Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote the script, but Bill Murray gets all the best lines and moments in this 1984 comedy directed by Ivan Reitman (Meatballs). The three comics, plus Ernie Hudson, play the New York City-based team that provides supernatural pest control, and Sigourney Weaver is the love interest possessed by an ancient demon. Reitman and company are full of original ideas ...
Hit man Martin Q Blank (John Cusack) is in an awkward situation. Several of them, actually. He's attending his high school reunion on an assignment; he's got a rival hit man (Dan Aykroyd) on his tail; and he's going to have to explain to his old girlfriend (Minnie Driver) why he stood her up on prom night. Grosse Pointe Blank is an amiable black comedy, cowritten by Cusack and directed by ...
Writer-director of Loser, Amy Heckerling, has a way with teen comedies, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Clueless. She manages to take the clichés of life in school and spin them into cinematic gold. Part of her secret is that she genuinely seems to respect all of her characters, even the unsavoury ones. In Loser, Paul Tannek (Jason Biggs from American Pie) ...
Woody Allen as a worker ant with an inferiority complex? Sylvester Stallone as an affable soldier ant who discovers that digging tunnels is cool? The animation playground we all knew so well is turning into a theme park full of in-jokes for grownups. Antz explores age-old topics (one person--err, insect--can make a difference, individuality and social responsibility must exist side by side, ...
There can be few better ways reminding oneself of the key elements in late 1990s left-of-centre Hollywood than watching Feeling Minnesota. The film attempts to draw together most of the main themes from the post-Pulp Fiction world into one whole. The story--young lovers Freddie and Jjacks (sic) on the run from a criminal past--is pure True Romance, with an attempt to throw in ...
The title pretty much says it all, folks: A gorgeous ET cosies up to an eccentric scientist (a disarmingly straight Dan Ackroyd) in an attempt to save her dying planet and falls in love in the process. Much wackiness ensues. Art it ain't, but this likably lightweight film does deliver the laughs, with assured leading performances (for once, Kim Basinger's formica loveliness is utilised as an ...
In this crowd-pleasing 1983 comedy of high finance about a homeless con artist who becomes a Wall Street robber baron, Eddie Murphy consolidated the success of his startling debut in the previous year's 48 Hours and polished his slick-winner persona. The turnabout begins with an argument between super-rich siblings, played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche: are captains of industry, they ...