Albert Brooks

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Twilight Zone: The Movie

This tribute to the beloved supernatural TV show has four episodes. In the first, racist Bill Connor (Vic Morrow) is transformed into a Jew in World War II. Next, Mr. Bloom (Scatman Crothers) comes to a retirement home to teach the residents that they are only as young as they feel. In the third, teacher Helen Foley (Kathleen Quinlan) meets Antony (Jeremy Licht), a boy who is not what he seems. Finally, panicky plane passenger John Valentine (John Lithgow) sees gremlins attacking his flight.

The Muse

Steven Phillips (Albert Brooks) is the king of Hollywood screenwriting, but his hold on the throne is slipping. When a successful friend (Jeff Bridges) suggests that the services of a bona-fide Muse named Sarah (Sharon Stone) might get his career back on track, Steven’s desperate enough to take a leap of faith. Despite the misgivings of his wife, Laura (Andie MacDowell), Steven accepts Sarah’s extravagant demands, hoping for a good, strong dose of inspiration.

Unfaithfully Yours

This remake of Preston Sturges's 1948 comedy follows the same plot and has its amusing moments. Dudley Moore is a famous orchestra conductor who is convinced that his wife (Nastassja Kinski) is having an affair with his best friend, a flamboyant violinist (Armand Assante). So he plots an elaborate scheme by which he will kill them both and get away with murder. That fantasy, which he has while conducting an orchestra, rapidly falls apart once he actually tries to put it into motion. Moore and Assante compete for overacting awards, while Kinski was never much of an actress to begin with.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver is the definitive cinematic portrait of loneliness and alienation manifested as violence. It is as if director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader had tapped into precisely the same source of psychological inspiration ("I just knew I had to make this film," Scorsese would later say), combined with a perfectly timed post-Watergate expression of personal, political, and societal anxiety.

The Scout

Al Percolo is the scout who'd do anything to sign a prospect. Unfortunately, things weren't going his way, and Al found his career heading south--until he discovered Steve Nebraska, the greatest ballplayer who ever lived. Now, Al thinks he's back on top, and Steve believes he's found a new friend. And they're both about to discover how much they need each other.

Out Of Sight

George Clooney comes into his own as a leading man in the role of inveterate bank robber Jack Foley. Incarcerated, he uses another inmate's prison break as a cover for his own escape. Waiting for him, according to plan, is his partner, Buddy (Ving Rhames). Also waiting for him, not according to plan, is federal agent Karen Sisco (the ravishing Jennifer Lopez). She finds herself disarmed in more ways than one when she is deposited in the getaway car's trunk with Jack.

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