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My Cousin Vinny
: :When two Italian-American boys from New York are falsely accused of murder in a small Alabama town, they call for a lawyer--but the only lawyer they know is their cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci), who made six attempts before he passed his bar exam. My Cousin Vinny is a classic fish-out-of-water comedy; the flimsy plot about clearing the two boys and solving the murder is just a hook to support a lot of culture-clash humor. Thanks to the strong cast of character actors like Fred Gwynne, Austin Pendleton, and Lane Smith, it's pretty funny--even ...
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Chaplin
: :Sir Richard Attenborough's biographical film of the life and times of Charles Chaplin is a little thin as a narrative, but it is so charmingly creative and ultimately moving, it's hard to care about any deficits. Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job re-creating Chaplin's graceful slapstick and getting inside the silent-film superstar's head over many years of triumph, defeat, scandal, official persecution, exile, and inner peace. A huge cast portray the allies, friends, lovers, and enemies in Chaplin's life, including Moira Kelly as his final, longtime wife, Oona, Kevin Kline as Douglas ...
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Only Love
: :Erich Segal seems to be obsessed with beautiful young women inflicted with cancer. He first used this formula in his tearjerking book Love Story (later made into a 1970 film starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal). It appears again in Only Love, based on Segal's novel of the same name. Rob Morrow is Matthew Heller, a neurosurgeon who had his heart broken by a stunning Italian doctor, Silvia Rinaldi (Mathilda May). Marisa Tomei is Evie, his best friend from college, who salves his broken heart and endures the ups and downs of her ...
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Zandalee
: :Erich Segal seems to be obsessed with beautiful young women inflicted with cancer. He first used this formula in his tearjerking book Love Story (later made into a 1970 film starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal). It appears again in Only Love, based on Segal's novel of the same name. Rob Morrow is Matthew Heller, a neurosurgeon who had his heart broken by a stunning Italian doctor, Silvia Rinaldi (Mathilda May). Marisa Tomei is Evie, his best friend from college, who salves his broken heart and endures the ups and downs of her ...
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Untamed Heart
: :If you're a die-hard romantic with a soft spot for three-hanky weepers, this well-acted love story from 1993 will be just what the doctor ordered. It's about a waitress named Caroline (Marisa Tomei) who works the graveyard shift in a Minneapolis diner, where the silent, introverted Adam (Christian Slater) works as a dishwasher and janitor. Only Caroline manages to bring the solitary Adam out of his shell, and when he rescues her from an assault, their tentative friendship slowly blossoms into mutual trust and love. Adam has a weak heart and desperately needs ...
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Oscar
: :Oscar was Sylvester Stallone's agreeable, 1991 effort at broad comedy, a fast-talking, suspender-snapping gangster farce featuring the Rambo star as a 1930s Chicago mob boss, Snaps Provolone, trying to go straight during overlapping personal crises. No, this isn't Billy Wilder, but director John Landis (Coming to America) has crackling fun with Oscar's fruit salad of traditional comic themes and tools, including mistaken identities, a powerful man's weakness for his children, and a nonstop parade of outre secondary characters. The cast includes Kirk Douglas as Stallone's father, whose deathbed wish compels Snaps to go ...
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Only You
: :While director Norman Jewison's Moonstruck is a romantic cornerstone, this 1994 film is often overlooked. It's a sweet valentine about a young woman, aptly named Faith (Marisa Tomei, never cuter), who chases an unknown man to Europe because the name 'Damon Bradley' was once spelled on an Ouija board as her true love. With her sister-in-law (Bonnie Hunt, whose own marriage seems to be falling apart), she travels the streets of Rome looking for Damon Bradley. And lo and behold, she literally runs into a man claiming to be Damon. Is this meant ...
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Unhook the Stars
: :Actor turned director Nick Cassavetes, son of American independent godfather John Cassavetes, makes his directorial debut with this quietly unpredictable character piece written for Gena Rowlands. Left adrift when her willful daughter (Moira Kelly) leaves home, the polite, poised widow dotes over the darling 6-year-old son (Jake Lloyd of The Phantom Menace) of her foul-mouthed, working-class neighbor (Marisa Tomei). The girls form an unlikely friendship, and the easy way these opposites find a comfortable space is one of the film's pleasures, as is Rowlands's grandmotherly way with the boy and Gérard Depardieu's shy ...
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In the Bedroom
: essential video:When a film with such emotional resonance and visual poise as In the Bedroom makes it to the screen, it seems an unexpected gift meant to remind us of the medium's possibility for sensitivity and epiphany. First-time director Todd Field, who adapted the film from a story by Andre Dubus with screenwriter Rob Festinger, quietly observes the loss, rage, and inexorable desire for revenge that follows the murder of a 21-year-old son. The film opens with Frank (Nick Stahl), back from college for the summer, taking up with Natalie (Marisa Tomei), ...
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What Women Want
: :It must've made for a great pitch meeting: Male chauvinist advertising executive gains the ability to hear the thoughts of any woman around him. Add Mel Gibson--as Nick, the divorced 'man's man' who can charm almost any woman into bed--and you've got high-concept comedy made in Hollywood heaven, right? Not necessarily. The smartest thing director Nancy Meyers did with What Women Want is dispose of this ludicrous plot contrivance before it wears out its welcome. It's fun to see Mel react to a deafening chorus of female thoughts, but his dubious 'gift'--courtesy of ...
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Diesel vehicles have nearly a 50-percent market share in Europe, thanks to tax incentives and diesel-friendly legislation across the EU. Diesels are so passé there that you can buy a BMW 730d and no one will think it odd that your luxury car burns oil. Pull up in a diesel 7-Series in America and people would leer at you like you've alighted from an amphibious vehicle reeking of saltwater and dead trout.