|
|
|
Long Gone
: :Kevin Costner might have had a hammerlock on baseball movies in the late 1980s with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, but this 1987 HBO film with a few mid-level stars was (and still is) very good in its own way. William L. Petersen (Manhunter) is a player-manager for a 1950s minor-league team whose fortunes and hopes turn around during their battle for a championship. As with Bull Durham, this comedy has the feeling of taking place in a world larger than that of baseball, and thus provides useful perspective into why ...
|
|
|
Where the Money Is
: :Linda Fiorentino is her lean, sexy self as Carol, a former prom queen who's grown up to be a nurse in an old-age home, which isn't quite what she imagined her future would be. She's married to her prom king, Wayne (Dermot Mulroney), who's grown a little dull. Then Henry (Paul Newman) gets delivered into her care. He's an imprisoned bank robber who has had a stroke. Or has he? Carol begins to try to suss him out, even going so far as to straddle him in his wheelchair and fondle ...
|
|
|
Bastard Out of Carolina
: :This fine but shocking drama (which Ted Turner paid for and then refused to show on his cable outfits), based on the novel by Dorothy Allison, concerns extensive abuse endured by a girl (Jena Malone) at the hands of her stepfather (Ron Eldard), while her mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) looks the other way. Anjelica Huston made her directorial debut with this film and demonstrates that talent also runs in the family when behind the camera. Difficult to watch but mitigated by Huston's intelligent approach and sense of balance--as well as outstanding ...
|
|
|
Angels in the Outfield
:Description:Catch the movie that flew over the fence and into the hearts of millions of cheering fans! It's Disney's ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, the feel-good film of the year about a young boy praying for a father -- and a struggling baseball team praying for a pennant. Danny Glover plays George Knox, the frustrated coach of the California Angels, a ragtag team of major-league misfits who are down on their luck. But things begin to look up when 11-year-old Roger, their biggest fan, starts giving Knox some winning tips from a ...
|
|
|
How to Make an American Quilt
: essential video:Based on the bestseller by Whitney Otto, this film seemed to miss all the poetry and the ephemeral charms of the wispy novel by trying to make a concrete movie out of it. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (who made a similar hash out of A Thousand Acres), the film centers on Winona Ryder, who is debating her impending marriage and decides to make up her mind while spending the summer with her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn). This leads to a variety of encounters with Grandma and her sewing circle (which ...
|
|
|
Silent Tongue
: essential video:Based on the bestseller by Whitney Otto, this film seemed to miss all the poetry and the ephemeral charms of the wispy novel by trying to make a concrete movie out of it. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (who made a similar hash out of A Thousand Acres), the film centers on Winona Ryder, who is debating her impending marriage and decides to make up her mind while spending the summer with her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn). This leads to a variety of encounters with Grandma and her sewing circle (which ...
|
|
|
Where the Day Takes You
: :Homelessness is a serious problem, but this film by Mark Rocco made it look like an alternative lifestyle that, if not for drugs and prostitution, would be kind of cool. Set in Los Angeles, the film centers on a group of homeless teens led by King (Dermot Mulroney), who tries to look out for his younger charges. But he can't keep some of them from getting involved in drug dealing, which leads to violence and melodrama involving evil drug dealer Kyle MacLachlan. Mulroney has a poignant quality, as does Lara Flynn ...
|
|
|
Trigger Effect
: :In David Koepp's ambivalent tale of middle-class terror, modern society is already set just below the boiling point. When a massive, unexplained blackout strikes married couple Kyle MacLachlan and Elizabeth Shue's region, their already tense suburban lifestyle threatens to pitch over. Old friend Joe (Dermot Mulroney) adds some obligatory class and marital strain into the mix, but together the three debate what to do as their society is rumored to be collapsing (all phones and broadcasting are also shot). Making an end run for the in-laws' house 500 miles away, they ...
|
|
|
Young Guns
: :Part of what was touted as a late-1980s revival of Westerns (and you can see how long that lasted), this good-looking, empty-brained film was like a spurs-and-chaps version of a Joel Schumacher movie, filled with pretty faces, prettier imagery, and absolutely no new ideas. The idiotically grinning Emilio Estevez is cast as Billy the Kid, who slowly accumulates a gang of Brat Pack buddies (Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, Dermot Mulroney) and fashions them into a group of male models with six-guns. The action is confused and the script is trite, ...
|
|
|
Thing Called Love
: :If there was a universal collective, albeit repressed, dream, it would probably be to become a successful singer. People would take that singing in the car, singing in the shower, and even singing in the rain, and have it be their life's love and work. The Thing Called Love uses this popular aspiration as its setting and examines the lives of four young people hoping to make it in the country music universe. At the center is earnest Miranda Presley--no relation--(Samantha Mathis), the pretty but untalented Linda Lue (Sandra Bullock), the ...
|
|