My Favorite Movies

a girtty violence film from famed canadian director david croneberg usually known for horror flicks as rabid, scanners, the dead zone and the fly and for werid flciks such as videodrome and crash comes back full circle to directing a film about violence and how it affects us all in different ways. A departure from david cronenberg comes this film about a violence man named tom stall who use to work for the mob and whoes brother Rictchie cusack is a small time gangster in boston. Tom stall for the past fifteen years has lived in a small town with a beautiful wife and a teenage son who has been picked on at school by the school bullies. When two sociopaths enter the small town after brutally murdering a convenicne store owner and his family to death, enter a small time restaurant owned by tom stall. They come into the restuarant begging for trouble. When they try to rape and harass his customers, tom stall quickly and brutally murder the two sociopaths and Tom quickly learns that by doing this will put him in the spotlight and in all the newpapers and will later bring touble to his town that he wished would never sneak back into his quiet homly life. After this incident the town even the sherriff begins to look at tom as a hero and slowly as someone they dont know anymore even his wife begins to to doubt and after his son sned the bullies at school to the hospital, tom quickly realizes his life might never be the same again. Life gets worse when an enemy of his crawls into town named Carl fogerty who begins to stalk him and his wife by telling them that he is not tom stall but tom cusack a violent hood who is Ritchie's younger brother and was sent by ritchie to bring his brother back. After the menacing carl forgety is murdered by tom's son and his men are killed by Tom, he realizes the only way this violence is going to stop and to portect his family is to acknowledge his past self and who he really is and to confrotn his older brother Ritchie played with menacing glee by William hurt. The last twenty minutes is a joy watching the two brothers confrt each other in the end. To tell you anything about what happens at the end is for you the viewer to watch and see for yourself.


The film end abruptly and is somewhat disappointing sicne it does feel like if there would a sequel in the works. It just ends without any closure. A let down. Other than that and some dull moments through the middle section of the movie, the movie does contain some great work from viggo mortensen who manages a good job as to playing the nice tom stall and then quickly changing into the violence sociopath known as tom cusack, ritchie's younger brother, the films also contains some great suporting perofrmances from maria bello as the wife trying to cope with her husbands mood, stephen mcahattie as the sociopath that tries to hurt the people in the restaurant, the brilliant ed harris as a sociopath that tom almost killed fifteen years earlier and the cause of the Carl losing his eye and now wearing a patch over his right eye, and the wonderful but underused william hurt having so much fun playing Ritchie, the older brother and angry hood who could have been a big time gangster if it werent for his brother who tried to kill Carl years before.

The story is good but a little over the top, the performances are quite good and david cronenberg pensuion with good storytelling and for the macabre is put to good use.

a decent film with a bad ending which could have been a classic.

worth renting

one of the most powerful films from the 1990's. I never thought kevin costner and clint eastwood could be as good as they were in dances with wolves and unforgiven but here they both proved to be even better together onscreen. the chemistry between actors kevin costner and the young boy is partly why the whole movie works alongside Clint endearing character and a very powerful story line and message about mistakes we make and how we soon we rtegret making them. A must see for anyone who ever wanted to be moved

Winner of several socars including best actor and best actress and best pictures. Jack Nicholson gives his best performance since Hoffa as Melvin Udell, a germaphobic, sarcastic and despicable popular pulp novelist who is hated by everyone he meets. His drop dead honesty creates and his annoying compulsive behavious patterns tend to annoy and furiate any customer or civilian that comes face to face with him. In the opening sequence he throws a cute dog into the eascape route which belonged to his nextdoor neighbor who happens to be gay living with his boyfriend. They are simon bishop and Frank sachs. When Melvin is approcahed by Simon by his dog, melvin acts in away that offends Simon and his bitterness turns him off and Simon calls on his partner Frank to deal with Melvin. Melvin ends up pissing off frank, an art dealer, to the point that he almost wants to hit the intolerable Melvin.


Melvin, for a long time has this compulsion neat disorder, lives in a haze of obsessive-compulsive behavior patterns, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk and rigidly adhering to his regimen of daily breakfasts in the cafe where harried single mom Carol Connelly (wondefully played by Helen Hunt) is the only waitress he'll accept. While he offends every other waitress in the restaurant, Carol comes to their aid and stops Melvin from getting himself more into trouble. She agrees to be curtious and sweet to a point. When he mentions about her child, she begins to get defensive telling to watch what he says about her son, she can take up any crap he has to say but when it comes t her son that is where she draws the line. From time to time he will come into the same restaurant and order the same breakfast and lunch and would lsowly fall enamored with her.

But his ordered, hermetic world falls apart when his neighbor, a gay painter, brings in a student so he can paint a portrait of him but whle he goes to washroom to get something , the student lets in his friends and they begin to rob the appartment ending in beating Simon up badly and sending him to the hospital leaving simon's face disfigured. When his family try to find remind him that he still looks good and that he's okat, he decides to grab a small mirror and look at his reflection with horror as to what those kids did to him. With no one there to help take care of his dog, Simon 's partner Frank bullies Melvin udell into taking care of somin's dog until simons is able to get better and come back home. At first Melvin begins to dislike the dog especially when the dog pisses on his carpet. Even the dog knows when he's not wanted and tries desperatly to get out of the room. Then one morning Melvin brings out some bacon and the dog slolwy walks over to melvin and eats the bacon starting a wonderful bond between man and dog.

While his bond becomes better with the dog, the woman he loves seems to fade more thanks to his ability to piss her off. After getting kicked out his favorite restauirant after the owner had enough of Melvins attitude towards his employess and his customers. Melvin decides to visit his favorite waitress at her hom. He loves carol and cant wait to see her. She tells him not to come here ever again but reluctantly tells him that her son's illness is keeping her from work and that she couldnt afford to pay for the bills to get him better help. Melvin decides to do one good deed for her and gets her a doctor and helped pay the bills for her son. This opens Melvin in a different light, a man who started out hating people and being bitter all of the time ends up accepting people and becoming a bit nicer and realizing a good deed goes a long way.

Simon comes back from the hospital and agrees to go on a road trip with Carol and Melvin, during the trip everything goes wrong for melvin as he continue to end up hurting Carol and being too honest but in the end he would take advice from his neighbor simon and ultimatly express his true feelings for her.


Jack nicholson deliver one of his greatest performances of his career, from chinatown to one flew over a cukoos nest to terms of endearment and batman and reds, Jack is back in a very big way. He is suported by a great cast which includes "mad about you tv star Helen hunt who was able to stand head strong agsint jack nicholson and deliver a very comanding and caring peroformance, greg kinear after a few years on talk soup and late night with greg kinear entered the age of cinema with Sabrina but it was his sensitive and beautiful performance of simon that took the critics by surpise and getting him an oscar nomination.


With a very wonderful script, great direction from James L. Brooks and some good cameos from cuba gooding jr, and Harolds Ramis the director of groundhog day and stripes.


Excellent in every way. worth buying and watching.

a decent motion picture about the last 24 hours before the death of bobby kennedy. The movie circles around a numch of characters and their usual lives and how Bobby kenedy means to them and how his death affected them all.

with a wonderful cast in cluding the gorgeous demi moore, sexy sharon ston, emilio estevez in a comebackrole, anthony hopkins, harry belafontewilliam h macy, lindsay lohan, helen hunt and elijah wood all are wonderful in their small parts as is laurence fishburne and christian slater. With a good story, some very engrossing scenes, some good eprformances and decent direction from emilio estevez could have been better except there are too many character stoires that some feel incomplete and some of the dialogue is contrite.


good but not great and worth watching.

a powerfully unforhgetable film about people who livbe in bad neighborhood, a father who is willing to do everything he can to sdave his son, a young man whose friends are gang members but is trying to amke a life of himself, a brother who loses another to a fatal drive by shoot out, anger that is caused by the loss of a friend and how one simple mistake can destroy or change ones life for the better good. This is one of the best films about gang violence and the people who lare caught in the middle of that world. With strong perofmances from a wonderful cast of unknowsn who wold become big stars in later years from Cuba gooding jr to laurence fishburn to angela basset to morris chestnut to Ice Cube to Nia long. They all deliver wonderful eprofrmances and help to elevate this film and ground it in realism and sorrow. Along with the performances is a very engrossing story, very good dialogue and a young director who speaks his mind and directs one of the most influential films of the 1990's. A voice not to be missed.


A wonderful achievement.

I absolutly loved this film. A cop who goes undercover working for a mob. a cop who works for the mob goes undercover as an officer. who can you trsut. A wonderful remake with five standout performances from Matt Damon, osacr nominated Leonardo dicaprio, the wonderful alec baldwin, the underated Mark Wahlberg and the ebautiful vera farmiga proving that she can pull it off with the big boys. lets not forget martin sheen. Seeing all these actors in top form. martin scorcese directs his most entertaining film yet although goodfellas and casino are a bit better and a good story line and wondeful score help make this one of the better films of last year.