|
Bronx Tale
»rank: 220
: :Chazz Palminteri wrote the script for this excellent story of an ltalian American boy (Lillo Brancato) who grows up in the 1960s caught between the strong influences of his blue-collar, straight- arrow father (Robert De Niro) and a Mafia chieftain (Palminteri) who is his all-purpose mentor. De Niro makes his directorial debut with this production and, except for a little stiffness, does very well by the characters and their world. The story does not go precisely where one might expect it to go: ...
|
|
The Outsiders
»rank: 237
: essential video:Director Francis Coppola's adaptation of the popular S.E. Hinton novel about the price of rebellious youth is notable chiefly for the stunning cast of young actors who went on to rich and varied careers. ln supporting roles, the film features the likes of Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and Tom Waits, among others. The story centers on two rival gangs in the early 1960s Midwest, and the violent turf wars that escalate and tragically claim young ...
|
|
The Godfather Collection
»rank: 5081
: essential video:Throughout his long, wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola has made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeniably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has ...
|
|
Bella Mafia
»rank: 8423
: essential video:Throughout his long, wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola has made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeniably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has ...
|
|
La Confidential
»rank: 10146
: essential video:ln a time when it seems that every other movie makes some claim to being a film noir, L.A. Confidential is the real thing--a gritty, sordid tale of sex, scandal, betrayal, and corruption of all sorts (police, political, press--and, of course, very personal) in 1940s Hollywood. The 0scar-winning screenplay is actually based on several titles in James Ellroy's series of chronological thriller novels (including the title volume, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz)--a compelling blend of L.A. history and pulp fiction ...
|
|
Mommie Dearest
»rank: 7767
: :The movie that made 'No wire hangers!' a household phrase, Mommie Dearest is the very model of a modern 'camp classic,' so crazily outlandish that it's fascinating. Based on the scathing and scandalous tell-all bestseller by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of histrionic Hollywood movie queen Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest was billed in advance as a serious dramatic motion-picture biography. But it turned out to be something much, much weirder--a genuine Hollywood oddity that serves up a bizarre mixture of melodramatic trash and ...
|
|
Streetcar Named Desire (1995)
»rank: 137
: :The movie that made 'No wire hangers!' a household phrase, Mommie Dearest is the very model of a modern 'camp classic,' so crazily outlandish that it's fascinating. Based on the scathing and scandalous tell-all bestseller by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of histrionic Hollywood movie queen Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest was billed in advance as a serious dramatic motion-picture biography. But it turned out to be something much, much weirder--a genuine Hollywood oddity that serves up a bizarre mixture of melodramatic trash and ...
|
|
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
»rank: 9832
: essential video:Based on the mid-'70s novel by Judith Rossner (which itself was based on a true story), this film was supposed to be the one that established Diane Keaton's credibility as a 'serious' actress--and yet she won the 0scar for the other film she did the same year, Annie Hall. Still, Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a solid and intriguing film, which offered the first substantial film roles to Richard Gere and Tom Berenger. Keaton is a repressed Catholic school teacher who works ...
|
|
Wait Until Dark
»rank: 7965
: essential video:Audrey Hepburn's last 0scar nomination was for this adaptation of Frederick Knott's famed stage thriller about a blind woman, a con man (Alan Arkin), and a doll full of heroin. Thanks to Hepburn's husband, a photographer who does a good deal of traveling, she's unknowingly come into possession of said doll, which was given to him on a plane by a comely young drug runner who winds up dead. The murderous Arkin, aided by sympathetic henchman Richard Crenna, will let nothing ...
|
|
Story of Esther Costello
»rank: 10317
: essential video:Audrey Hepburn's last 0scar nomination was for this adaptation of Frederick Knott's famed stage thriller about a blind woman, a con man (Alan Arkin), and a doll full of heroin. Thanks to Hepburn's husband, a photographer who does a good deal of traveling, she's unknowingly come into possession of said doll, which was given to him on a plane by a comely young drug runner who winds up dead. The murderous Arkin, aided by sympathetic henchman Richard Crenna, will let nothing ...
|
