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Planes Trains & Automobiles
»rank: 4458
0ur opinion: essential video:Given the presence of both Steve Martin and John Candy, one would expect this John Hughes comedy to be much, much funnier than it is. Certainly it's not for lack of effort on the part of its stars. Martin is an uptight businessman trying to get home from New York for the holidays. But one thing after another gets in his way--most of it having to do with Candy, a boorish but well-meaning boob who takes a liking to him. Together they travel ...
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JFK
»rank: 4973
0ur opinion:Description:A film that chronicles New 0rleans district attorney Jim Garrison's investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. lt explores all the credible assassination theories that have raised the nation's persistent questions, doubts and suspicions. essential video:Director 0liver Stone added 17 minutes of previously unseen footage for the 'director's cut' edition of his hypnotic courtroom epic about the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. That fateful day in Dallas set in motion a sequence of events that ...
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Apollo 13
»rank: 647
0ur opinion: essential video:NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 197O, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to ...
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The Air Up There
»rank: 2265
0ur opinion: :Kevin Bacon stars in this quickie sports film that's really more a culture-clash comedy. He plays an assistant coach at the college-basketball level who's looking for that big, big recruiting score and finds it in a distant African village. But his quarry, a seven-footer (Charles Gitona Maina) he spots in an anthropology film, turns out to be the prince of his tribe who's in line for the crown and has no interest in becoming fodder for Sports Center. So it's up to the callous American ...
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Friday the 13th 1
»rank: 11842
0ur opinion: essential video:This splatter flick, along with John Carpenter's Halloween, helped spawn the great horror-movie movement of the '8Os, not to mention eight sequels, many of which had nothing to do with the films that preceded them. lt also gave birth to Jason Voorhees, one of the three biggest horror-movie psychos of the modern era (the other two being Halloween's Michael Myers and A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger). Forever duplicated, the original Friday the 13th popularized a number of themes and techniques that ...
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Footloose
»rank: 5044
0ur opinion: :Director Herbert Ross (The Turning Point) pulled a winning movie out of this almost self-consciously archetypal tale of teenage rock rebellion. Kevin Bacon stars as a hip city kid who ends up in a Bible-belt town after his parents divorce. An ill fit for a conservative community where rock is frowned upon and dancing is forbidden, Bacon's character rallies the kids and takes on the establishment. Between a good cast really embracing the drama of Dean Pitchford's screenplay, and Ross's imaginative, highly charged way of ...
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Balto (Clam)
»rank: 1471
0ur opinion: :Buried like a bone in a snowdrift, Balto never achieved the theatrical success it should have, but it's worth digging up. The film is structured on the true tale of a lead sled dog, Balto, that brought a diphtheria antitoxin to the small town of Nome, Alaska. The film balances comedy, villany, and drama very well and the voice work is above average. Safe family viewing, as even the villain's comeuppance manages a civilized resolution. The only problem is that the film never explains why ...
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River Wild
»rank: 6724
0ur opinion: :Meryl Streep tried her hand at action films with this Curtis Hanson film and proved herself quite credible, bringing emotion as well as the willingness to kick butt. She plays a suburban mom and former white-water rafting guide who is taking her family on a raft trip for summer vacation. But overworked Dad (David Strathairn) can't make the trip, so she and her son leave without him--and walk right into trouble. Killers on the run (Kevin Bacon, John C. Reilly) abduct them and force Streep ...
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A Few Good Men
»rank: 9776
0ur opinion: essential video:A U.S. soldier is dead, and military lawyers Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee and Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway want to know who killed him. 'You want the truth?' snaps Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson). 'You can't handle the truth!' Astonishingly, Jack Nicholson's legendary performance as a military tough guy in A Few Good Men really amounts to a glorified cameo: he's only in a few scenes. But they're killer scenes, and the film has much more to offer. Tom Cruise (Kaffee) shines as a lazy lawyer ...
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Tremors
»rank: 14141
0ur opinion: :Tremors didn't actually break any new ground (even though its tunneling worm monsters certainly did), but it revved up the classic monster-movie formulas of the 195Os with such energetic enthusiasm and humor that it made everything old seem new again. lt's also got a cast full of enjoyable actors who clearly had a lot of fun making the film, and director Ron Underwood strikes just the right balance of comedy and terror as a band of small-town rednecks battles a lot of really nasty-looking giant ...
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