Movie Recommendations

Rob Reiner’s modern take on It Happened One Night sets John Cusack cross-country for a sure fling; but traveling companion Daphne Zuniga may be his real interest.

The first installment may even deserve an A for its inventiveness and humor. As usual, additional installments were progressively less appealing.

An NYC subway train is hijacked. But with their every move tracked, how will the crooks escape with their ransom?

A movie with decent moments that could have been much better by cutting out the Penguin (Danny De Vito). Michelle Pfeiffer steals the show.

Another musical in which sparkling songs (Lerner & Loewe) and performances (Maurice Chevalier, Hermione Gingold) rescue a mediocre plot.

Wonderful film of a young Swedish boy coming to terms with tragedy while finding the joy in life with help from the country relatives who take him in.

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.

Arthur Penn Warren’s revisionist look at nearly a century of American history, through the eyes of a white man/Indian raised in and moving between two very different cultures. A western only in part, it’s also a lengthy political statement cum diatribe against the scourge of modern times—the white man, species americanus predatorus. Made at the…

Topnotch Tennessee Williams play is given its due by a first-rate cast. Vivien Leigh won best actress Oscar honors for her portrayal of the fragile, mentally unstable Blanche DuBois, a refined lady who’s fallen on hard times. When she comes to stay with her more earthy sister, Stella, she sets in motion a tragic confrontation…