F/X |
The Faculty |
The Falcon and the Snowman |
Fallen |
The Family Man |
Fantasia 2000 |
Father of the Bride |
Father of the Bride 2 |
Father's Day |
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas |
Field of Dreams |
The Fifth Element |
54 |
Fight Club |
Final Destination |
Finding Forrester |
Firestorm |
First Knight |
For Your Eyes Only |
Formula 51 |
Frailty |
Frantic |
Frequency |
From Hell |
The Fugitive |
The Full Monty
F/X (1986)
(R)
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A movie effects guy get talked into faking a mob informant's death, but the police turn on him after the staged execution. He then tries to figure what's happening and how to stay alive. The acting is good and the script and directing manage to keep it interesting through the entire movie, especially during the action. The creativity of the movie is the driving force, however, and beyond the clever ways of setting up the action sequences, this would be just another suspense/thriller from the 80's. The fun is in the presentation, though, and the movie knows how to make it work.
Links:
Film.com's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
The Faculty (1998)
(R)
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Aliens are using humans as hosts on earth, and a group of high-schoolers try to stop them. The movie is rather predictable, and doesn't really offer much more for scares than people running into each other and giving each other ominous looks. The acting is fairly good, though, and the actors are able to breath a little life into their characters. The story, however, is much too slow. They could have made a better story had they answered a few questions, like why the aliens are on earth in the first place. As it is, it's an interesting concept, but the story is lacking any of the juicy details that could really make it entertaining.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Dark Horizons' The Faculty Page
The Falcon and the Snowman (1984)
(R)
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A movie based on a real story about a man with a job handling American government information selling secret information to the Russians with the help of a friend. The movie is well acted and presents the facts well, but never really puts much of a spark into it. I never really understood why it was happening or felt too much for any of the characters, and therefore never really cared what would happen next. If they had spent a little more time explaining the characters, the movie would have been much better and much more interesting.
Links:
Film.com's Review
Fallen (1998)
(R)
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This suspense film has a twist I haven't seen in movies before, although a friend of mine says it has been done. The "bad guy" in this movie is a spirit who has the ability to move from body to body by touching the body he wants to go into. The spirit has
somehow picked cop Denzel Washington to play his little "game" with. The movie created a lot of suspense for me, especially at the climax. The movie has a slow pace, but gives you some things to think about as you're watching it (mostly about life and God). Over all, good solid entertainment..
Links:
Official Studio Site
Radio Free's Review
The Family Man (2000)
(PG-13)
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Nicolas Cage plays a rich corporate broker who wakes up to find himself living a life he could have had if he had dedicated himself having a family instead of making money. The acting and directing were good, and although the movie is fairly hokey, it has characters that were interesting enough to draw me in to the story and let me enjoy it.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Fantasia 2000 (2000)
(G)
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Made to be shown at IMAX theatres, this incorporates the idea of the original and one of the original's cartoons with a new batch that were made for this version. The movie is fairly entertaining, with some interesting animation, but does occasionally drag a little. You can also tell that The Sorceror's Apprentice was made sixty years ago by how grainy it looks and sounds, and having it on the huge IMAX screen doesn't help. Overall, it managed to keep me interested most of the time.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's review
Roger Ebert's review
Father of the Bride (1991)
(PG)
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A fun comedy about what happens to a family when their daughter gets married. The movie is full of great jokes, but Martin Short steals the show as the wedding coordinator. The rest of the cast (including Steve Martin and Diane Keaton) are great, and the script is very well written. A must see for fans of feel good comedies.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
Father of the Bride 2 (1995)
(PG)
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A great sequel, this movie continues the story from the first movie very well. Both of the lead females find out they are pregnant, and so the mother and daughter go through pregnancy at the same time. Of course, the father has worries of his own, including whether he and his wife are too old to have a baby. And they didn't miss the chance to bring Martin Short back, who is again one of the best parts of the movie. Very fun, and very funny.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
Film.com's Review
Father's Day (1997)
(PG-13)
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A good idea gone wrong. The movie has Robin Williams and Billy Crystal looking for a kid who both think is their son. The
dramatic moments are a little too staged, and the comic moments felt forced and didn't allow the stars to improvise any of their own humor.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
(R)
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A very twisted movie, jumping back and forth so much I couldn't keep track of where they were most of the time (of course, it didn't help that one of the theatre's speakers had blown and was making a very distracting noise throughout the movie). The movie did have a few good jokes, but it mostly showed two guys getting high and running around Las Vages. Fairly boring when it wasn't funny, and the jokes don't come that often.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Cinema 1's Fear ans Loathing... Page
Mr. Showbiz's Review
Radio Free's Review
USA Today's Review
Field of Dreams (1989)
(PG)
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Kevin Costner begins to hear voices who he believes want him to build a baseball diamond in the middle of the cornfield on his farm. He does, and then continues doing what the voices tell him to do, even at the risk of losing his farm and alienating his family. This is a good film about learning about yourself and believing in yourself, and also has some mildly entertaining history lessons of baseball thrown in. I also like how the movie lets you decide whether the voice he hears is supernatural, psychological, or just a silly plot device. Overall, very well made and interesting.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
Field of Dreams Baseball Diamond - Tourist Attraction
The Fifth Element (1997)
(PG-13)
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This is a very good special effect adventure movie. A cab driver (Bruce Willis) is enlisted to save the world from a big black ball of evil in outer space threatening to destroy earth. The cab driver must find the four stones that can destroy the evil. It's corny, but a good fun movie.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Sean's Fifth Element page
Temple of the Fifth Element
Dark Horizons's Fifth Element Page
Darr@GeoCitie5: The Fifth Element
54 (1998)
(R)
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The movie revolves around the life of an 18-year-old who becomes a bartender at 54, a dance club where the stars hang out and drugs and sex are what most of the people are after. The movie uses a lot of generic situations, and the acting, though not bad, isn't quite good enough to get the movie to rise above the material. The movie looks really good, but the story is just another look at life in the late 70s and early 80s and not very memorable.
Fight Club (1999)
(R)
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A man meets a new friend on a plane, only to have to ask him to take him in a few days later after his apartment is rendered unusable. While meeting at a bar, they get into a "just for fun" fist fight, which they continue every night for several nights. After some time, others join in, and they eventually form a club in the basement of the bar. From there on, it would ruin the story to tell you what happens. The movie shows what can happen when violence, or anything for that matter, goes unchecked. It is also a very dark satire, so if you don't have a darker sense of humor, you might not like the movie. The acting and directing of the movie are really good and keep it alive, and the twist near the end is able to seem a lot deeper and just as intriguing as the twists from The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects. I almost found the conclusion to be a let down, because it was a little too generically Hollywood, but it didn't take away form the rest of the movie. Overall, a very dark, twisted movie, but very well done for the style.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's Review
Radio Free's Review
Final Destination (2000)
(R)
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A group of high schoolers get thrown of a plane after one has a vision of it blowing up, only to watch it actually happen. They then start dying one at a time in the order they would have died on the plane, and the ones who are still alive have to find a way to cheat death's plan for taking their lives. The movie is good when it gets suspenseful, which it sometimes does, but when it gets to the death scenes, they are centered mostly on how much they can use blood to shock the audience. Overall, an interesting but only mildly entertaining suspense movie.
Finding Forrester (2000)
(PG-13)
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Sean Connery plays a man who became famous for writing one book, and then never published another. When a kid breaks into his apartment, he starts helping the kid with his writing. Director Gus Van Sant retuned to his Good Will Hunting style of film making with this movie, and does a good job with a presentable script. However, people who had enough after the first time around will want to avoid it.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Firestorm (1998)
(R)
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A man who jumps into forest fires to try to help put them out tries to stop a group of guys who escaped from prison and took a woman hostage. The director did a good job of making the movie feel real, as if it could actually happen, but the generic script killed a lot of the scenes and turned what could have been a really entertaining movie into another run of the mill action flick. I thought Scott Glenn (Backdraft) and William Forsythe (Dick Tracy) did a good job acting their roles as mentor to the action hero and lead bad guy, respectively. The rest of the actors were just decent and not very memorable.
Links:
Movie Mania's Firestorm Page
First Knight (1995)
(PG-13)
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Lancelot falls in love with Guinevere, and joins the Knights of the Round Table to be near her. The movie actually has some of the most believable characters in any Camelot movie I've seen. The movie has some great action sequences, and is exciting every time the knights go to battle. The plot starts off a little too dry, but the characters become interesting enough to make it good. Over all, very well done and worth seeing.
Links:
MovieWeb's First Knight Page
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
(PG)
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Following the excess of Moonraker, this installment in the James Bond series is, thankfully, more down-to-earth (not unlike From Russia With Love or OHMSS). A British ship carrying a valuable encryption device sinks off the coast of Albania. Bond must recover the device before rival superpowers can get their hands on it. Although Roger Moore is definitely starting to look too old, this movie still packs a strong punch with non-stop action and exotic locales. There is even some good acting(!) care of Carole Bouquet, who plays the beautiful Melina. Overall, a solid 007 adventure.
Links:
007.com
Formula 51 (2002)
(R)
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Also known as the 51st State. Samuel L. Jackson plays a kilt-wearing chemist who formulates what he thinks will be the next club drug: POS 51. The story centers around his attempts to sell the formula in the UK (as you might imagine, gun fights, explosions, and car chases ensue). Nothing intellectual about this movie, but it turns out to be quite a fun ride if you just check your brain at the door (the style is very similar to Snatch). Jackson comes across as cool and confident, while Robert Carlyle gushes with sarcastic wit. Good for a lazy Sunday matinee.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
Frailty (2001)
(R)
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A man comes forward with his thoughts on the identity of the God's Hand killer to the FBI agent in charge of the case. The agent decides there may be something to the story and goes along with it, hoping that it may help find the killer but unsure exactly where the story is heading. The man's story is told in flashback as he describes how his family slowly unraveled when his father began getting visited by "angels" instructing him to, with the help of his children, kill several people on a list of "demons." While his younger son takes his father's story as truth, his older son believes his father is creating this in his head and is killing innocent people. The eventual climax where the FBI agent gets to the bottom of the story is what the movie tries to build to, and does a decent job. The acting is good enough to make the characters believable, and director Bill Paxton, who also plays a roll in the movie, does fairly well with an obviously small budget. The story itself, while involving, is really rather simple. Unlike more stylish crime movies like The Usual Suspects or L.A Confidential that use sometimes over-the-top characters and dialog to keep things interesting when the pace slows down, this film simply focuses on it's message and doesn't waste words simply to impress it's audience. This gives it a very subtle tone, giving it a feel of a good, though drawn out X-Files episode. Overall, the film is a memorable suspense thriller, but could have used an extra bit of sparkle to make it really great.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Los Angeles Times's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Frantic (1988)
(R)
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Video Pick of the Week
(8/24/03 - 8/30/03)
A woman disappears from a hotel in Paris, and her husband, who doesn't speak French, tries to find her. The movie spends the first hour establishing the situation and most of the characters, but then begins to really get interesting when the husband finds the woman who accidentally grabbed his wife's bag at the airport. When she enters the movie, the action starts and the movie, which is mostly talk to that point, finally begins to start doing more than fitfully trying to create suspense. The acting and directing are good and able to keep the movie entertaining, but the first hour seemed to drag on a little long to me.
Links:
Washington Post's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Frequency (2000)
(PG-13)
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A man discovers that he can talk to his dead father in the past over his dad's ham radio. He then warns his father of how he died, which results in his past changing. He then must help his father to keep his mother from becoming a victim of a serial killer, while not being able to be there himself. The movie is fairly good, allowing the drama to unfold well and always having an interesting twist to throw in. The acting and directing are good, and the story kept me involved the whole way through.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Roger Ebert's Review
From Hell (2001)
(R)
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Johnny Depp gets to cross his characters from Sleepy Hollow and Blow and make a surprisingly forgettable character. Depp plays a detective known for having answers to crimes shown to him through visions while doing drugs. He is called in to help catch Jack the Ripper, and ends up having to fight the system that can't believe a wealthy man can commit such acts. The movie looks very good, but is much more concerned with style than substance. The whole movie seemed as if it could have been just a hallucinogenic dream of a drug addict, and I found it to be shallow enough to fall into that category. Not a complete bore, but could have been much more involving.
Links:
Official Studio Site
USA Today's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
The Fugitive (1993)
(R)
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A man is falsely accused of killing his wife, and manages to escape while being transported to jail. He then sets out to find the real killer, with a cop following him who will do anything to catch him. A good suspense movie with some great action sequences. The story, characters, and acting are all well done.
Links:
The Fugitive Image Gallery
Roger Ebert's Review
The Full Monty (1997)
(R)
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A fun little comedy about a group of layed-off steel workers in England. In an attempt to get money, they decide to go "the full monty" in a psudo-Chippendales act they put together. Watching the group put the show together has some hysterical moments, and the end was very well done.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Cinema 1's Full Monty Page
The Full Monty (GeoCities Site)
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