Rob's Movie Page

This wonderful movie by Scotish director Bill Forsyth is neither a comedy nor a drama, but somewhere in between. It is a study in character and contrast with heavy doses of irony and pathos. It has amazing dialogue and is directed with subtle brilliance. The story revolves around a Texas oil aquisition expert's visit to a small Scotish town with plans to build a large refinery. But it's not what you think! I love this movie dearly.

A great comedy staring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. The Silver Streak is about a man who stumbles into a mystery while riding a train across the US. Certainly not an art film, but loads of fun to watch. Its costars Patrick McGoohan from the Prisoner.

Do I really need to say anything about this movie? I think its one of the most entertaining movies ever made. The 1996 restoration did a lot for it too, and I enjoyed seeing it in its natural habitat - the big screen - when it came out again. Editorial: the two sequels in no way lived up to the original. I hope the prequels now in production are better.

An inspirational drama about a group of prep school students who are in various ways moved by a new English teacher and his romantic viewpoint at thier school. This movie is emotionally powerful and can still make me cry almost ten years after first seeing it.

Blade Runner is an old fashioned detective story set in an alarming vision of near-future Los Angles. The story is enjoyable but this is movie is mostly about mood and ambiance. If you have not seen this movie staring Harrison Ford, put it on your must see list now.

This movie is Holywood film at its best. Artistic in design, meticulous in detail, and painstaking in execution, Titanic is the kind of romantic screen epic I though Holywood forgot how to make. Titanic features lovely, haunting music and beautiful cinematography. The special effects are so seemless that this doesn't appear to be a special effects movie at all. The tragic ending is wrenching and gauranteed to draw tears - of both saddness and joy. All this and Leonardo DiCaprio too!

Lawrence of Arabia represents the pinacle of achievement in motion pictures for its era. This period piece about T.E. Lawrence's achievments in the middle east during WWI hurled and Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff to stardom. The movie is hugely entertaining and, like Titanic, the cinemetography and music will blow you away. See the 1989 restoration. You'll have no idea you are watching a 35 year old movie, it seems brand new.

A daring and brilliant piece of modern film making. Daring, in that it doesn't ask the audience to check their brain at the door, but rather to use it. The film's most crucial moments are also its most subtle. It goes completely against the grain of modern formula movies engineered to be the latest block buster. Brilliant, in pure execution. As much as it engages the brain, the story also pulls at the heart. The writer asks quite a bit of us to suspend our disbelief with this one, but pulls it off admirably. It works. The Truman Show is as much food for thought as it is entertaining.

Being a huge NASA buff I naturally went into the theater for this one feeling skeptical. I've seen a lot of really bad movies about the space program. Apollo 13 is a great drama for any audience, but especially those with some technical knowlege about Apollo. Ron Howard chose to tell it like it was rather than contrive a cheesey story and was rewarded with a riveting suspense movie where narry a chainsaw needed to be wielded. I don't know how I would have handled the tension if I didn't know the history of how it all turned out in the end. Makes you feel for the NASA guys back in 1970!

Apocalypse Now is Copala's magnum opus. The story is based on Conrad's Heart of Darkness and is set in the Viet Nam War on the Mekong River. Every foot of film was meticulously photographed with phenomenal results. The principal cast gave the performances of thier careers, particularly the method acting of Martin Sheen and Dennis Hopper. Apocalypse Now is not for the timid or impatentient. Be prepared for a dark drama painted in broad, abstract and mind expanding strokes.

The most monumental of all science fiction movies, 2001 is still relevant and moving 30 years after its original release. This movie is often misunderstood because the story is told almost entirely through the language of film - that is pictures. The dialogue is brilliant for its quality of ordinary conversation rather than movie-speak, and it is purely incedental to the story. The story itself is no less than the entire history of mankind, from its conception through trancendance into something entirely new. If I taught film making, I'd hold this movie up as the highest example the craft has ever achieved. Unfortunately its greatest feature has made it unpalattable to wide audiences.

This is movie is a little gem. It has since achieved much greater popularity than when I first saw it in the early 80s. It kind of ruins my abilty to surprise friends with this seasonal delight, but I suppose its OK for everyone else to enjoy what those in the know have enjoyed for more than a decade. The story is an autobiographical account of one particular Christmas in the childhood of author Jean Shepherd. The movie's humorous, child's eye view of the holiday season will charm your socks off. I always get a little verklempt at the end of this one too.