50 First Dates is a sweet-natured vehicle for sweet-natured stars Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, and their track record with The Wedding Singer no doubt factors in its lowbrow appeal. But while the well-matched lovebirds wrestle with a gimmicky plot (she has no short-term memory, so he has to treat every encounter as their first), director Peter Segal (who directed Sandler in ...
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 ...
After building up the duo's popularity through recordings and several performances on Saturday Night Live, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd--as "legendary" Chicago blues brothers Jake and Elwood Blues--took their act to the big screen in this action-packed hit from 1980. As Jake and Elwood struggle to reunite their old band and save the Chicago orphanage where they were raised, they wreak ...
When a pop singer at the height of her career appears in a film there's never going to be any doubt who the star is, and Crossroads makes sure the audience doesn't forget it. Britney Spears is Lucy, who, along with her friends Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning), buries a time capsule to be opened upon their high-school graduation. They all grow apart because of their different ...
This hit-and-miss 1988 comedy pairs John Candy and Dan Aykroyd in a story of one family's summer vacation all but ruined by the uninvited appearance of another, more loutish family. Howard Deutch (Some Kind of Wonderful) directs from a half-hearted John Hughes script, which reduces Hughes's jokes-and-epiphanies formula (The Breakfast Club, Home Alone) to true gaudiness. On the other ...
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 ...
Winner of the Academy Award for best picture of 1989, this gracefully moving drama, adapted from the hit play by Alfred Uhry, chronicles the 25-year friendship between a stubborn, ageing Southern widow (Jessica Tandy) and her loyal chauffeur (Morgan Freeman). At first, the self-sufficient Miss Daisy is reluctant to accept the services of a chauffeur, but Hoke is quiet, wise, and tolerant, and as ...
Ghostbusters: 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 ...