It was one of those "something in the air" moments in Hollywood. In the space of a year, four different films came out on the same subject: A kid lands in an adult's body (and, often, vice versa--get it?). The best was Big, but this one was surprisingly amusing, thanks to a goofily adolescent performance by Judge Reinhold (as the kid in an adult's body) and a comically serious one by young Fred Savage, who can convey the sense of an grownup trapped in a kid's world.
If you think special government agent James West is fast with a six-shooter, wait'll he lays a quip on you! Megahit star Will Smith plays West, reuniting with Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld in an effects-loaded, shoot-from-the-lip spectacular. Kevin Kline plays fellow agent and crackerjack inventor Artemus Gordon, teamed with West on a daring assignment: Stop legless Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) and his diabolical plot for a Disunited States of America. Salma Hayek is mysterious adventuress Rita Escobar.
Comic wizard Bill Murray teams up with Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss in an outrageously wild comedy that's sure to drive you off the deep end! Murray plays Bob Wiley, a troubled but lovable therapy patient who fears everything! After seeking help from noted psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin (Dreyfuss), Bob feels revived. But when the good doctor skips town to go on a quiet family vacation, Bob, afraid of being alone, follows -- showing up unexpectedly at the therapist's lakeside retreat. That's when the fun really begins!
Yes, that is Bill Paxton as Ilan Mitchell-Smith's militaristic big brother. And that's Robert Downey Jr. as one of the in-crowd jerks who makes nerds Mitchell-Smith and Hall's lives miserable. Fortunately, this is a John Hughes comedy and our smart nerds create the perfect woman, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock), using a computer and voodoo. Lisa is a willing sex toy, has magical powers, and just wants to help the boys get even and meet nice babes. She even cleans up. The fantasy ebullience of Hughes is given full rein here and that's good and bad (mostly good).
Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito reunited for a third time to fabulous effect in this dark, disturbing comedy of martial trauma and revenge, which couldn't be more different from their sunnier outings in Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile.
Finally a comedy that will make you feel like a million bucks. In the tradition of The Full Monty comes a "spectacularly funny" (Gene Siskel) comedy about friends pulling together to make a dream come true. When Ned Devine dies from shock after winning the lottery, two longtime friends, Michael and Jackie, discover the body and agree Ned would want them to benefit from his good luck. They embark upon an outrageous scheme to claim the ticket, but first they have to get all the townsfolk to go along with their plan!
Not only was Barry Levinson's comedy shot in a relatively fast period of 29 days, the satire of politics and show business feels as if it were made yesterday. There's a fresh spin quite evident here, a nervy satire of a presidential crisis and the people who whitewash the facts. The main players are a mysterious Mr. Fix-It (Robert De Niro), veteran Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman), and a White House aide (Anne Heche). Can the president's molesting of a young girl be buried in the two weeks before an election? A war in Albania just might do the trick.
An ingeniously campy and enormously entertaining piece of fluff, View from the Top stars the impossibly lithe Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna, a white-trash girl with dreams of escaping her dead-end life by becoming an international flight attendant. Her destiny is complicated by a sweet guy (Mark Ruffalo) who just wants to live with his family in Cleveland and by a sister stewardess (Christina Applegate) who stabs Donna in the back.
The first in a trio of very broad comedies from director Sidney Poitier features Poitier and Bill Cosby as two small-time hustlers always looking for an angle. During a robbery at a swanky nightclub, they are relieved of their wallets, only to find later that one of them had a lottery ticket that came up a winner. The chase is on as they scour the city to find their prize, along the way running up against Harry Belafonte as a sly and suave mob kingpin (with a nod to Don Corleone) with his eye on the ticket as well.
John Candy stars in this John Hughes comedy as an idle, good-natured bachelor who's left in charge of his nephew and nieces during a family crisis. Unaccustomed to suburban life, fun-loving Uncle Buck soon charms his younger relatives Miles and Maizy with his hefty cooking and his new way of doing the laundry. But his carefree style doesn't impress everyone, including Tia (Jean Kelly), his rebellious teenage niece, and Chanice (Amy Madigan), his impatient girlfriend. Uncle Buck is the last person you'd think of to watch the kids.
