|
|
|
Bugsy Malone
: :Writer-director Alan Parker's feature debut Bugsy Malone is a pastiche of American movies, a musical gangster comedy set in 1929, featuring prohibition, showgirls, and gang warfare, with references to everything from Some Like It Hot to The Godfather. Uniquely, though, all the parts are played by children, including an excellent if underused Jodie Foster as platinum-blonde singer Tallulah, Scott Baio in the title role and a nine-year-old Dexter Fletcher wielding a baseball bat. Cream-firing 'spluge guns' sidestep any real violence and the movie climaxes cheerfully with the biggest custard pie fight this side ...
|
|
|
Carny
: essential video:Part coming-of-age chronicle, part road movie, Carny is memorable for Jodie Foster's sexy, intelligent heroine and the pivotal influence of costar, cowriter, and producer Robbie Robertson. As principal songwriter and guitarist in The Band, Robertson had already been accorded the stature of rock auteur by some critics; when director Martin Scorsese captured the musician's laconic sex appeal and deep, mesmerizing speaking voice on celluloid for The Last Waltz, the seed was planted for the Canadian rocker to graduate from documentary to dramatic feature. The lurid, colorful carnival milieu also dovetails with ...
|
|
|
Contact
: essential video:The opening and closing moments of Robert (Forrest Gump) Zemeckis's Contact astonish viewers with the sort of breathtaking conceptual imagery one hardly ever sees in movies these day--each is an expression of the heroine's lifelong quest (both spiritual and scientific) to explore the meaning of human existence through contact with extraterrestrial life. The movie begins by soaring far out into space, then returns dizzyingly to earth until all the stars in the heavens condense into the sparkle in one little girl's eye. It ends with that same girl as an adult ...
|
|
|
Eyewitness - Insect
: :Be afraid: insects outnumber humans 200 million to one. Or just be fascinated. Likely you'll be more of the latter after seeing this playful, zippy tour through the microworld of Class Insecta. Another installment in the award-winning Eyewitness series, Eyewitness: Insect uses DK's trademark MTV-speed editing, high-quality computer animation, stunning photography, and playful reenactments to effortlessly hold the attention of kid and adult alike. And, as they say, if you're not careful you just might learn something. Celebrity narrator Martin Sheen explains why bugs don't grow big, how crickets hear with their knees, ...
|
|
|
Tom Sawyer
: :The 1973 version of Tom Sawyer features Mark Twain's young hero in a rousing musical adventure. Much to the exasperation of his Aunt Polly (Celeste Holm), Tom (Johnny Whitaker) likes nothing better than going fishing with Huck Finn (Jeff East, who reprised the role a year later in Huckleberry Finn), spinning a tall tale, or convincing the other boys to whitewash a fence for him. But life gets complicated when a pretty girl moves in to town (a 10-year-old Jodie Foster), and then a friend runs into serious trouble and only Tom can ...
|
|
|
Nell
: essential video:This film is an intelligent examination of an easygoing doctor (Liam Neeson at his teddy bear best) and his discovery of Nell (Oscar nominee Jodie Foster), a woman who was raised in the woods with no human contact except her speech-impaired mother. The movie covers a familiar 'fish out of water' story unlocking Nell's soul (by deciphering her incomprehensible language) and then taking her into the modern world. What makes Nell special is the earnest work by Neeson, Natasha Richardson (as an uptight psychologist), and a rich, small array of supporting ...
|
|
|
Siesta
:Description:'Ultrahip, surreal, violent and sexy. This year's Blue Velvet' (American Film) Ellen Barkin, Jodie Foster and Gabrielle Byrne in a white-hot mystery tale of sexual intrigue. Year: 1987 Director: Mary Lambert Starring: Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands
|
|
|
The Silence of the Lambs
:Description:A psychopath nicknamed Buffalo Bill is murdering women across the Midwest. Believing it takes one to know one, the FBI sends Agent Clarice Starling (Foster) to interview a demented prisoner who may provide clues to the killer's actions. That prisoner is psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins), a brilliant, diabolical cannibal who agrees to help Starling only if she'll feed his morbid curiosity with details of her own complicated life. As their relationship develops, Starling is forced to confront not only her own hidden demons, but also an evil so powerful that she may ...
|
|
|
Accused (1988)
: :Jodie Foster won her first Oscar for her role in this drama, based on an actual incident. She plays a girl out for a night of fun at a poolroom. Before she knows what's happening, the men she's been flirting with have pinned her down for a gang rape. The story centers on the efforts of a district attorney (Kelly McGillis) to press her case, in spite of a wall of silence by the participants--and then to take the unusual step of going after the witnesses as accomplices. Foster is outstanding as a ...
|
|
|
Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
: :Jodie Foster won her first Oscar for her role in this drama, based on an actual incident. She plays a girl out for a night of fun at a poolroom. Before she knows what's happening, the men she's been flirting with have pinned her down for a gang rape. The story centers on the efforts of a district attorney (Kelly McGillis) to press her case, in spite of a wall of silence by the participants--and then to take the unusual step of going after the witnesses as accomplices. Foster is outstanding as a ...
|
|
