Bobby Jones: Stroke Of Genius
Anyone who's ever been passionate about golf will find something to admire in Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, a staidly reverent biopic about one of the game's greatest champions.
Anyone who's ever been passionate about golf will find something to admire in Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, a staidly reverent biopic about one of the game's greatest champions.
Despite a troubled production history including a switch in directors, budget overruns, and delayed release dates, The Alamo turned out to be a remarkably intelligent mini-epic of corrective historical biography. Dispensing with the grandiose myth-making of previous films on this subject (including John Wayne's gung-ho 1960 version), this well-written film breathes new, credibly dimensional life into the stodgy legends of Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), and Lt. Col.
Jennifer Garner glows like a rising star in 13 Going On 30, a girly version of the Tom Hanks classic Big. Jenna (Garner, Alias, Daredevil), a frustrated teenage girl, just wants to skip past all those annoying adolescent years and arrive at a glamorous adulthood--and thanks to some inexplicable wishing dust, she does.
Sometimes beauty can make time stand still. Just One Night celebrates the power of true love, starring Timothy Hutton (The General's Daughter, Beautiful Girls) and Maria Grazia Cucinotta (II Postino, The World is Not Enough).
Murder in the first. Comedy every second. Framed for the shooting of a corporate moneybag, Ryan Harrison has been Wrongfully Accused! He's also been Rightfully Cast. Leslie Nielsen, comedy's most bent straight arrow, portrays Harrison in the directorial debut of screenwriter Pat Proft, whose credits include the Naked Gun and Hot Shots! movies. Like so many heroes before him, Harrison's gotta do what a hero's gotta do. (Only he does it funnier.) Clear his name. Find a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed criminal. Evade a manhunt. Plunge over a waterfall.
When it was released during Hollywood's golden year of 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't start out as the perennial classic it has since become. The film did respectable business, but it wasn't until its debut on television that this family favorite saw its popularity soar. And while Oz's TV broadcasts are now controlled by media mogul Ted Turner (who owns the rights), the advent of home video has made this lively musical a mainstay in the staple diet of great American films.
When a young Amish woman and her son are caught up in the murder of an undercover narcotics agent, their savior proves to be the worldly and cynical Philadelphia detective John Book. Harrison Ford is sensational as Book, the cop who runs head-on into the non-violent world of a Pennsylvania Amish community. The end result is an action-packed struggle of life and death, interwoven with a sensitive undercurrent of caring and forbidden love.
Despite the presence of hack director Arthur Hiller, this hybrid comedy-thriller works most of the time as pleasant faux Hitchcock. Gene Wilder is a book editor who is relaxing by taking a cross-country train ride. Then he gets caught up in a murder--and becomes a suspect. It's up to him to prove his own innocence. As noted, the script, by Colin Higgins, owes a big debt to Alfred Hitchcock; but the mystery isn't all that mysterious and the comedy isn't all that hilarious--at least not until Richard Pryor shows up, which is at least halfway through the film.
Long before Unforgiven deconstructed the Western, or Blazing Saddles lampooned it, Cat Ballou poked the genre in the eye. An altogether enjoyable comedy, the film is full of small surprises, big laughs, and wonderful character turns. Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda) is a schoolteacher until a hired thug kills her daddy. To protect what she loves, she collects two petty criminals, a wisecracking hired hand, and a hired killer, Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin). Unfortunately, Shelleen is a raging drunk who is so inebriated and unsteady with a gun he literally misses the broad side of a barn.
A comic battle of wills and an outrageous test of endurance ensues when this trio is grudgingly assigned to keep vigil -- as unobtrusively as possible -- in a small, upscale resort community. Pretending to be an average American family on vacation, it's an unlikely domestic arrangement at best. But, like a typical family, they're stuck with one another.
