Thirty-two years before My Big Fat Greek Wedding brought Greek-American culture to a mainstream audience, Never on Sunday took mainstream culture to Greece, with similarly popular results. Expatriate director Jules Dassin wrote, directed, and costars in this vibrant and (in retrospect) rather simple-minded celebration of good living, as embodied by the vivacious Melina Mercouri in the Cannes award-winning role of her career.
uperior acting, writing, and direction are on impressive display in the critically acclaimed Mystic River, Clint Eastwood's 24th directorial outing and one of the finest films of 2003. Sharply adapted by L.A. Confidential Oscar-winner Brian Helgeland from the novel by Dennis Lehane, this chilling mystery revolves around three boyhood friends in working-class Boston--played as adults by Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and Kevin Bacon--drawn together by a crime from the past and a murder (of the Penn character's 19-year-old daughter) in the present.
Could this be the funniest movie ever made? By any rational measure of comedy, this medieval romp from the Monty Python troupe certainly belongs on the short list of candidates. According to Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide, it's "recommended for fans only," but we say hogwash to that--you could be a complete newcomer to the Python phenomenon and still find this send-up of the Arthurian legend to be wet-your-pants hilarious.
On a remote stretch of deserted highway, a band of violent bikers has taken over, attacking anyone unlucky enough to cross their savage path. Racing up and down the seemingly endless miles of asphalt, the crazed outlaws blaze through small towns, plowing into vehicles and pedestrians alike with reckless abandon. Bringing a sense of law to this lawlessness are the mobile police force, led by Max and Goose, who are as fast and mean as their adversaries and are willing to do whatever it takes to cut the enemy down.
One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, M*A*S*H focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.
This terrific Walter Hill Western follows the careers of the James and Younger brothers--and uses the nifty idea of casting actual clans of acting siblings in the roles. Thus, the James brothers are played by James and Stacy Keach; the Youngers by David, Keith, and Robert Carradine; the Millers by Randy and Dennis Quaid; and the Fords by Christopher and Nicholas Guest. Hill, working with an evocative Ry Cooder score, creates a film that is at once breathtakingly exciting and elegiac in its treatment of these post-Civil War outlaws.
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 It 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.
John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) directed this gripping, entertaining 1977 thriller that centers on graduate student Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate, Tootsie). Hoffman plays a sullen and cowardly loner haunted by the suicide of his father, a suspected communist. He is drawn into a murky web of international intrigue when his brother, CIA agent Doc Levy, played by Roy Scheider (Jaws, The French Connection), is murdered by a former Nazi (Laurence Olivier) who has come to the United States to reclaim a valuable stash of diamonds.
What do you do if you're the new manager of the minor-league team called the Buzz? Pray for rain! Instead, Gus Cantrell (Scott Bakula) turns his team from a laughingstock to the equivalent of blue-chip stocks in this third Major League comedy reuniting five series stalwarts, including wisecracking play-by-play man Bob Uecker. Cantrell has his work cut out. The catcher is living proof why the chest protector and other protective gear are called "the tools of ignorance." The ace pitcher should earn frequent-flyer miles for the fastballs opposing batters sock into orbit.
They're back -- and better than ever! The diehard Cleveland Indians who went from worst to first now cope with fame and its perks as the team tries to hit, hustle and joke its way back to the top. Reckless thrower Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), self-adoring infielder Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), slugger Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) and more are in for a whole new ballgame in this hilarious sequel.
