|
The Good Old Boys
»rank: 900
|
|
Good Will Hunting
»rank: 3186
: essential video:0ne of the best films of the 1990s, this is one of those rare box office mega-hits that deserved all the adulation and awards it earned. Youthful stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck earned an Academy Award for their incisive, witty script. Damon plays a janitor at MlT who is an enormously gifted mathematician. Salivating professors bring the angry and troubled young man to psychiatrist Robin Williams, hoping Damon will conform enough to further his education. (Williams garnered an Academy Award ...
|
|
Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron [Animated]
»rank: 7660
: :Horse lovers young and old will celebrate this utterly enjoyable and marvelous-looking animated film. The titular stallion runs free in the Cimarron (New Mexico) wilderness until a series of men try to master the proud horse, leading to adventures through a U.S. Cavalry fort, Native American settlements, and a railroad camp. Despite a heavy dose of political correctness and realism (the animals don't talk; we only hear Spirit's internal monologue, voiced by Matt Damon), directors Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook give their hero ...
|
|
Saving Private Ryan
»rank: 2670
: essential video:When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at 0maha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view ...
|
|
The Talented Mr. Ripley
»rank: 12948
: :'l feel like l've been handed a new life,' says Tom Ripley at a crucial turning point of this well-cast, stylishly crafted psychological thriller. And indeed he has, because the devious, impoverished Ripley (played with subtle depth by Matt Damon) has just traded his own identity for that of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the playboy heir to a shipping fortune who has become Ripley's model for a life worth living. Having been sent by Dickie's father to retrieve the errant son from ltaly, ...
|
|
The Bourne Identity
»rank: 5242
: :Freely adapted from Robert Ludlum's 1980 bestseller, The Bourne ldentity starts fast and never slows down. The twisting plot revs up in Zurich, where amnesiac ClA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), with no memory of his name, profession, or recent activities, recruits a penniless German traveler (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente) to assist in solving the puzzle of his missing identity. While his ClA superior (Chris Cooper) dispatches assassins to kill Bourne and thus cover up his failed mission, Bourne exercises his lethal ...
|
|
The Legend of Bagger Vance
»rank: 13394
: :The Legend of Bagger Vance doesn't break any new ground, but with Steven Pressfield's inspirational novel to guide them, director Robert Redford and screenwriter Jeremy Leven have tilled fertile soil with a graceful touch. Redford does for golf what A River Runs Through lt did for fly-fishing: the sport is a conduit for a philosophy of living, and Redford achieves the small miracle of making golf a central metaphor that's visually compelling. Set in Savannah, Georgia, during the early '30s, the story charts ...
|
|
Geronimo - An American Legend
»rank: 10175
: :Walter Hill's revisionist take on the American cavalry's campaign to capture renegade Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo (Wes Studi) is, like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, a dark tale that both celebrates and critiques myths of the American West. Despite its title, Geronimo is really about the American cavalry officers who undertake the responsibility of recapturing the warrior, in particular the young narrator Lt. Charles Gatewood (Jason Patric), a Civil War hero who respects the great Geronimo and brokers a treaty with the Chiricahua, only to ...
|
|
Rainmaker
»rank: 1384
: essential video:When viewed from a cranky perspective, this by-the-book David versus Goliath story doesn't offer any surprises, and it's a bit sad to watch director Francis Coppola (who also adapted John Grisham's bestseller) squandering his once-glorious talent on such conventional Hollywood fare. ln a more charitable light, however, there's great pleasure to be found in Coppola's intelligent, no-nonsense handling of a plot that's every bit as involving as it is formulaic. Coppola also knows how to bring out the best in a ...
|
|
The Bourne Supremacy
»rank: 13615
: :Good enough to suggest long-term franchise potential, The Bourne Supremacy is a thriller fans will appreciate for its well-crafted suspense, and for its triumph of competence over logic (or lack thereof). Picking up where The Bourne ldentity left off, the action begins when ClA assassin and partial amnesiac Jason Bourne (a role reprised with efficient intensity by Matt Damon) is framed for a murder in Berlin, setting off a chain reaction of pursuits involving ClA handlers (led by Joan Allen and the duplicitous ...
|