightning bolt in the last film), written in that year of 1985. He also learns that '85 Lloyd will be killed by old nemesis Biff's ancestor, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson, still the comic foil for Fox and Lloyd). So Fox and '55 Lloyd find the buried DeLorean time machine, and Fox uses it to go back and save friend Lloyd from death in the Wild West.
Again, it still has great effects and a great climax involving an 19th-century locomotive, as well as a welcome comic performance by Mary Steenburgen as Lloyd's Western sweetheart. Yet, the film is made in an entirely different mood than the first two films. It becomes a loving homage to old western films. It's even peppered with various old Western film actors, including hilarious turns by Harry Carey Jr., Dub Taylor and Pat Buttram as a trio of old-timey Western coots. The film does still retain the one element that really made the series good: Heart! Lloyd and Fox's performances together are wonderful, as they continue to bring the friendship between Doc Brown and Marty to new lengths. The series always had that special element, which will always make this a truly renowned classic series for years to come.
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