A titanic performance by Jack Nicholson powers this fact-and-fiction biography of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa. From the opening moment--Hoffa sitting alone in the back of a car--Nicholson's performance is one of his best, and a rare role as a historical person. The sweeping all-American story of a common worker who reaches the highest pinnacle in the world's most powerful union is sweepingly told with wondrous detail, in wardrobe, sets, and trucks.
Director Zhang Yimou brings the sumptuous visual style of his previous films (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad) to the high-kicking kung fu genre. A nameless warrior (Jet Li, Romeo Must Die, Once Upon a Time in China) arrives at an emperor's palace with three weapons, each belonging to a famous assassin who had sworn to kill the emperor. As the nameless man spins out his story--and the emperor presents his own interpretation of what might really have happened--each episode is drenched in red, blue, white or another dominant color.
Considered by many to be Woody Allen's best film, even over Annie Hall. Hannah and Her Sisters follows a multitude of characters: Hannah (Mia Farrow), who plays den mother to her extended family; her sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), emotional and a bit of a flake, who's involved with a much older artist (Max Von Sydow), who treats her like a child; and Hannah's other sister, Holly (Dianne Wiest), a neurotic who feels incapable of managing her life. Hannah's husband Elliot (Michael Caine) falls in love with Lee, which sets off a series of upheavals.
Oklahoma, 1873. Jed Cooper, mistaken for a rustler and killer, is lynched on the spot by crooked lawman Captain Wilson and a rampaging band of vigilantes. But as Wilson and his gang flee the scene, there's one very important detail they've overlooked: Cooper is still alive! Saved in the nick of time by a sheriff, Cooper takes on the job of deputy marshal in order to bring hard-handed justice to the Oklahoma territory... and to the nine men who "done him wrong."
Gremlins is a whee of a film (if you don't mind the occasional gross-out) from producer Steven Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus, and director Joe Dante. Zach Galligan is the young man whose inventor father (Hoyt Axton) gives him an odd Christmas present: a tiny, furry creature that comes with a set of rules: don't get him wet, don't feed him after midnight, and keep him away from direct sunlight. But Galligan breaks the first rule and the damp little critter pops out a dozen little offspring.
Some movie-loving wizards must have cast a magic spell on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, because it's another grand slam for the Harry Potter franchise. Demonstrating remarkable versatility after the arthouse success of Y Tu Mama Tambien, director Alfonso Cuaron proves a perfect choice to guide Harry, Hermione, and Ron into treacherous puberty as the now 13-year-old students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry face a new and daunting challenge: Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has escaped from Azkaban prison, and for reasons yet unknown (unless, of course, you've read J.K.
Cars fly, trees fight back and a mysterious elf comes to warn Harry Potter at the start of the second year of his amazing journey into the world of wizardry. This year at Hogwarts, spiders talk, letters scold and Harry's own unsettling ability to speak to snakes turns his friends against him. From dueling clubs to rogue Bludgers, it's a year of adventure and danger when bloody writing on a wall announces: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. To save Hogwarts will require all of Harry, Ron and Hermione's magical abilities and courage in this spellbinding adaptation of J.K.
After the worldwide success of A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles and director Richard Lester reunited for a follow-up film, Eight Arms to Hold You. Well, that wasn't the final title; a pleading Lennon-McCartney tune provided the catchier handle: Help! A loose semispoof of the globe-trotting James Bond pictures, Help! has always been considered a somewhat disorganized comedown from its predecessor; but it presents "the famous Beatles" even more clearly as the English cousins of the Marx Brothers.
When Havana was released in 1990, a lot of reviewers unfavorably compared it to Casablanca, and those comparisons (in addition to audience indifference) turned the film into a box-office disaster. It deserved a better fate, because, while this is certainly no masterpiece, it's an intelligent and lavishly produced film about a chapter of history--the final days of Cuba under the collapsing Batista regime--that remains largely unfamiliar to the American mainstream.
David O. Selznick's production of Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize winner Gone With The Wind is "the pinnacle of Hollywood moviemaking," Leonard Maltin of Entertainment Tonight said. Andiin Maltin's view, "it looks better than it has in years." This sweeping Civil War-era romance won an impressive 10 Academy Awards® (including Best Picture), and its immortal characters Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), Rhett (Clark Gable), Ashley (Leslie Howard), Melanie (Olivia de Havilland), Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) and Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) populate an epic story of enduring appeal across generations.
