Jeanne Bates welcomes a drifter into her house, only to have him turn her into a man-eating monster. Her adult son Mark Thomas Miller is less than happy about her new transformation. It’s a bit low budget and campy, but otherwise a solidly entertaining bit of horror. The special effects are fairly good for its apparent budget and the killings can be outright surprising. I dig films that focus all the power on an older lady. 
Now working for the LAPD, cop Bruce Willis awaits the arrival of his wife into Dulles International Airport when the airport and its incoming traffic is hijacked by ex-military terrorists looking to free a corrupt foreign leader being extradited to the United States. As with the most typical of sequels, this generally follows the same notes as the original but tries to do everything much bigger and over the top, which the stunts very much are which is probably the best part of the film. Unfortunately the bad guys cannot hold a candle to Hans Gruber and the plot is too convoluted to even care much about. I do applaud the return of Reginald VelJohnson as the sidekick of sorts to Willis and the addition of John Amos as the commander of a special forces unit sent to take the hunt for the terrorists out of Willis’s more capable hands. 
With a cast including Kevin Kline, Mary McDonnell, Steve Martin, Alfre Woodard, and Danny Glover, my interest was piqued regarding this film. Set in Los Angeles, the film follows a somewhat interconnected cast of characters living and working in a city that is apparently under siege. There are almost car jackings, abandoned babies, and characters getting shot over a wristwatch. In between all the violence is heavy-handed dialogue philosophizing about all these experiences. The connection between the characters is so tenuous that I wasn’t even sure why Alfre and her friend Mary-Louise Parker were even in the movie until over halfway through. The one bright spot was the relationship developing between Woodard and Glover. There was a natural, sweetness as the two got to know each other.
Oscar Nominee: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
In the 1950s, nomadic Ellen Barkin and her son Leonardo DiCaprio make a stop in Seattle, moving to nearby Concrete, Washington after she meets and marries charmer Robert De Niro. Underneath De Niro’s charm is controlling personality that explodes into abuse when his authority is questioned. Despite the dire circumstances, the stakes never actually feel very high with De Niro’s mood swings almost comically bizarre, reminiscent of his actual comedy turn in Meet the Parents. Though not given enough screen time, Barkin lends a believability to her character and somehow regardless of his actual age, DiCaprio looks about 11 at the beginning of the film, physically aging to a mid-teenager by the end.
Based on the same story as Music of the Heart, this film follows the work of Roberta Guaspari, a music teacher who teaches violin to elementary school students in Harlem. As a documentary, it doesn’t really work for me. It has the aesthetic of a personal interest story from the evening news and has only about as much story to share as one of those pieces. There’s not much flow to the narrative nor even a clear sense of the timeline it encompasses. It is cool to the kids hard at work and for some of them, the culmination of that work giving them the chance to play with world-class violinists. 
Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary, Features
Womanizing car salesman Robin Williams is given two days to sell twelve cars in order to keep his job. Williams juggling at least three love interests and many other assorted pressures, this film is really all over the place and the characters are constantly yelling at each other. It goes further off the rails in the over extended second act when manic Tim Robbins holds up the car dealership because of his own wife’s infidelity. The whole thing is flimsily held together by Williams’s performance, one that would be much better suited in a different film, but only barely.
Born of a convict during the 17th century, Robin Wright’s titular character is a woman who spends the greater part of her life struggling against her society’s views of poor females. She herself gives birth to a daughter whom she is separated from at a young age. It is this young girl with whom the tale begins; Moll’s companion and friend Morgan Freeman regaling to her her mother’s history. Though short, the interactions between the girl and Freeman are the best parts of the film. While the film is pretty and Wright is charismatic, there isn’t a lot of life to the story as it seemingly moves from episode to episode in Moll’s life, though seemingly not the in the way of Daniel Defoe’s work of the same name.
Based on a true story, Valerie Bertinelli is the recently divorced mother of an infant son who begins a relationship and then moves in with a female co-worker. Because of what she believes is an ‘immoral’ lifestyle, her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, sues for custody of her grandson and wins. The actual details of the case are mind-blowingly sad and this film doesn’t do them justice. The courtship and conditions of the romantic relationship don’t play out very believably and Redgrave gives a really weird accent throughout.
This served as a great companion to my recent watching of The Angry Red Planet as it is a direct homage to those science fiction films of the 1950s. The residents of Earth suddenly discover that their planet has been visited by a battalion of flying saucers. While opinions vary on how to greet these visitors, the Martians soon make it clear which way the earthlings should go. With a star-studded cast, it’s not an amazing work of art, but it is a bit of campy fun that can be enjoyable if not taken seriously at all. 
After his second divorce, narcissistic science fiction writer Albert Brooks moves in with his mother because he believes it’ll give him the opportunity to work through his problems with women. Debbie Reynolds as the titular mother is adorable and eternally patient while dealing with this judgmental interloper into her home, along with visits from his brother Rob Morrow who brings a whole other set of issues. The grand experiment revolves in ways that are beneficial to them both, which at least makes the irritations of the journey not so bad in the end.