Van Orton is a successful businessman who is always in control. He lives a well-ordered life - until an unexpected birthday gift from his brother destroys it all. The Game does a tremendous job of presenting the story of a rigid control freak trapped in circumstances that are increasingly beyond his control. Michael Douglas plays a rich, divorced, and dreadful investment banker whose 48th birthday reminds him of his father's suicide at the same age.
The date movie of the late 1980s, this had everyone arguing in the aisles. Does Michael Douglas deserve the unwanted attention he and his family are receiving at the hands of loony stalker Glenn Close? After a weekend extramarital affair with colleague Close, he returns home to wife Anne Archer, and Close becomes progressively angrier. You might even say she is boiling bunny mad. Directed by Adrian Lyne, this is not your average thriller, as it garnered six Academy Award nominations. The plot is too obvious, but the dialogue rings true and the intense performances hold the story together.
Freeways are clogged. Terror stalks our cities. At shops and restaurants, the customer is seldom right. The pressure of big-city life can anger anyone. But Bill Foster is more than angry. He's out to get even. "I'm going home," Foster says as he abandons his gridlocked car on the hottest day of the year. Instead, he walks straight into an urban nightmare by turns absurdly funny and shatteringly violent. Academy Award winner Michael Douglas is Foster, an ordinary guy at war with the frustrations of daily living.
His career, marriage, and future are all on the line for DigiCom executive Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas). He rejected the passionate advance of his new boss (Demi Moore). Now she's charging him with sexual harassment. Tom must scramble for his corporate life - a scramble that will lead him into the dazzling cyberworld of DigiCom's new virtual reality corridor... and bare a shocking conspiracy among key company personnel.
Michael Douglas stars as Nick Curran, a tough but vulnerable detective. Sharon Stone costars as Catherine Tramell, a cold, calculating, and beautiful novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite. Catherine becomes a prime suspect when her boyfriend is brutally murdered--a crime she had described in her latest novel. But would she be so obvious as to write about a crime she was going to commit? Or is she being set up by a jealous rival?
What sounds like the high-concept romantic comedy pitch from hell--widower president falls for smart lobbyist while the world watches--is actually intelligent, charming, touching, and quite funny. Granted, it's wish fulfillment all the way (when was the last time you saw a president who was truly presidential?), but in the capable hands of writer Aaron Sorkin (TV's Sports Night) and director Rob Reiner, The American President is incredibly enjoyable entertainment with quite a few ideas about both romance and the government.
