Silent Running
After creating many of the innovative special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing, and 1971's Silent Running marked an impressive debut.
After creating many of the innovative special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing, and 1971's Silent Running marked an impressive debut.
If you've ever indulged a rock & roll fantasy, Rock Star will give you the vicarious thrill of seeing that fantasy come to life. That's what happens when talented tribute-band singer Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) is tapped to replace his idol as frontman for 1980s metal gods Steel Dragon. Chris becomes the groupie-laden "Izzy," his manager girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston) grows weary of sex 'n' drugs on tour, and Rock Star plays out its utterly conventional plot line.
The plot line may sound familiar: Two mismatched cops are assigned as reluctant partners to solve a crime. Culturally they are complete opposites, and they quickly realize they can't stand each other. One (Jackie Chan) believes in doing things by the book. He is a man with integrity and nerves of steel. The other (Chris Tucker) is an amiable rebel who can't stand authority figures. He's a man who has to do everything on his own, much to the displeasure of his superior officer, who in turn thinks this cop is a loose cannon but tolerates him because he gets the job done.
"Do your parents know you're Ramones?" With those withering words, Miss Togar (Mary Woronov), the uptight neofascist principal of Vince Lombardi High School, addresses the four mop-haired, leather-jacketed members of America's first and most famous punk band.
Confined to his small courtyard apartment by a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) passes the time between visits from his nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) by watching his neighbors with his binoculars through the rear window of his room. When Jeffries thinks he sees one of his neighbors murder his invalid wife and dispose of her body, he convinces Lisa to investigate. One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest masterpieces of suspense.
He's back! Superstar Sylvester Stallone is John Rambo, the ultimate action hero, in this explosive Oscar-nominated sequel to First Blood that boasts a riveting screenplay by Stallone and James Cameron (Titanic). Although the Vietnam War is officially over, Rambo remains the perfect fighting machine. But his survival skills are tested with a vengeance on a top-secret mission that takes him back to the jungles of Vietnam in search of American POW's.
The battle rages on as superstar Sylvester Stallone detonates the third and most explosive in the action-packed Rambo trilogy. Combat has taken its toll on John Rambo (Stallone), but he has finally begun to find inner peace inside a monastery - until his friend and mentor Col. Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) shows up to ask for his help on a top-secret mission to Afghanistan. A war-weary Rambo declines, but when Trautman is captured, Rambo erupts into a one-man firestorm to rescue his former commanding officer and decimate the enemy.
Clint Eastwood (making his very assured directorial debut) is a poetry-spouting stud-muffin DJ stalked by a maniacally amorous fan after a misguided one-night stand in this enjoyably schlocky, undeniably effective film about good intentions gone murderously wacky.
They had "the world on a string." Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, known as "The Rat Pack," set the style and the pace for 1950s America as the nation roller-coastered its way toward the swinging '60s. The pack makes Vegas their kingdom with Frank and the boys ruling generously - a private corner of America, where anything goes. This safe haven proves invaluable to entertainers, politicians and the Mob, all of whom share restaurants, bars, cocktails...and more.
The so-called spaghetti Western achieved its apotheosis in Sergio Leone's magnificently mythic (and utterly outlandish) Once upon a Time in the West. After a series of international hits starring Clint Eastwood (from A Fistful of Dollars to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), Leone outdid himself with this spectacular, larger-than-life, horse-operatic epic about how the West was won.
