Total Recall R 1990 ‧ Action/Sci-fi ‧ 1h 53m Pluto TV Free Apple TV From $3.99 Amazon Prime Video From $3.99 Fandango at Home $5.00 YouTube From $14.99 Google Play Movies & TV From $14.99

Total Recall was directed by Paul Verhoeven, and he is skilled at creating sympathy for characters. That’s where Schwarzenegger is such a help. By allowing himself to seem confused and vulnerable, he provides a sympathetic center for all of the high-tech spectacle.

Total Recall moves back and forth between versions and levels of reality, while filling its screen with a rich future world with details. The red planet Mars is created in glorious visual splendor, and the inside of the Mars station looks like a cross between Times Square and a submarine.

Mars is in a revolutionary war between the forces of Cohaagen, a greedy captain of industry (Ronny Cox), and a small band of rebels. There is a mystery involving a gigantic reactor that was apparently built by aliens on Mars and has been uncovered during mining operations.

But is this a packaged memory, or a real experience? The movie toys tantalizingly with the possibilities, especially in a scene where a convincing doctor and Quaid’s own wife (Sharon Stone) “appear” in his dream to try to talk him down from it.

It seems utterly convincing to you that you’ve been to Mars and done some dangerous spying there. Before long, sure enough, Quaid seems to be on Mars, involved in some secret-spy stuff, and in the arms of his custom-ordered brunet (Rachel Ticotin).

He keeps having these dreams about Mars, dreams that finally inspire him to sign up with a strange kind of travel agency that provides you with the memory of a vacation instead of a real one. They strap you into a machine and beam the memories into your mind.

That’s what seems to happen to Quaid, the Schwarzenegger character in Total Recall, although at times neither he nor we can be quite sure. We meet him in a future world where he lives in a comfortable apartment with his loving blond wife and goes off to work every day at a construction job.

There is a lot of action and violence in the movie. One of the most complex and visually interesting science fiction movies. The plot, based on a story by the great science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick, centers on a fascinating idea: What would happen if you could be supplied with memories?

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in Total Recall (1990) is why the movie works so well. He isn’t a superman this time, although he fights like one. He’s a confused and frightened innocent. He lets Total Recall to be more than simply an action, violence and special effects extravaganza.

The Children's Hour Not Rated 1961 ‧ Drama/Melodrama ‧ 1h 45m MGM+ Amazon Prime Video Tubi Free Pluto TV Free YouTube fuboTV Sling TV The Roku Channel YouTube TV Philo Fandango at Home From $2.99 Google Play Movies & TV From $3.99 Apple TV From $3.99

In the final funeral sequence, the director pushes the film into the surreal, as Hepburn walks past the townsfolk and her former fiancé, head held up, refusing to acknowledge any of them. Wyler suggests there are some whisper campaigns from which no one can possibly recover.

The Children's Hour had a mixed, profound impact on lesbians, acting as both a traumatic reflection of 1960s societal homophobia, characterized by Martha’s tragic suicide due to intense self-loathing, and a rare, even if imperfect, representation of female same-sex attraction.

Cartwright says, “I consider Shirley MacLaine my mentor. When I had my huge breakdown about telling the lie, she said, ‘That was wonderful, honey.’ While explaining the story of the film to me, my mother said, ‘It is just like Frank and Bill, only it’s two women.’ That seemed plausible to me.”

James Garner is good as Hepburn’s betrothed, and Fay Bainter produces a striking portrayal of the suggestible grandmother who falls under the evil influence of the wicked child. A girl also taken in by the evil girl, Veronica Cartwright says “I was 11 years old when I made The Children’s Hour.”

Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, in the leading roles, beautifully complement each other. Hepburn’s soft sensitivity, marvelous projection and emotional understatement result in a memorable portrayal. MacLaine’s enactment is almost equally rich in intensity and substance.

Lillian Hellman's study of the devastating effect of malicious slander and implied guilt comes to the screen in a wise production of The Children's Hour. William Wyler has chosen to remain faithful to the original source: the Broadway play.

Heart breaking and superbly filmed, the Children's Hour (1961) is an excellent movie. Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine light up the screen. A hateful child spreads a malicious rumor of a lesbian relationship between the two headmistresses of the private school for girls she attends.

The Birdcage R 1996 ‧ Comedy/Drama ‧ 1h 58m MGM+ Tubi Free Pluto TV Free The Roku Channel Free YouTube fuboTV Sling TV Amazon Prime Video YouTube TV Philo Fandango at Home From $2.99 Apple TV $3.99 Google Play Movies & TV From $5.99

Hackman’s senator is weathering a crisis and thinks meeting his new in-laws will appease his right-wing constituents. Wiest, who sees and understands more than her husband, reads the situation in South Beach more quickly, but goes with the flow.

Nathan Lane works well the rest of the time, especially in his more pensive passages. Some of his biggest moments, as when he tries to practice walking like John Wayne, are great. The biggest laughs come from Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest, as the senator and his wife.

Imagine everything that can go wrong. Since the material is familiar, what’s amazing is how fresh it seems, in the hands of the American cast. Robin Williams is the best surprise; in a role that seems written as a license for flamboyance, he is restrained.

Albert is devastated that the boy he raised like his own son is turning his back on him. Armand is upset, too, but goes along with a masquerade in which Val’s mother (Christine Baranski), who had Val after a one-night stand with Armand, will pretend to be Mrs. Goldman.

The Birdcage is the first time Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who helped define improvisational comedy in the 1950s, have worked together on a movie. What mostly sparkles from their work here is the dialogue. The problem is that his fiancée’s father is a conservative senator (Gene Hackman).

Albert is a basket case, threatened by encroaching age and insecurity. He functions only because Agador (Hank Azaria), the flamboyant houseboy, tranquilizes him. Armand’s son Val (Dan Futterman) has become engaged to a girl and wants to bring her home to meet his dad, but not Auntie Albert.

The movie stars Robin Williams as Armand Goldman, the owner-operator of a drag revue on South Beach. He lives upstairs over his nightclub with Albert (Nathan Lane), the star of the show, who has been his lover for some 20 years.

The Birdcage (1996) isn’t about plot. It’s about character, and the twisted logic of screwball comedy, in which everybody acts the craziest when they’re trying to make the most sense. What makes Mike Nichols‘ version excellent is good casting in the key roles, and wicked screenplay by Elaine May.

Jurassic Park PG-13 1993 ‧ Adventure/Sci-fi ‧ 2h 2m MGM+ YouTube fuboTV The Roku Channel Amazon Prime Video YouTube TV Philo Google Play Movies & TV From $3.99 Apple TV From $3.99 Fandango at Home From $3.99

Spielberg enlivens the action with lots of nice little touches; I especially liked a sequence where a smaller creature leaps suicidally on a larger one, and they battle to the death. On the monster movie level, the movie works and is entertaining.

There is a scene very early in the film where Neill and Dern, who have studied dinosaurs all of their lives, see living ones for the first time. The creatures they see are tall, majestic leaf-eaters, grazing placidly in the treetops. There is a sense of grandeur to them.

Because the director is Spielberg, there is a high technical level to the execution of the formulas. Two set-pieces are especially effective: A scene where a beast mauls a car with screaming kids inside, and another where the kids play hide and seek with two creatures in the park’s kitchen.

Attenborough wants the visitors to have a preview of his new park, where actual living prehistoric animals live in enclosures behind tall steel fences. The visitors set off on a tour in remote-controlled utility vehicles.

Richard Attenborough, as the millionaire who builds the park, loves his grandchildren, he’s basically a good soul, he realizes the error of tampering with nature. Two dinosaur experts (Sam Neill and Laura Dern) arrive at the park, along with a mathematician played by Jeff Goldblum.

Jurassic Park (1993) is a thriller set in a remote island theme park where real dinosaurs have been grown from long-dormant DNA molecules. We see them early and often, indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie needs a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values.

Saturday Night Fever 1977 ‧ Musical/Dance ‧ 1h 59m MGM+ Pluto TV Free YouTube fuboTV Sling TV The Roku Channel Amazon Prime Video YouTube TV Philo Fandango at Home Google Play Movies & TV From $3.99 Apple TV From $3.99

By the end of the film, Tony has left his worthless friends behind and made the first faltering steps to Manhattan and to a more enlightened view of women. The happy ending, as Tony and Stephanie sit on the window ledge and smile, evokes a hopeful future.

Freedom is represented by cruising the streets, and dancing on the disco floor. The movie’s plot involves his choice between Annette (Donna Pescow), the girl who loves him, and Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney), the girl who works in Manhattan and represents his dream of class.

The Travolta performance is a great cocky affirmation, and his performance is vulnerable and mostly lovable; playing a kid of 19, he looks touchingly young. The opening shots set the tone, focusing on his carefully shined shoes as he struts down the street.

The most lasting images are its joyous ones, of Tony strutting down a sidewalk, dominating the disco floor in a solo dance. There’s a lot in the movie that’s sad and painful, but what you remember is John Travolta on the dance floor in that classic white disco suit.

Stephanie, a girl he loves, has described him in a few brutal words: “You live with your parents, you hang with your buddies and on Saturday nights you burn it all off at 2001 Odyssey. You’re a cliche. You’re nowhere, going no place.” Tony senses that she is right.

Saturday Night Fever (1977) has two central themes. First, the desire of all young people to escape from a life sentence of boring work. Second, the difficulty that some men have in relating to women as comrades and friends and not simply sex facilitators.