Actor Dan Hedaya (1940)

The American action crime thriller film, Shaft (2000), was both co-written and co-produced by John Singleton. In the initial investigation of Trey Howard’s brutal attack outside a restaurant in 1998, NYPD Detective John Shaft apprehends Walter Wade Jr., the son of a wealthy real estate mogul, after noticing blood on his person. Claiming self-defense, Wade is taken into custody by Shaft. While surveying the scene, Shaft notices an injured waitress named Diane Palmieri who appears to be eyeing Wade. Attempting to gather crucial information from her, Shaft is unsuccessful in coaxing a statement. A friend of ...

The American biographical sports drama film, The Hurricane (1999), was directed and produced by Norman Jewison. It tells the story of Rubin ‘The Hurricane’ Carter, a middleweight boxer wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in Paterson, New Jersey. After spending nearly two decades in prison, his sentence was finally overturned. The film focuses on Carter’s life from 1966 to 1985 as he fights against the unjust conviction. In parallel, we follow the journey of Lesra Martin, an underprivileged Afro-American youth from Brooklyn now living in Toronto. In the 1980s, Lesra becomes intrigued by ...

An American legal drama film, A Civil Action (1998), directed and written by Steven Zaillian, is based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Harr. The movie depicts a true court case in Woburn, Massachusetts during the 1980s regarding environmental pollution. The city’s water supply becomes contaminated with toxicants which are eventually linked to a series of local children’s deaths. Anne Anderson, a resident of Woburn, approaches cocky Boston attorney Jan Schlichtmann and his small firm of personal injury lawyers for help in taking legal action against ...

A film called A Life Less Ordinary (1997) is categorized as a British romantic black comedy. In this movie, angels from Heaven have the duty of ensuring that humans on Earth find true love. One particular angel, known as the ‘Captain’ and named Gabriel, becomes disgruntled when reviewing the performance of angel partners O’Reilly and Jackson. He notices that all of their recent cases have resulted in either divorce or misery for the couple involved. To shake things up, Gabriel suggests a new approach: if their next assigned pair fails to fall and remain in love (which he admits is a challenging task), O’Reilly and Jackson must remain on Earth ...

Alien Resurrection (1997), an American science fiction horror film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and written by Joss Whedon, is set two hundred years after the events of Alien 3. The space vessel USM Auriga houses military scientists who have successfully cloned Ellen Ripley using DNA from blood samples taken before her death. In this clone, named Ripley 8, the Xenomorph queen’s DNA has been combined with Ripley’s own, resulting in enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, and a psychic link with the Xenomorphs. The scientists harvest eggs from ...

Marvin’s Room (1996) is an impactful American drama helmed by Jerry Zaks. John Guare penned the screenplay, adapted from Scott McPherson’s play of the same name. The story revolves around Marvin, a man who suffered a stroke two decades ago and has been confined to his bed ever since. His daughter Bessie has dedicated herself to taking care of him in their Florida home, while his other daughter Lee moved away with her husband to Ohio and has not been in touch with her family since. Unfortunately, Bessie receives devastating news from her doctor – she has leukemia, the same illness that claimed their ...

In Rob Cohen’s American disaster film, Daylight (1996), residents of upstate New York face a hazardous situation as they attempt to illegally dispose of toxic waste in New Jersey. Among the many individuals caught in this high-stakes scenario are struggling playwright Maddy Thompson, a bus full of juvenile offenders, a vacationing family, an elderly couple and their dog, and sports retailer Roy Nord. Meanwhile, a gang of grungy criminals fleeing from the NYPD after mugging a gem buyer take off in his car and enter the tunnel beneath the Hudson River. In their chaotic escape, they crash into one of the trucks ...

Freeway (1996) is an acclaimed American black comedy crime film, written and directed by Matthew Bright and produced by Oliver Stone. The story centers around Vanessa Lutz, a teenage girl living in Southern California. After her mother, Ramona, is arrested for prostitution and her stepfather, Larry, is taken in for drug and child abuse charges, social worker Mrs. Sheets arrives to take Vanessa away. However, she quickly devises a plan to escape by handcuffing the social worker to a bed and fleeing in her run-down car. Her destination: Stockton, where she plans to live ...

Oliver Stone’s American epic historical drama film, Nixon (1995), follows the events of the Watergate scandal. In 1972, members of the White House Plumbers break into The Watergate and are arrested. A year and a half later, Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, provides Nixon with audio tapes regarding the scandal. As they discuss the chaos that ensued from Watergate and the passing of J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon expresses his anger towards John Dean, James McCord, and others involved in the scandal. He even questions why he has not been given a pistol to end his own life like an honorable soldier. Most ...

The crime thriller film, The Usual Suspects (1995), directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie, follows a group of criminals. One of them, Dean Keaton, is found dying on a ship in San Pedro Bay after a confrontation with a mysterious figure known as ‘Keyser’. The ship is set on fire, leaving only two survivors: Arkosh Kovash, a Hungarian mobster with severe burns, and Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint, a con artist with physical disabilities. U.S. Customs agent Dave Kujan flies from New York City to Los Angeles to interrogate Verbal while FBI ...

Benny & Joon (1993) is an American romantic comedy-drama film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. Following the accidental death of their parents, siblings Benjamin ‘Benny’ Pearl and his mentally ill sister Juniper (‘Joon’) live together. When Joon loses a bet during a poker game with friends and agrees to let Sam, the eccentric cousin of Benny’s friend Mike, stay with them, Benny is initially upset. However, after spending an evening at the local diner with Sam and coming home to find that he has cleaned the house, Benny changes his mind and decides to let Sam ...

Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), a romantic comedy film written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, follows the story of Joe Banks, a Staten Island resident who works in a dreary factory with an unpleasant boss named Frank Waturi. Despite regularly consulting doctors for his chronic illness, Banks remains joyless and listless. Eventually, Dr. Ellison informs him that he has an incurable disease called a ‘brain cloud’, which has no observable symptoms but will result in death within five to six months. The doctor attributes his previous job as a firefighter as the cause of his psychosomatic symptoms and urges ...

Director Brian De Palma brought to life Wise Guys (1986), an American dark comedy about two men at the bottom of a Newark Mafia hierarchy. Harry Valentini and Moe Dickstein, an Italian American and a Jewish friend respectively, worked for Castelo by completing mundane tasks like caring for his goldfish or testing bullet-proof jackets. Despite their lowly positions, they had big dreams of opening a unique Jewish-Italian deli. Unfortunately, their boss and fellow gang members looked down on them and often made fun of their aspirations. During a trip to the racetrack with Castelo’s violent henchman Frank ‘The ...

The American neo-noir psychological mystery crime action thriller film, Tightrope (1984), was both directed and written by Richard Tuggle. The main focus of the movie is a young woman who is stalked while walking home from her birthday party. Upon dropping one of her presents, a supposed police officer offers to walk her to her front door. However, it is later revealed that this policeman is actually the stalker himself. The following day, divorced New Orleans detective Wes Block and his daughters Penny and Amanda, discover a stray dog and decide to take it in despite already having several strays at home. As they ...