If you can give The Astronaut Farmer the big, bounding leap of faith it requires, you'll probably enjoy this good-natured film about the importance of holding on to your dreams. The title character (and the dreamer in question) is Charlie Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), a Texas ranch owner and former aeronautics engineer who's got a homemade rocket in his barn and a dream to blast into space.
Ryan O'Neal and Bruce Dern star in this fast-paced crime thriller filled with white-knuckle car chases. Known as the fastest getaway man on high-stakes robbery jobs, The Driver (O'Neal) is also relentlessly pursued by a detective on the police force who's obsessed with catching him (Dern). With its all-star cast, which also includes Isabelle Adjani and Ronee Blakley, and an action-packed story, The Driver is a metal-crunching, heart-stopping chase from start to finish!
After creating many of the innovative special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing, and 1971's Silent Running marked an impressive debut.
Alfred Hitchcock's final film is understated comic fun that mixes suspense with deft humor, thanks to a solid cast. The plot centers on the kidnapping of an heir and a diamond theft by a pair of bad guys led by Karen Black and William Devane. The cops seem befuddled, but that doesn't stop a questionable psychic (Barbara Harris) and her not overly bright boyfriend (Bruce Dern, in a rare good-guy role) from picking up the trail and actually solving the crime. Did she do it with actual psychic powers? That's part of the fun of Harris's enjoyably ditsy performance.
John Wayne has brawled bare-knuckled, gunned down desperadoes, fought jungle wars and piloted the skies. But The Cowboys gives him one of his juiciest roles as a leather-tough rancher who, deserted by his regular help, hires eleven greenhorn schoolboys for a cattle drive across 400 treacherous miles. When the dust settles, Wayne gives one of his best performances. In The Cowboys, Rex Reed wrote, "All the forces that have made him a dominant personality as well as a major screen presence seem to combine.
