In The Firm, Tom Cruise doesn't pull out any of his usual action movie tricks. As Mitch McDeere, an ambitious young lawyer who joins a well-heeled but shady practice in Memphis, he never fires a gun or jumps off a helicopter, although there is a scene where he hides from a pursuer by suspending himself from the heating pipes in a storeroom -- eerily similar to a scene in Mission: Impossible. But what Cruise does get to show off is his penchant for scrappy characters who outsmart forces much larger than themselves. And he even manages to make the tax code sound sexy.

Take our quiz and see if you can remember all of The Firm's twists and turns.

Panasonic is confident people will continue buying flat-screen televisions as the economy slows. The reason being: In a time of crisis, consumers stay home. "When things are not going so good they tend to cocoon," says Robert Perry, an executive at the company. "They might cancel the vacation, but they will still have a TV for family enjoyment." If Panasonic is right, people will be escaping with Hollywood heavyweights like Tom Cruise and watching films set overseas to getaway.

There is one bit of good news: Last week, the dollar rose to its highest level in more than a year against the euro, the Canadian dollar and several other currencies. But the rising dollar won't help those with tickets to Japan: According to The New York Times, the yen is the only major currency to rise in value against the dollar in recent weeks. Those travelers might be better off staying home and watching The Last Samurai.

Continue reading "Weak Dollar Got You Down? Travel Vicariously Through Tom Cruise" »

The Magnificent Seven belongs on pretty much any Western top ten list you could think up: Best Battle Scene, Best Knife Vs. Gun Duel, Best Ensemble Cast, Top Ten Tenderhearted Tough Guys. You get the picture. With a cast including Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson and Eli Wallach it's full of classic showdowns and terse one-liners.

Most importantly, The Magnificent Seven is a classic American tale of risking everything to help the underdog without the promise of personal gain. Take our quiz and see how much you can remember about the gang.

Director Gus Van Sant's now ten-year-old version of Psycho isn't really a remake. It's a re-creation. The differences between it and the 1968 Hitchcock classic are superficial (new clothing, a few extra cutaways). Van Sant said his intention was to update -- not completely retool -- the movie for a new audience: "It was like staging a contemporary production of a classic play, while remaining true to the original."

The critics were less than impressed. Roger Ebert called the film "an invaluable experiment in the theory of cinema, because it demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless." Yet Ebert may have missed the point: In this one-of-a-kind homage, Van Sant shows how the exact same lines and camera angles will sometimes summon the exact same feelings when performed by different actors under a different director's guidance. Watch Van Sant's take on the immortal shower sequence with this in mind.

Continue reading "By Re-creating Instead of Remaking Psycho, Gus Van Sant Stands Alone" »

After being shown last month at the Toronto Film Festival, Appaloosa opened widely this weekend. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen star as guns-for-hire who are brought in to clean up the New Mexico town of Appaloosa after a brutal murder. It doesn't take an expert to note that plot resembles Unforgiven, wherein Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman are hired by a group of prostitutes to avenge an assault. Which one makes for a better Western?

Rugged Auteurs
Both movies are helmed by actor-directors. Appaloosa is Harris's second film; Unforgiven was Eastwood's fourth Western. (He's now got 30 features to his credit.) While each man is clearly comfortably in the driver's seat, they definitely exhibit diametrically opposed styles. Appaloosa is controlled and understated. Unforgiven tends towards the melodramatic. If you had to side with one director, it would be hard not to go with Harris who keeps a stronger hand on his material.

Continue reading "Now and Then - Appaloosa and Unforgiven" »

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) assured us that greed is good but the recent turmoil on Wall Street sure suggests the contrary. Indeed Oliver Stone's drama inspired by the illegal insider trading of the 1980s feels more relevant than ever. With Stone's new biopic W (about President Bush) set for a release later this month, consider this Wall Street quiz, a kind of refresher course in the director's oeuvre.

Considered a contemporary classic, The Princess Bride was just a modest success at the box office in 1987. Critics praised it; few seemed to care. The passionate cult following that emerged later was built through countless TV airings and VHS rentals. It's difficult to understand how such a beloved film could fail to find an audience in theaters initially. Then again, a similar fortune befell Matthew Vaughn's excellent 2007 fantasy comedy, Stardust. Does romantic fantasy simply play better on the small screen? Is it time to start a Stardust cult?

Continue reading "Maybe Stardust Will Follow in the The Princess Bride's Footsteps" »

First, there was the Rat Pack. Then came the Brat Pack. Now the Frat Pack reigns supreme.

Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Owen and Luke Wilson -- a motley crew if there ever were one -- are the principal players. And though their collective name suggests a rowdy, beer-guzzling group of guys, their movies often focus on the genuine fraternal friendship that only best buds can feel for one another.

Continue reading "The Frat Pack: The Pack of the Hour" »

With his boyish charm, the actor Audie Murphy looked like many a young stud in '50s Hollywood. But one thing set Murphy apart: He was the most decorated soldier in World War II. His breakthrough performance came when he played himself in the 1955 war drama To Hell and Back.

Universal Studios' highest grossing movie at the time (surpassed two decades later by Jaws), To Hell and Back was based on Murphy's best-selling memoir. After lying about his age (17) to get into the service, he rose through Army ranks and earned a Medal of Honor after single-handedly fighting off an entire squad of German soldiers from atop a burning tank. He received 24 decorations and appeared on the cover of Life magazine.

But Murphy didn't like playing the Hollywood war hero; instead, he became associated with Westerns and starred in over 30 of them. Seven Ways From Sundown, in which he plays a law-and-order Texas Ranger who partners up with John McIntire to catch a dastardly outlaw on the lam, was one of his best.

For a full schedule of Seven Ways From Sundown on AMC, click here.

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Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) knows that the war's not over until the last man comes home. After the U.S. Government's failure to rescue POWs in Vietnam, Braddock comes up with his own exit strategy. Prove how well you know this Man of Action, and what he will do to put his country first. (Too bad guessing what the next Administration's exit strategy will be for getting us out of Iraq isn't as easy.)