The time is now. The place is aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz, America's mightiest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier on maneuvers in theiPacific Ocean. Suddenly, a freak electrical storm engulfs theiship and triggers the impossible: The Nimitz is hurtled back in time to December 6, 1941, mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
One of the most acclaimed films of the year, The Fast Runner is an extraordinary, triumphant experience. Set amongst the Inuit people of the arctic, the film is a thrilling, passionate story exploring the universal themes of love, revenge and survival. When a small, nomadic community is cursed by an unknown shaman, the curse is still felt years later. Atanarjuat falls in love with Atuat, a woman already promised to the son of the clan's leader. In a fight, she is won by Atanarjuat causing vengeful clan leader Oki to plot to attack Atanarjuat and his brother in their sleep.
In the last 15 years Jack Baker (Jeff Bridges) and Frank Baker (Beau Bridges) have played every hotel and cocktail lounge they could book. But lately business has been off and they decide to hire Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer), a chain-smoking, hard-talking beauty with a terrific voice. The trio hits the road and they are an instant success. Susie has given the act a touch of class and a lot of sex appeal. Jack secretly yearns to play solo jazz gigs even though Frank wants to keep the group together.
John Boorman's 1985 South American epic never quite gets all of its gears working simultaneously, but it remains an often startling work with an extraordinary performance by the director's own son, Charley Boorman. Powers Boothe plays an American engineer working on a dam project in Brazil. When his young son is seemingly absorbed one day into the dense perils and beauty of the Amazon rain forest, Boothe's character goes on a protracted, 10-year search for him.
Michael Keaton heads an all-star cast in this wild and crazy comedy about four mental patients who get separated from their therapist on the way to a baseball game. Billy (Keaton), a pathological liar with a violent streak, finds himself on loose in New York City with his fellow group therapy patients: Henry (Christopher Lloyd), a neat freak; Jack (Peter Boyle), a former advertising executive who thinks he's Christ; and Albert (Stephen Furst), a near catatonic couch potato.
Kevin Costner's 1990 epic won a bundle of Oscars for a moving, engrossing story of a white soldier (Costner) who singlehandedly mans a post in the 1870 Dakotas, and becomes a part of the Lakota Sioux community who live nearby. The film may not be a masterpiece, but it is far more than the sum of good intentions. The characters are strong, the development of relationships is both ambitious and careful, the love story between Costner and Mary McDonnell's character is captivating.
A model for dozens of action films to follow, this box-office hit from 1967 refined a die-hard formula that has become overly familiar, but it's rarely been handled better than it was in this action-packed World War II thriller. Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialized soldiers, they'll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful misdeeds.
Winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), this critically acclaimed, extraordinarily powerful motion picture tracks a group of steelworker pals from a Pennsylvania blast furnace to the cool hunting grounds of the Alleghenies to the lethal cauldron of Vietnam. Robert De Niro gives an outstanding performance as Michael, the natural leader of the group.
Fries with gravy, a cherry cola. Friendship, bragging rights...and does Sinatra or Mathis croon the best makeout music? Before there was a counterculture of the '60s, there was a counter culture. From his Oscar-nominated script, Barry Levinson makes his directing debut with this endearing study of pals in transition. Film-debuting Ellen Barkin plays a neglected wife.
Whether or not you can sympathize with its fascistic/vigilante approach to law enforcement, Dirty Harry (directed by star Clint Eastwood's longtime friend and directorial mentor, Don Siegel) is one hell of a cop thriller. The movie makes evocative use of its San Francisco locations as cop Harry Callahan (Eastwood) tracks the elusive "Scorpio killer" who has been terrorizing the city by the Bay.
