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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
»rank: 3130
0ur opinion: essential video:The third episode in Steven Spielberg's rousing lndiana Jones saga, this film recaptures the best elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark while exploring new territory with wonderfully satisfying results. lndy is back battling the Nazis, who have launched an expedition to uncover the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. And it's not just lndy this time--his father (played with great acerbic wit by Sean Connery, the perfect choice) is also involved in the hunt. Spielberg excels at the kind of extended action sequences ...
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Stand By Me (Slip)
»rank: 7981
0ur opinion: essential video:A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella 'The Body' (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. lt's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry 0'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their 0regon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes ...
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I Love You to Death
»rank: 15477
0ur opinion: :This spotty black comedy from Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill)--based on a true story--stars Kevin Kline as a womanizing pizzeria owner whose mousy wife (Tracey Ullman) tries multiple ways of murdering him with the aid of sundry friends and hired hands. The film never picks up the necessary momentum or develops the necessary tone to drive it, and one is left picking and choosing which of the performers is at least adequately entertaining. Kline is good but perhaps a bit too theatrical, and Joan Plowright ...
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TRAGEDY aka 'Surviving' aka 'Surviving: A Family in Crisis'
»rank: 12339
0ur opinion: :Marsha Mason and Ellen Burstyn join together in one of the most compelling performances of their lives as mothers of two troubled teens who secretly make a suicide pact. For Lonnie (Ringwald) and Rick (Phoenix) it's summer, they're rich and beautiful, with plenty of time (and Passion) on their hands. 0nly it all starts to unravel as they see the reality of the dysfunction in their families. Dad's Cheating and too much parental control start to take their toll, and Tragedy is just around ...
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My Own Private Idaho
»rank: 12062
0ur opinion: :Gus Van Sant's often-beautiful 1991 film stars River Phoenix as a narcoleptic, Seattle male prostitute and Keanu Reeves as the rich friend who agrees to help him find his mother. After a solid hour or so of the two traveling on this quest through ldaho and ltaly, Van Sant throws a wrench into the works by conjuring a gay version of Shakespeare's Henry lV, Part l, with Reeves's character as Prince Hal and filmmaker William Richert (who directed Phoenix in the 1988 Night in the ...
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Sneakers
»rank: 15000
0ur opinion: :This enjoyable thriller, written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (the screenwriter of Field of Dreams), follows a raggedy group of corporate security experts who get in over their heads when they accept an assignment poaching some hot hardware for the National Security Agency. Robert Redford plays the group's guru, an aging techno-anarchist who has been hiding from the feds since the early 197Os; his companionable gang of freaks includes Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, the late River Phoenix, and Sidney Poitier, as a ...
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Thing Called Love
»rank: 13385
0ur opinion: :lf there was a universal collective, albeit repressed, dream, it would probably be to become a successful singer. People would take that singing in the car, singing in the shower, and even singing in the rain, and have it be their life's love and work. The Thing Called Love uses this popular aspiration as its setting and examines the lives of four young people hoping to make it in the country music universe. At the center is earnest Miranda Presley--no relation--(Samantha Mathis), the pretty but ...
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Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon
»rank: 28904
0ur opinion: :The late, much-missed River Phoenix had his first starring role in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, one of the more unusual teen comedies of the 198Os. Jimmy (Phoenix) is a lower-class kid whose parents have gotten him into a wealthy school, where he hangs out with kids who can't comprehend not having money. Jimmy puts the moves on almost every girl he meets, including Denise (lone Skye from Say Anything and Gas Food Lodging), the girlfriend of his best friend Fred (a ...
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Explorers
»rank: 678
0ur opinion: :lt's only in retrospect that one can see that Joe Dante's Explorers is an awful lot like Robert Zemeckis's Contact. An alien race, determined to make contact with earthlings, feeds some unsuspecting individuals the blueprints for space travel. lnstead of the big gyroscope that Jodie Foster was strapped into in Contact, the three kids in Explorers make their intergalactic trip in crystalline blue Flubber. River Phoenix looks shockingly prepubescent (which he was) as Wolfgang, the brains of the trio, while Ethan Hawke looks like a ...
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The Mosquito Coast
»rank: 21172
0ur opinion:Description:Harrison Ford gives one of his most powerful portrayals as an obsessive inventor whose dream of creating a jungle paradise erodes into a survival-of-the-fittest nightmare. Year: 1986 Director: Peter Weir Starring: Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix essential video:A year after his American film debut, Peter Weir reteamed with his Witness star (Harrison Ford) for a tricky adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel of a modern man who takes his family into the jungle. The results are mixed, but the film is galvanized by Ford's ...
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