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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
»rank: 492
: :Elia Kazan made his directorial debut with this adaptation of Betty Smith's novel about a bright, young girl growing up in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, trying to rise above her tenement existence. Sensitively filmed by Kazan, and graced with wonderful performances by James Dunn as the wistful, alcoholic father and Dorothy McGuire as a strong-willed mother. Peggy Ann Garner won a special 0scar for her performance. --Tom Keogh
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Streets of Laredo
»rank: 3310
: :The critical and popular success of the Lonesome Dove miniseries just about ensured a sequel or three. The first spinoff, Return to Lonesome Dove, was rushed out without author Larry McMurtry's input, but Streets of Laredo, which McMurtry scripted from his own novel, returns us firmly to his brutal West. Legendary Texas Ranger Captain Woodrow Call (James Garner, who steps into the boots left by Tommy Lee Jones with comfortable assurance and understated courage) has turned bounty hunter, and he heads off on ...
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One Special Night
»rank: 1349
: :lf the title lt Happened 0ne Night hadn't already been taken for Frank Capra's romantic comedy classic, it would've worked just as well for this holiday charmer. Catherine (Julie Andrews) is a widowed pediatric physician (with no children of her own) and Robert (James Garner) is a contractor with a wife suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Due to an accident of fate (a winter storm), they end up spending Thanksgiving together in an abandoned cabin, away from their family and friends. The two initially ...
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My Name Is Bill W.
»rank: 8875
: :Here's another example of TV giving James Woods the chance to stretch out from the intense-psycho roles he seems restricted to in too many of his movies. ln My Name ls Bill W. he plays Bill Wilson, the overreaching businessman from the Roaring '20s who went on to found Alcoholics Anonymous. Woods gets plenty of chances to stretch out here in Bill's headlong slide to the bottom, through the terrors of the Wall Street crash (which amplifies a two-fisted drinking problem) and into ...
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Skin Game
»rank: 8490
: :Here's another example of TV giving James Woods the chance to stretch out from the intense-psycho roles he seems restricted to in too many of his movies. ln My Name ls Bill W. he plays Bill Wilson, the overreaching businessman from the Roaring '20s who went on to found Alcoholics Anonymous. Woods gets plenty of chances to stretch out here in Bill's headlong slide to the bottom, through the terrors of the Wall Street crash (which amplifies a two-fisted drinking problem) and into ...
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The Notebook
»rank: 482
: :When you consider that old-fashioned tearjerkers are an endangered species in Hollywood, a movie like The Notebook can be embraced without apology. Yes, it's syrupy sweet and clogged with clichés, and one can only marvel at the irony of Nick Cassavetes directing a weeper that his late father John--whose own films were devoid of saccharine sentiment--would have sneered at. Still, this touchingly impassioned and great-looking adaptation of the popular Nicholas Sparks novel has much to recommend, including appealing young costars (Ryan Gosling and ...
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The Lonesome Dove Collection (Lonesome Dove/Streets of Laredo/Dead Man's Walk)
»rank: 8277
: :Lonesome Dove began life as a Larry McMurtry screenplay written for the big screen, with John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda in mind for the roles of aging Texas Rangers Gus McCrae, Woodrow Call, and Jake Spoon. That too-good-to-be-true project never happened, and McMurtry shelved the story for some years and then revived it as a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The latter was subsequently adapted for the glorious 1989 television miniseries starring Robert Duvall as Gus, one of the most endearing and heroic ...
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Support Your Local Sheriff
»rank: 3881
: :While hardly the first Western spoof to ride out of Hollywood, Support Your Local Sheriff is easily one of the best. James Garner plays the confident, cool-headed cowboy who strolls into a wild gold rush town on the way to Australia and takes the job as sheriff. Like a parody of My Darling Clementine by way of Rio Bravo, he arrests the hotheaded but hopelessly confused son (Bruce Dern) of a ruthless ranching magnate (Walter Brennan). Stuck with a half-built jail (where he ...
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Castaway Cowboy
»rank: 528
: :Texas cowpoke Lincoln Costain (James Garner) washes ashore on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and helps the widowed owner of a potato plantation (Vera Miles) turn her ailing farm into a thriving cattle ranch, despite the machinations of a sneaky local merchant (Robert Culp). The Castaway Cowboy has all the qualities of Disney's other live-action movies from the 1970s: a clear, straightforward story; serviceable, unfussy acting; a dose of ethnic stereotypes (in this case, the simple, happy-go-lucky islanders); a mixture of sentiment, slapstick, ...
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The Land Before Time X - The Great Longneck Migration
»rank: 1102
: :Dreams--or 'sleep stories,' as these talking dinosaurs dub them--inspire Little Foot and his grandparents to begin a journey to see a climactic event in the 10th installment of this consistently high-quality series. Along the way, they discover that other longnecks have been having similar dreams, thus providing the opportunity for guest voices (Bernadette Peters as 'Sue' and James Garner as 'Pat') and Little Foot's reunion with his long-lost father (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland). ln a subplot, Little Foot's other dino friends decide to ...
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