Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power, sex and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction, gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating menace and mayhem. --Jim Emerson
A group of people try to survive when machines start to come alive and become homicidal.
The human beings are almost as interesting as the title character in the surprisingly subtle and engaging Paulie, a film about the cross-country adventures of a smart-mouthed parrot. As director John Roberts deploys the footage, the bird becomes a vivid personality; every quizzical twist of his head is oddly expressive. The people who interact with Paulie are a quirky and interesting bunch as well, and the casting is topnotch: Tony Shalhoub (The Siege) as a Russian immigrant janitor, Cheech Marin as an open-hearted mariachi musician, and Gena Rowlands as a widowed painter in a footloose Winnebago--all are vividly eccentric individuals, memorable in their own right. There are some tired swipes at the cold-blooded meanies of Big Science (beady-eyed researcher Bruce Davison has Paulie clapped in irons), but for the most part the film respects the complexity of everyone's motivations, and that's virtually unheard of in today's Hollywood, even in films supposedly designed for grownups. --David Chute
Based on the novel by Peter Hedges (who adapted his own book) and directed by Lasse Hallström, What's Eating Gilbert Grape is the funny, moody tale of young Gilbert (Johnny Depp), who lives at home in a small town with his 500-pound Momma (beautifully played by non-professional Darlene Cates), his mentally retarded younger brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio, utterly convincing), and his sisters. Not a lot happens--Arnie keeps climbing a water tower and getting stuck; Gilbert is involved with a married woman (Mary Steenburgen), then meets a nice new girl in town who's closer to his age (Juliette Lewis). And that's exactly what makes this movie so much more than your run-of-the-mill Hollywood product: it's not about some mechanical, formulaic plot; it's about these characters, and it allows you to spend some time with them and get to know them. Depp proved yet again that he's one of the most interesting, unpredictable, and risk-taking actors in American movies; while a pre-Titanic DiCaprio deservedly received an Oscar nomination. --Jim Emerson
As cop and criminal two ruthless professionals have the same outlook and code. L.A. Takedown directed by Michael Mann is a complex and gripping thriller about Vincent Hanna an obsessive cop tailing a callous and clinical armed robber Patrick McLaren. They first meet across a crowded cafe and after a heist goes wrong Hanna and McLaren confront each other in a full scale battle on the streets of Los Angeles.
A comet comes within range of earth and begins circling the planet. But a strange chain reaction comes to force. Suddenly machines everywhere have become their own masters beginning a horrifying deathly and violent revolt against their masters. Can the shell shocked survivors escape to a place where the mad machines cannot reach them?
Too Young To Die?: Featuring stunning performances from two young actors who went on to become prominent Hollywood stars - Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis - the shocking, hard hitting true story Too Young To Die? confronts one of the most difficult dilemmas facing the US legal system: should teenage murderers be executed for their crimes? By the age of 14, Amanda Sue Bradley has already suffered a lifetime of cruelty and neglect. She's alone in the world and desperate for love. Al...
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