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This film won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. I knew this going into it and was thoroughly surprised with what I saw. When I think of a Cannes award-winning film, I think of something more artsy like ELEPHANT. William Wyler’s (THE COLLECTOR, BEN-HUR) dramedy was one before the term was invented.

Set in 1862, the film follows the Birdwell family. They’re Quakers. Eliza (Dorothy McGuire, SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON) is the matriarch of the family and a preacher for their community. Her husband Jess (Gary Cooper, HIGH NOON) is a bit of a troublemaker – at least for Quaker standards. He likes to race his horse and buggy against the Methodist Sam Jordan (Robert Middleton, THE COURT JESTER) on the way to church on a Sunday morning and he likes to play music. Eliza loves her family, but tries to keep them to the letter of the Quaker law.

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I’ve seen almost as many Harold Lloyd films as I’ve seen Charlie Chaplin films now. I’m sadly behind on watching Buster Keaton films, which I will remedy as soon as I can. This film is Lloyd’s masterpiece. It perfectly balances story, gags and pathos.

Lloyd plays Harold Lamb, a teenager who is extremely excited to be attending Tate College. He over prepares himself for school and ends up looking like a fool to the upperclassman. Harold desperately wants to be as popular as the football captain Chet (James Anderson, FLEETWING). He throws his savings at the other students to make friends, but unbeknownst to him the college cad (Brooks Benedict, SPEEDY) ridicules him behind his back. This all saddens the young maid Peggy (Jobyna Ralston, WHY WORRY?), who meets Harold on the train and over time falls for him.

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This film is a total prostitution of the STAR WARS name to bring in cash over the huge popularity of the Ewoks. And as a kid I loved every moment of it. Now looking back, I can see it’s just an average kid adventure. It gets an extra half star for taking place in the STAR WARS universe.

Cindel (Aubree Miller, EWOKS, THE BATTLE FOR ENDOR) and Mace Towani (Eric Walker, LESS THAN ZERO) are two kids separated from their parents on the planet Endor. They meet up with the Warrick family of Ewoks. Of course, this is the family of Wicket (Warwick Davis, WILLOW), the cutest and must loveable Ewok of them all. The story begins with Cindel getting sick and Mace coming to terms with the Ewoks’ way of doing things. Afterwards, Cindel, Mace and a group of Ewoks venture out to save the kids’ parents.

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This film walks a fine line between dark comedy and brutal tragedy. Director Danny DeVito plays the film’s narrator Gavin D’Amato, a sleazy lawyer who tells a client about the Roses as a cautionary tale regarding divorce.

Oliver (Michael Douglas, WALL STREET) and Barbara Rose (Kathleen Turner, BODY HEAT) at first had a magic relationship. But as Oliver got more successful and Barbara got more restless with her role as a housewife their marriage begins to fall apart. The film wisely understands how little things grow into bigger things in relationships, especially when the couple can’t talk about the issues or cannot see the other person’s point of view.

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This is the kind of film that just makes you smile… a lot. Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks, TAXI DRIVER) is an advertising exec who dies. In the afterlife, he finds that for a week he will be part of a “trial” that will determine whether he will return to Earth or move on to a higher consciousness.

His defender is Bob Diamond (Rip Torn, MEN IN BLACK), a cheerful man who assures the worry-wart Daniel that he’s in good hands. But Daniel doesn’t seem so convinced when he discovers that his prosecutor Lena Foster (Lee Grant, MULLHOLLAND DR.) has a bit of a rivalry going on with Bob. Then Daniel meets Julia (Meryl Streep, SOPHIE’S CHOICE) who he instantly falls for. Unlike him she is very confident.

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Director Dario Argento has been called the Alfred Hitchcock of Italy. Like Brian DePalma, he has learned from the master and pushed the envelope with violence and substance. However, with this film at least, Argento has taken his Hitchcock 101 lessons and made them his own.

Of Argento’s work, I’ve also seen SUSPIRIA, which I was more fascinated with than I enjoyed. In that film, I felt Argento went too far with his experiment on the theme of dark fairy tales and didn’t develop a solid enough plot. In DEEP RED, considered his first real “masterpiece,” Argento crafts a wonderful thriller that is often shocking with its bursts of violence.

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Director Tony Richardson directed the largely underrated THE LOVED ONE and finished his career with powerful drama BLUE SKY. But before those films, he directed a bawdy, best picture-winning screen adaptation of Henry Fielding’s novel TOM JONES.

Albert Finney (TWO FOR THE ROAD) plays the title character, a bastard child raised by a rich man named Squire Allworthy (George Devine, LOOK BACK IN ANGER). Tom is a free-spirited playboy, but he truly loves only one girl – Sophie Western (Susannah York, SUPERMAN). However, Sophie’s father, Squire Western (Hugh Griffith, BEN-HUR), won’t have a bastard marrying his daughter. As well, Tom’s devious cousin Mr. Blifil (David Warner, TRON) schemes to get Tom kicked out of their house. Other key characters include older damsel in distress Mrs. Waters (Joyce Redman, A DIFFERENT KIND OF LOVE), Squire Western’s snobby city slicker sister (Edith Evans, THE NUN’S STORY), the high-society seductress Lady Bellaston (Joan Greenwood, BARBARELLA), Sophie’s adulterous cousin Mrs. Fitzpatrick (Rosalind Knight, PRICK UP YOUR EARS), the angry Irish husband Mr. Fitzpatrick (George A. Cooper, BLESS THIS HOUSE) and Sophie’s maid Molly Seagrim (Diane Cilento, HOMBRE).

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This movie proves that a great ending can really make a film. William Canfield Sr. (Ernest Torrence, 1924’s PETER PAN) is the owner of rundown riverboat. He has a big rivalry with John James King (Tom McGuire, SHE DONE HIM WRONG), the owner of a big fancy riverboat. William is excited about the impending arrival of his son, Bill Jr. (Keaton) from Boston where he attends college. He hasn’t seen his son in years. William is quickly disappointed when Bill Jr. — a very prissy weakling — shows up.

To make matters worse, Bill Jr. is in love with Marion (Marion Byron, SOCIAL SINNERS), the daughter of his father’s rival. He is pretty inept at working on the boat, which is a big laugh for sailor Tom Carter (Tom Lewis, THE GO-GETTER), much to the chagrin of his boss Bill Sr.

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Alzheimer’s is the cruelest of diseases. Robbing one’s mind is like stealing their personality. The disease is so unfair to the victim and then so unfair to their loved ones.

This Swedish-language film is based on the life of composer Martin Fischer (Sven Wollter, THE 13TH WARRIOR). In the beginning of the film, Martin strikes up an affair with a married violinist Barbara Hartman (Viveka Seldahl, ANGEL FARM). The two fall madly in love and eventually get married. Soon after, Martin starts to display the quickening signs of Alzheimer’s.

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DreamWorks’ traditional animated features all attempted to revive old classic Hollywood genres in animation. PRINCE OF EGYPT tried the Biblical epic. ROAD TO EL DORADO tried the Crobsy/Hope ROAD flicks. SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON tried the animal picture. And finally, SINBAD tackled the Greek myth epic adventure. I have not seen EGYPT, but I’ve seen the other three and can say that all of them are good, but not great films. They work for what they are, but they don’t step to a higher level. I’ll get to why I think this happened later.

SINBAD follows Sinbad the pirate (Brad Pitt, 12 MONKEYS) as he is forced into rescuing the Book of Peace from the Goddess of Chaos Eris (Michelle Pfeiffer, BATMAN RETURNS) after he is accused of stealing the book himself. The major wrinkle is that his best friend Proteus (Joseph Fiennes, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) takes his place in prison as a sign of faith, giving Sinbad only 10 days to retrieve the Book before his pal is beheaded. Tagging along for the journey is Proteus’ arraigned fiance Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones, THE MASK OF ZORRO).

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