THE DRAMAS
Short Cuts -- nine interlocking stories set in contemporary Los Angeles. 5/5
Raging Bull -- the story of a boxer, boxing, and the dark side of human excess. 5/5
Bringing Out the Dead. A Scorsese film about an ambulance driver in NYC's slums (Nick Cage) who is falling apart with guilt over not being able to save a little girl and tries to come to terms with the past. 3.5/5
Deer Hunter. Three best friends go to Vietnam and the war changes them. Epic beauty and sadness. (also in War Sect.) 4/5
Oleanna. A Mamet film about a teacher and his student and their struggle for power, control, and good understanding. 3.5/5
Dead Ringers. Cronenberg's strange film about twin doctors, who cannot escape each other. Both brothers are played by Jeremy Irons who does an incredible job playing a dominant and submissive pair. 4/5
Ordinary People. Oscar Winner about the effect of a brother's death on a young man and his parents. Hauntingly beautiful. 5/5
An Angel at My Table. Based on a true story. It's about an Australian girl who strives to become a writer despite a misdiagnosed condition. Excellent story. 4/5
The Lion in Winter. Three sons struggle and manipulate for the medieval Kingdom of their aging father and mother. O'Toole, Hopkins, Hepburn are brilliant. 3.5/5
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. An Albee play. Richard Burton and Taylor depict a middle-aged couple battling each other intermingling of love and hate. Incredible script and acting. 5/5
Lone Star. A complex mystery/drama about a sheriff in a small contemporary town in Texas on the border of Mexico. 4.5/5
Breaking the Waves. A story about a woman whose overpowering love allows her to sacrifice everything for her lover. 4/5
The Shawshank Redemption. A wrongly accused man is sent to jail where he adapts and becomes indespensible to the warden. 4.5/5
The Red Violin -- movie traces a rare violin through history, chronicling its different owners. Drama. 3.5/5
Damage. A politician has a torrid affair with his son's fiance to ruinous result. Great script and acting. 4/5
Awakenings. A catatonic man awakes from years of incapacity and revels in the beauty of life. Robin Williams & DeNiro are excellent. 3.5/5
Barfly. A surprising story about a drunk (Mickey Roark) who lives from drink to drink and writes poetry on the side. 3/5
Mac. This hard-to-find film is about three brothers in construction who get sick of working for others and open their own company. 3.5/5
A Room with a View. Based on the Forrester novel, this simple love story is unforgettable. 3/5
The Lover. This beautifully scripted and shot love story is about the coming of age of a young woman in southeast Asia. Highly erotic. 3.5/5
Three Seasons. An elegantly filmed romance between two Vietnamese in modern Vietnam as well as two other stories. Multiple independent award winner. 4/5
The Unforgiven. Haunting Western about a retired killer that comes out of retirement to kill for money. 4.5/5
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Classic story about family, love, resentment, inheritance, and being true to one's self. 3.5/5
Night of the Iguana. A drinking, lecherous priest takes a Mexican tour of older women to a rundown resort operated by an old flame. There he tries to find redemption. 3.5/5
Slacker. A roving camera moves around a suburban city, following people listening to their daily lives before moving on to another person, a celebration of existence. 4/5
The Loss of Innocence. Intersecting stories about the various ways a person loses their innocence during their journey through life. Beautiful and haunting, yet uneven. 3/5
Female Perversions. Follows a female lawyer and shows the various ways women are pressured by society to conform to a certain undeterminate model. 4/5
Tully. Two brother in a small farming town find out something surpring about their missing mother. 4/5
Glengarry Glen Ross. A star-studded film about telephone salesmen under pressure. 3.5/5
Barton Fink. A theatre writer goes to early Hollywood to write pulp movies only to get writer's block. A strange, surreal film. 4/5
What's Cooking?. Four stories about four families (Black, Jewish, Korean, Hispanic) having thanksgiving dinner. 4/5
Thirteen. This film captures the traumas of being a female teen. 3.5/5
Kids. A poignant drama about urban teens bored and searching for sex, parties, and trouble. 4/5
Adaptation. An original comedy-drama regarding a Hollywood writer adapting a book about orchids. (also Comedies) 4.5/5
Moonstruck. An woman of Italian descent falls in love with her fiancee's unpredictable brother. Romantic and funny. (also Comedies) 5/5
The Conversation. Hackman stars as a surveillance expert that monitors a conversation he was not supposed to and worries about his safety. Coppola captures the paranoid seventies. 4/5
Schindler's List. An opportunistic German citizen seizes a chance to save lives during WW2. 4/5
The Right Stuff -- The New space program looks for the best of the best to send into space. Excellent cast. 4/5
The Hustler. Paul Newman plays a pool player whose pride costs him everything. 3.5/5
12 Angry Men. Henry Fonda and other play a jury arguing a murder trial. 4/5
Moonlight Mile. A pending wedding is interrupted by tragedy leaving the fiancee and in-laws in an awkward space. 4/5
Cinema Paradiso. Foreign, Italian boy grows up going to the movies. 5/5
Changing Lanes. Two men have an accident on a freeway and it changes both their lives. Ben Afleck and Samuel Jackson. 3.5/5
Amadeus. Bio of the famous composer Mozart and his struggles to get his work completed. 4/5
On the Waterfront. The mob and waterfront union join to suppress workers; one stands up against them. 5/5
Monster's Ball. The lives of a black woman and a white man prison guard intersect in the South. Excellent, complex drama. 4/5
Sheltering Sky. A married couple travel to the African desert with a friend who loves the woman (Debra Winger). 3/5
English Patient. A mysterious burn victim during WW2 becomes the center of intersecting stories. Inspired film from an inspired book, romantic and beautiful. 4/5
Shadow of the Vampire. A film about the making of the 1938 Nosferatu vampire classic. Good acting, inventive story. 4/5
Tender Mercies -- drama, famous cowboy singer stops drinking & changes his life, leaving everything behind. 4/5
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A sane criminal gets himself into the nuthouse and makes mischief amoungst the residents. 5/5
13 Conversations about One Thing. Star-studded cast fronts this film of intersecting stories about happiness and contentment. 3.5/5
The Mission. A missionary converting aboriginies in the South American returns to his military past to defend the indians from conquistadors. 4/5
Dead Poet's Society. Beautifully told story about a new prof that changes lives in a rich prep school. 4/5
Lawrence of Arabia. A British geogrpher leaves his paper to join and lead arab insurgents against imperialistic Turks. 5/5
Leaving Las Vegas. Having lost everything, an executivetravels to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. 3.5/5
9 1/2 Weeks. Erotic flirtations abound in this cult classic. 3/5
Shadowlands. Playing CS Lewis, Anthony Hopkins acts superbly as a man who finds and loses the love of his life to cancer. 3.5/5
Naked. Raw and uncompromising, the film follows a young man who believes in nothing. 3.5/5
Grand Canyon. -A tow-truck driver (Danny Glover) saves a man (Steve Martin) from trouble and they become friends. 4.5/5
Like Water for Chocolate. Spanish. Multi -generational story about a family and how food has marked each critical moment in the family history. 3.5/5
When a Man Loves a Woman. This story centers around a man trying to get his wife sober. 3.5/5
Titus. Shakespeare's vicious revenge play. 5/5
City of Hope. Multiple stories intersect in this film that revolves around a strained father-son relationship. (Sayles writes/directs, see Lonestar above) 4/5
Driving Miss Daisy. 4/5
The Green Mile. 3.5/5
Signs. 3/5
My Left Foot. 4/5
The Rapture. 3/5
The American President. A single father finds love in the white house. 4/5
Primary Colors. A presidential candidate campaigns through personal problems and dilemas which test his character and that of his 'team.' 3.5/5
Born on the Fourth of July. A young man goes to Vietnam and comes home disabled and confused. 4/5
Drugstore Cowboy. Thieves rob drugstores for drugs to party. 4/5
Running on Empty. Child finally finds out why his family never stays anywhere very long. 5/5
The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- drama, a torrid love affair in Czechslovakia leaves characters bitter sweet. 3.5/5
Howard's End. A love story in quiet, hesitant English society. 4/5
Remains of the Day. An English butler becomes fond of new housekeeper. 5/5
Empire of The Sun. A child loses his parents when Japan invades China, and he ends up in a camp struggling to survive. 5/5
Hiroshima, Mon Amour. French, subtitled, a french actress has an affair with a Japanese man, and they discuss each other's lives, beautiful writing. 4.5/5
Zentropa. German, subtitled, an American moves to Germany just after WWII, and gets a job on the trains. Strange movie. 3/5
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