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One of the defining movies of the 80's decade, The Breakfast Club remains an entertaining film which evokes nostalgia among many viewers. Inevitably, any foray into the cinema blockbusters of the 1980s will evoke a number of titles, such as Back To The Future, Beverly Hills Cop, or The Goonies. The Breakfast Club is certainly one of those films, and it's almost universally cited as one of the preeminent films from the era. If you enjoy relationship films, it's easy to see why, because The Breakfast Club is a movie built solely on the strength of its characters and the conflict surrounding them.

Shermer High School principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason) oversees the Saturday morning detention of five high school students from differing backgrounds. Confining them to the library, he fails to relate to them as individuals with a future or a purpose. Making up the cast of misfit characters are Andy Clark (Emilio Estevez), Brian Ralph Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), John Bender (Judd Nelson), Claire Standish (Molly Ringwold), and Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy). Forced to spend their Saturday together, the five students strike up a conversation (with the exception of the muted Allison). For the most part, their conversation consists of picking on each other and making jokes at each other's expense.

Continually butting heads with Principal Vernon, the teens help pass the time by uniting against Vernon and by engaging in conversation with the infinitely wise janitor, Carl (John Kapelos). Eventually, each student (including Allison, who eventually opens up) comes to understand the plight of the other. The pretty princess Claire doesn't have a perfect life. Neither does the popular wrestling champ Andy. Brian and Allison have their own problems just like anyone else, and John puts up a front to look tougher and more hardened than he really is. In the end, the five develop a lifelong bond - with Claire and John igniting a budding relationship.

Sporting a smash hit soundtrack headlined by Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)," The Breakfast Club attained instant cult classic status. The 'brat pack' came to define a generation and made its mark in Hollywood. A light-hearted comedy, blended together with a series of relationships between different people, The Breakfast Club's true strength lies with the ability of its audience to relate to the issues at hand. The characters recount stories from their lives that in one way or another are easily relatable to most every American who attended high school.

It's this universal familiarity with the themes depicted by The Breakfast Club that make it a classic adored by millions. Despite the longings of teenagers throughout time to forge unique identities and set themselves aside as revolutionary, in the end, most high schools sport the same cast of characters, and those various roles have remained unchanged for most of the last several decades. As one of the most memorable films of the 80's decade, The Breakfast Club is a definite must-see movie.

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About the Author:

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more articles like this Breakfast Club Review.

Popularity: 4% [?]

A real legend is...well, the stuff of legends. But much harder to reproduce on film, because of the depths of human expression that tend to get lost in the business of making it on time, on budget, and on a subject the public will "buy". Which means 2005's "Walk The Line" is that rarest of movies, one that dug deep into the story, put it up as it really unfolded, and managed to bag actors that could carry it off.

"Walk The Line" is the hard fighting/drinking/loving story of country icon, Johnny Cash and his love affair with wife June Carter. It lays the foundation for the movie's focus, and Cash's real life, by detailing his boyhood in Arkansas, the early death of a brother, and impulsive first marriage that ended in disaster. All of that contributes to the way Cash's life was already drifting when he sang for Sam Phillips of Sun Records, where he brushed shoulders with another newcomer, Elvis Presley. Chastised for offering a hymn, Joaquin Phoenix rips off a version of Folsom Prison Blues that snags him the prized contract, and sets his foot on a path that will lead him to depths he never dreamed of, and the woman who would pull him out of then, June Carter.

Both Phoenix, and Reese Witherspoon who plays June Carter, did their own vocals, which added immeasurably to the reality of their performances. Witherspoon at times was perhaps a tad too ebullient, but also managed to reach inside herself to pull out both the feminine side of Carter, and her fury at Cash's moral and physical deterioration as their relationship progressed from an initial backstage meeting to the final, enduring chapter written at the Folsom Prison concert.

Not strictly a love story, "Walk the Line" is nonetheless a sometimes moving, infuriating, and emotionally charged tale of two people both struggling towards the same goal- to be with each other.

Director: James Mangold
Producers: Alan C. Blomquist, James Keach, Cathy Konrad
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Ginnifer Goodwina

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About the Author:

Alice Flegel is a self-confessed movie fanatic that reveals exactly which movies are living up to they hype and which are better left for the DVD. Check out her movie and DVD reviews at http://www.MoviesByAlice.com before you lay down cold-hard cash at the movie theatre or video store.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Let me start by saying that Forest Whitaker played a hell of a part in this movie.  He was very convincing and even scared me as I sat down eating my popcorn.  He was unpredictable and showed a personality that could be friendly in one moment and dangerous in the next.  But who decided to have this movie be shown through the eyes of a wife taking, womenizing white man.

Don't get me wrong, I am not recist but I would not have expected the story to have been relayed by someone that is himself imoral and without shame.  Yes,  Idi Amin was a brutal dictator, but put through the eyes of a immoral white man, I have to think that some of the facts may me scewed.

I expected this story to have started like anyother historical story would have with a major event that took you into the heart of Idi Ami's domain.  But, instead it starts with people getting naked and graduating from a scottish college.  Then you see a new grad student picking Africa as his first stop in his graduate studies.  But before getting their he manages to have a encounter with one the passangers of a bus his was riding.

After leaving he starts on his way to his new assignment.  While in his new assignment he tries to have another encounter with one of the other doctors that happens to be married.  This continues all through the picture until he goes after one of  Idi Amin's wives and gets caught.  Then all hell breaks lose and he finds himself stuck in a country with a dictator that will not let him leave.  Then the glove come off and he begins to see what is really happening behind the scene.  This is were the the real fear is seen.

The last king of scottland is a great movie.  But don't expect this movie to be centered around  Idi Amin and his army.  I still would recommend see this movie.  It does have some history in it..

Runtime: 121 min

Rated: R

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Did someone actually say that this film was worth seeing?  Who are these people?  I don't know how I could put this film into words.  Here it is, "IT JUST SUCKED".  From beginning to the end I was amazed at how one movie could pull someones spirit so far down and not care to bring it back up to even a smigit close to were it began. 

Let me start at the beginning.  First of all the music.  The music dragged me along.  Their was not big slam or bang to wake my spirit up.  It just kept dragging along making it feel like something very somber was going to happen the whole story line.  Next comes Brad Pitt.  Wow, he must really be depressed because I believe this movie and how sad every scence was is in direct connection with Brad Pitt's life.  I mean could they have had even one scene that did not depress the hell out of me.

Then the side stories, one with the baby sitter of Brad's children.  How stupid could someone get to bring children into Mexico.  Especially, if the children are not your own.  Then to compound this bad decision she decides to ride back into the United States with a drunk, loud mouth driver with a hot head.  What a mess...  And to top it off she leaves the children in the desert to find help not marking any way of how to find them.  How stupid could you get.

Now the Asian scenes.  This little girl, she was the only person in the movie that I really felt sorry for.  But by the time I could fell sorry I was so caught up in the stupidity of the mexican baby sitter I almost just cut all the mess off and went to bed.

I did not see any redemming factors in this movie.  I didn't she the moral or even why the movie was even made.  It left me asking by Brad and his wife were even in the foriegn land.  She hinted like something major happened in thier relationship.  But they never revealed the problem.  I wish I could say something good about this movie but I truely hated it.  If Brad is this sad, I think he needs to leave..

Runtime: 143 min

Rated: R

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Moviegoers deciding to see "Capote" with the notion that they will walk away with more of an understanding of the megalomaniacal, self-destructive author will be disappointed; Truman Capote is more of an enigma at the end of the movie than he was at the beginning.

The film depicts a four-year segment of Capote's life which begins days after four members of a Kansas farm family are brutally murdered, and ends after the execution of one of the killers. In between, Capote finds himself drawn into a complex, approach-avoid relationship with convicted murderer Perry Smith as he researches and writes In Cold Blood, his best-selling book on the murders. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman literally vanishes into the role of Capote, who veers between complete self-absorption and an overwhelming empathy for Smith and back again, and one has to wonder: Is the compassion real, or coldly manipulative, or both? Clifton Collins Jr. is quietly intense as the young Smith, who comes to rely on Capote's friendship and is periodically abandoned; the young convict reaches a kind of peaceful resolution of his feelings for Capote at the end. Not so with Capote; hardly a model of stability at the outset, his personality disintegrates until by the end of the film he is firmly locked onto the path which will eventually destroy him.

Director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman make a gutsy decision in refusing to explain or psychoanalyze either Capote or Smith; while it's normal to want explanations - Why did the killers do what they did? What was Capote's motivation in helping, and then not helping, and then meeting a final obligation to Smith? Did Capote, who saw himself in Smith, see a sympathetic human being, or did he see a monster? - The reality is that real life rarely has the kind of answers or emotional resolution we all crave. Hoffman's unflinching portrayal of Capote makes no apologies or explanations for any of the writer's actions but simply shows him in all his contradictions.

A possible irony of the movie is that In Cold Blood, the pivot around which the movie revolves, was recognized at the time of its writing as an entirely new literary genre, and "Capote" is so utterly unique that it cannot be defined as belonging in any conventional category. Neither standard bio-pic nor psychological drama, it is nothing so much as Truman Capote's shattered psyche splayed open for everyone to see. Both Hoffman and Collins deserve kudos in what is essentially a two-man show, in spite of spot-on performances by an excellent supporting cast.

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About the Author:

Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire and frequently contributes to Tips and Topics. She has published numerous articles in local and regional publications on a wide range of topics, including business, education, the arts, and local events. Her feature articles include an interview with independent documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and a feature on prisoners at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord. She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

In 1981, Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith) was a broke, struggling salesman of un-needed overpriced medical bone density scanners, while his wife wallowed in misery over having to work double shift to support the family including a young son.

Chris, seeing that his medical sales career was not going anywhere asked two very pivotal question to a passerby in a Porsche, what do you do and how can he do it. These two questions changed his life and set in motion his pursuit of Happyness.

Buy The Pursuit Of Happyness

Desperate to gain financial happiness for his son and himself Chris takes a chance and applies for a stockbroker internship where one in twenty has a chance of a lucrative full time career.  But this chance does come with a price.  The opportunity does not come with a salary as he trains for the position.  Chris is forced to get serious about his medical bone density business and make it work while he studies for his brokers exams.  Because of his pursuit of this dream and the downfall of the medical sales business Chris’s wife leaves him and he eventually becomes homeless.  But he never loses his dream.  He fights every step of the way for the pursuit of Happyness.

I absolutely loved this movie.  It teaches tenacity and determination in the face of adversity.  I especially loved the line Chris states to his son “Don’t ever let anyone say you can’t do something, their just trying to discourage you from something that they could not do”.  What a statement, what a line.  This movie is a tear jerker from beginning to end.  It brings into focus would most of us fight for what we believe in after losing a wife, losing a car, losing a home and sleeping on the streets with their son or daughter.  Or would we just fold away and settle for what life give us.  If you have not seen this movie definitely rent this movie.  Matter of fact “BUY IT”, you will not be sorry.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

While trying to find his Beverly Hills hotel, a tycoon corporate raider, Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere, accidently meets Vivian Ward, a Hollywood prostitute. Vivian Ward, played by Julia Roberts, is hired by Edward Lewis as a date for a whole week.

Julia Roberts portrays Vivian Ward brilliantly as a prostitute suddenly taken into the world of the ultra rich where anything you could desire is just a call away. Normally, she has been able to get just enough clients to survive with her drug-using roommate. Since Vivian does not even have a high school diploma, she chose prostitution as the only higher paying alternative to working in fast food restaurants.

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Now, Vivian is staying in a hotel suite that has a bathroom about as big as her whole apartment and an unlimited number of people to wait on her. As a date for Edward Lewis, she is swept up in the snobbish, Hollywood culture on Rodeo Drive. After being asked to leave an exclusive boutique, Vivian is desperate to learn how to dress and eat at a high class restaurant. She finds a sympathetic hotel manager at the Beverly Hills Hotel who has his own boutique manager work with Vivian personally from hair to shoes, giving her a stunning and elegant appearance.

Both Edward Lewis and Vivian Ward come from extreme ends of society and could not be more different. However, they do share one thing in common; they both use their clients in a cold, unemotional manner. But later on, what begins as a business contract quickly evolves into to much, much more.

Richard Gere is very convincing as Edward Lewis, showing a cool, calculating manner, totally involved in winning his business deals. He spends almost all day and night on the phone, planning his next move and meeting with his lawyer, never taking a day off. But that changes when Vivian enters the picture.

Over the week, the poor prostitute escorts the rich industrialist to a client dinner, a polo game, and is flown on his private jet to San Francisco to hear an opera for the first time. As can be expected, there are a few twists and turns when things do not go smoothly at each of these events, causing both Vivian and Edward to reconsider who they are and what they should be doing in their lives.

This movie is a delightful romance that will have you guessing what will happen next with this bizarre mix of these two fascinating people.

Pretty Woman is rated R. Parents need to know that this film contains adult themes, strong sexual references, and sexual imagery.

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About the Author:

Tom Straub is a successful author, and webmaster of the DVD Reviews web site, where you can read more on your favorite DVD releases.

Popularity: 4% [?]

"Forrest Gump" is an amusing tale of a mildly retarded man who ends up meeting three presidents as well as making a fortune and participating in and influencing several key historical events. Tom Hanks does a terrific acting job as Gump. The use of computer graphics imagery (CGI), by which Gump is shown meeting the presidents and Lt. Dan Taylor (Sinise) is made to appear as if his legs have been amputated, is also impressive.

Forrest Gump is born in a small town in Alabama, but he's born mildly retarded and handicapped, for which his legs are put in braces. His mother has frequent guests at her house, including Elvis Presley, before he becomes famous.

Once Forrest starts school, he falls for a blonde classmate named Jenny. Kids at his school pick on him because of his condition, but Jenny tells him to run from them, so he breaks his leg braces and runs as fast as he can, his adversaries unable to catch him.

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The same thing happens to him in high school. This time, however, Forrest ends up running through the football field of the University of Alabama while a game is being played. The coach is so impressed that he puts Forrest on the team and gives him a scholarship, so he gets to attend college. Forrest plays exceptionally well, even getting invited to the White House to meet President Kennedy.

A few years later, Forrest gets drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam. There he meets Bubba, a black man whose family is in the shrimp business. He promises Bubba that he'll go into the shrimping business with him after the war. One day, the platoon is attacked by the Viet Kong and several soldiers become seriously wounded. Forrest carries several of them back, including Lt. Dan Taylor, head of the platoon, who'd had both his legs shot off. Dan is at first very upset with Forrest for saving his life since he now has no legs and he comes from a long line of soldiers who died in combat. Bubba becomes fatally injured.

During the war, Forrest learns to play ping pong and becomes an expert at it. As a result, he gets sent to China to compete and is given $25,000 to endorse a new set of ping pong paddles. President Nixon meets him and puts him up at the Watergate hotel, where Forrest witnesses the Watergate break-in and inadvertently reports it to the front desk, initiating the Watergate scandal.

Forrest uses most of the $25,000 he'd earned from ping pong to buy a shrimping boat and go shrimping with Dan, keeping a promise to Bubba. One day a huge storm hits, resulting in Forrest retrieving a boatful of shrimp. Furthermore, every other shrimping boat gets destroyed in the storm, giving Forrest a monopoly on the shrimp. As a result, Forrest makes a fortune. He gives most of the money to Bubba's mother, though.

Forrest returns to Jenny, whose life has been hell. He becomes intimate with her and wants to marry her, but she refused. Forrest becomes heartbroken and decides to run away. He ends up running continuously for three years, crossing the country several times and attracting a large group of followers. He then gets tired and decides to return home.

Back home, Forrest gets a call from Jenny, who now has a son whom she tells him is his. Forrest and Jenny get married, but she has a fatal disease (presumably AIDS), which she dies from shortly thereafter.

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 142 min

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Forrest Gump - Dave's Top Movies

Popularity: 4% [?]

The Shawshank Redemption" is an incredible film about a terrible fictitious prison and the horrible experiences of a prison inmate wrongfully accused of murder. Despite his grave predicament, however, he manages to escape and right many wrongs. The movie stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, both of whom do a terrific job.

Andy Dufrense (Robbins) is wrongfully convicted of the murders of his wife and her lover and sentenced to two lifetime sentences at Shawshank, a fictitious prison in Maine. Conditions at the prison are deplorable. Andy gets beaten and raped regularly. However, he proves very resourceful. He becomes friends with another inmate named Red (Freeman), who obtains a pick and posters of various actresses for him, which he posts on the wall of his cell.

After a few years, Andy demonstrates his elaborate knowledge of income tax laws, for which the warden lets him work for him to help him with his money laundering schemes. This buys him some freedom as well as better treatment.

A very old inmate who'd been sentenced for life finally gets paroled, but after some 50 years in prison, he doesn't want to leave anymore, having been institutionalized. He threatens to kill the warden in the hope that they'll keep him, but they let him go in any case. Shortly thereafter, he commits suicide.

After Andy has been at Shawshank for nearly 20 years, a prisoner named Tommy reveals that he has evidence of Andy's innocence. The warden calls him outside privately to ask him if he will testify on Andy's behalf, to which he says yes. As a result, the warden has him killed. Meanwhile, Andy has been in solitary confinement for a month and the warden decides to keep him for another month.

Unbeknownst to anyone at Shawshank, Andy had been working on an escape plan for nearly the entire time he'd been there. He'd been digging a hole through the wall, which he'd kept hidden by his posters. The warden learns of this when he finds Andy missing from his cell. Andy manages to escape after crawling through 500 yards of underground sewer pipe. Once freed, he presents evidence of the warden's illegal money laundering. Once the warden learns of this, he commits suicide before having the chance to be tried.

Rated: R

Runtime: 142 min

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The Shawshank Redemption - Dave's Top Movies

Popularity: 3% [?]

The movie utilized camera, editing, and special effects to conjure fear & suspense into the minds of viewers. Most scenes were pictured in a dark environment typical of horror movies. The story was about a strange video that resulted in death to the viewers after 7 days.

The movie began when a young female journalist was asked to investigate the mysterious death of her friend’s teenage daughter after watching the strange video.

One of the scenes in the movie was particularly scary for me. The closet scene had an abrupt close–up on the victim’s face that in my opinion successfully intensified the idea to emphasize the victim’s shocking experience before her death.

The same method were used for the other victims using similar "slow camera movement & final shock" technique amidst the eerie background music for example during the final scenes of the movie when she slowly approached the chair and turned the chair around to see the "pruned" corpse of her ex-husband.

The investigation led to the discovery of other similar deaths. The young female journalist watched the video and then began her own life threatening 7 day countdown.

Her ex-husband and their son eventually watched the same video and both of them together became even more determined to find the answers in order to survive the curse.

Coincidently, her ex-husband was some sort of professional video expert. There was a scene where the female journalist utilized a very large video VHS machine that could zoom, copy, and edit a VHS format video at her ex-husband’s office searching the video for clues. More mysterious events occurred as she progressed to her final cursed days and reached the locations of the scenes she found in the strange video.

The most frightening and interesting part of the movie was when the ghost stepped out of the video space from inside the television and into the office space because it raised the question of how a television was treated in Architectural space. An "undead" being had just stepped out from the television. Meaning the television had to be considered similar to a main entrance door in function. No longer is the television for example only an entertainment unit as a focal point in a living room.

An appropriate architectural idea was inherent in the scene to frighten people in an architectural space. The television was situated as the focal point directly opposite of the main entrance door to the office. The positioning of the television proposed itself as a mirror image to the main door, a gateway to an alternate reality. In my opinion the above idea went very well with the scene as the architectural element elevated the entire scene on to another entertainingly intellectual level.

Such an architectural idea was applied in the scene. The scene was taken from a single camera point and was similar to a 1 point Architectural perspective done with some fast forwarding and an array of shots combined during editing.

A murdered young girl seeking vengeance from beyond the grave and performed killings of anonymous people until her body was discovered and the truth revealed. A copy of the video must be made by each viewer to avoid death from her vengeful spirit.

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 115 min

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About the Author:

Abas Kamal bin Sulaiman is a movie enthusiast minus the ability to produce, act & the desire buy every new release movie DVD. He writes on a variety of movie based topics. Visit http://abassterinternational.blogspot.com

Popularity: 4% [?]