Movie Recommendations

The first film to win all top five Oscars; Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert initiate the screwball romantic comedy in this gem.

Henry Fonda repeats his Broadway turn as a naval officer stuck on a cargo ship at the tail-end of WW II. William Powell and Jack Lemmon keep the proceedings fun.

Ronald Colman plays a Ruritanian prince and the English lookalike who must replace him when brother Black Michael has the prince kidnapped in a bid for the throne. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. steals the show as the wily Rupert of Hentzau.

Trucking legend Burt Reynolds and bride-on-the-run Sally Fields are running bootleg liquor on a bet while eluding Sheriff Jackie Gleason.

Seminal account of a lawyer’s attempts to combat racial prejudice in his town and raise two children to be fair and honorable.

Kevin Costner is a Pentagon official who becomes the subject of a manhunt when his lover is murdered.

A caper that might seem tame by today’s standards comes to life in this [fictionalized] gripping step-by-step account of the first train robbery.

Offbeat Jim Jarmusch narrative weaves together three stories set in Memphis, Tenn., over the course of a single day.

Fun adapations of the Marvel comic character. CGI brings this highly acrobatic superhero to life, but the best part is the chemistry between stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. (Spider-Man 3 ruined everything. Why do so many super-hero sequels try to cram in so many villains? Never works.)

THE film about the American theater. Great performances all around, esp. by George Sanders, with Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Anne Baxter, and a very young Marilyn Monroe. Has Davis’s classic line: Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy evening.