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From The Film Guide

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Pearl Harbor is an Oscar-winning war film released in the summer of 2001 by Touchstone Pictures. It stars Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Jaime King, and Jennifer Garner. It was a dramatic re-imagining of the attack on Pearl Harbor, produced by the team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, who had previously directed summer mega-blockbusters such as Armageddon and The Rock. The final section of the movie relates the Doolittle Raid, the first American attack on the Japanese home islands in World War II.

The movie begins on a Tennessee farm as two kids, Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett), play in a pretend fighter plane they made, pretending to be shooting down German planes. As they are playing, Rafe's dad is out dusting the fields in his old cropduster. When he lands and goes into his tractor, the two boys sneak into his plane and keep the pretend fight going. They accidentally start the plane and "fly" it down the runway, almost crashing it until it finally stops. Danny's father (William Fichtner) comes out and starts screaming at them and smacking Danny. Rafe grabs a board and whacks the dad to stop the beating, protecting his best friend.

It's now years later, and 25-year-old Rafe (Ben Affleck) and 24-year-old Danny (Josh Hartnett), both First Lieutenants in the U.S. Army, are at a U.S. Army Air Corps training field commanded by Major Jimmy Doolittle (Alec Baldwin). Rafe is very cocky as he and Danny do a particularly dangerous stunt (a game of chicken) that almost kills them (and more importantly to the brass, almost damages the planes). They are called into Doolittle's office where they are reprimanded, but Doolittle is actually quite impressed with Rafe as he reminds him of himself when he was young.

Later, Doolittle tells Rafe that he has been accepted to go to Britain and join Eagle Squadron, a squadron of volunteer American pilots serving with the Royal Air Force in the fight against the Germans.

read the complete article</blog>

The Halloween films are a series of horror movies, of which the first is considered one of the most important and influential of the genre. The first film, Halloween, (originally titled The Babysitter Murders), was released in 1978. It was written by John Carpenter (who also directed) and Debra Hill, and was executive produced by Moustapha Akkad. It starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence. Shot on a budget of $300,000, it became the highest grossing independent film ever, and held that title until Dirty Dancing was released in 1987. The name of the city where the film takes place, Haddonfield, Illinois, is taken from screenwriter Debra Hill's hometown, Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Telling the story of an unstoppable psycho-killer wearing a white-painted William Shatner mask from the film The Devil's Rain, Halloween is generally considered the first of a long line of modern-day slasher movies descending from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). The movie originated a great many of the clichés seen in countless low-budget slashers of the 1980s and 1990s, although first-time viewers of Halloween may be surprised by the fact that compared to its many imitators and competitors, the original film actually has very few explicitly violent scenes. Many slasher buffs, however, also note that the lesser-known 1974 horror film Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark, actually features many of the same motifs that Halloween is credited with establishing. Read more ... on THEfilmGUIDE</blog>

Out of Africa is a 1985 drama/romance film based loosely on the autobiographical book of the same name by Isak Dinesen published in 1937, as well as Dinesen's Shadows on the Grass and other sources. The movie received 28 film awards, including seven Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Score, Art Direction, Sound) and three Golden Globes (Best Picture, Supporting Actor, Original Score).

The film was adapted by Kurt Luedtke and directed by Sydney Pollack. It starred Meryl Streep, Robert Redford (as Denys), Klaus Maria Brandauer (as Baron Blixen), Michael Kitchen (as Berkeley Cole), Malick Bowens (as Farah), Stephen Kinyanjui (as Chief), Michael Gough (Delamere), Suzanna Hamilton (as Felicity who is based on famous aviatrix Beryl Markham), and supermodel Iman (in a cameo role as Mariammo).

The film opens in Denmark as a dying Karen Blixen (Streep) remembers the years she spent in Africa between 1914] and 1931. Looming large in her memory is the figure of Denys Finch Hatton (Redford), a local large game hunter she met when she arrived in Africa to start what she thought would be a dairy farm together with her husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke (Brandauer).

Things turn out differently for her than anticipated ... The complete story</blog>

Life with Father is a 1947 film featuring the humorous adventures of a late Victorian-era father of a large, colorful family in New York City. It is based on the autobiographical book by Clarence Day, Jr., which was adapted into a 1939 Broadway play by Lindsay and Crouse, and after the 1947 movie, into a television series.

The 1947 comedy movie tells the true story of a stockbroker who wants to be master of his house, but finds his wife and his children ignoring him, until they start making demands for him to change his own life. It stars William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor, Edmund Gwenn, Zazu Pitts, Jimmy Lydon and Martin Milner...In 1883 New York City, a Wall Street Broker, Clarence Day, believes he is the king of his castle, though his seemingly clueless and scatterbrained wife actually rules the roost with intelligence and grace, and his brood is quite unruly. more...</blog>

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 American Disney action/adventure film. It was directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at Disney theme parks around the world, developed by Walt Disney himself.

A sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, was released in 2006.

Plot Synopsis: Pirates of the Caribbean is a sweeping action-adventure story set in an era when villainous pirates scavenged the Caribbean seas. This roller coaster tale teams a young man, Will Turner, with an unlikely ally in rogue pirate Jack Sparrow. Together, they must battle a band of the world's most treacherous pirates, led by the cursed Captain Barbossa, in order to save Elizabeth, the love of Will's life, as well as recover the lost treasure that Jack seeks. Against improbable odds, they race towards a thrilling, climactic confrontation on the mysterious Isla de Muerta. Clashing their swords in fiece mortal combat, Will and Jack attempt to recapture The Black Pearl ship, save the British navy, and relinquish a fortune in forbidden treasure thereby lifting the curse of the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Detailed Plot</blog>

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated film, the thirtieth animated feature to be released by the Walt Disney Company. It was made and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and was originally released to theaters in November 22, 1991, by Walt Disney Feature Animation and was originally released to theaters in November 22, 1991, by Buena Vista Pictures. The animated film, one of the best-known of Disney's many classics, is an adaptation of the well-known fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, about a beautiful woman kept in a castle by a horrific monster. To this date, it is the first and only animated picture to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Beauty and the Beast stars the voices of Robby Benson (Beast), Paige O'Hara (Belle), Richard White (Gaston), Jerry Orbach (Lumière), David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth), and Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Potts).[[Beauty and the Beast (1991)|(more...)</blog>

Groundhog Day is a 1993 comedy directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis and based on a story by Rubin.

In the film, Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event (February 2) in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over and over again. Subsequent to his indulging in all manner of hedonistic pursuits, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities. more >>></blog>

In December 2006, Groundhog Day was one of 25 films that were added to the National Film Registry.

The Castle of Cagliostro is a 1979 film by Japanese animé director and manga artist Hayao Miyazaki. Its main character is Arsené Lupin III, the protagonist of a series of manga and animé created by Monkey Punch and A-Pro.

The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the most famous, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki (who also co-directed the first Lupin III TV series and directed two episodes of the second) before he formed Studio Ghibli. Cagliostro features gentleman thief Lupin III, grandson to Maurice Leblanc's French literary master thief Arsène Lupin. Some fans of the original manga version of Lupin III dislike this movie as Lupin comes across as too good-natured where the original Lupin III was a cynical, playboy character. However, Monkey Punch mentioned he particularly liked the film, although he did not quite agree with Miyazaki's interpretation. more ...</blog>

Casablanca on The Film Guide: Casablanca is a 1942 movie set during World War II in the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his love for Ilsa and his need to do the right thing by helping her husband, Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, escape from Casablanca and continue his fight against the Nazis.

The film was an immediate hit, and it has remained consistently popular ever since. Critics have praised the charismatic performances of Bogart and Bergman, the chemistry between the two leads, the depth of characterisation, the taut direction, the witty screenplay and the emotional impact of the work as a whole.

The full story ...</blog>

<blog title="The 13th Warrior">The 13th Warrior is a 1999 action film based on Michael Crichton's novel Eaters of the Dead, directed by John McTiernan and an uncredited Crichton, and starring Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Omar Sharif, and Vladimir Kulich as Buliwyf (Beowulf). The 13th Warrior was a disappointment at the box office, earning only US$61,698,899 worldwide.

The novel upon which the movie is based is loosely inspired by Richard Frye's translation of Ibn Fadlan's non-fictional account of his travels up the river Volga in the tenth century. The plot, however, is largely a modernized retelling of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, with elements added from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. The movie goes to some pains to achieve a historical atmosphere, including use of Arabic, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Greek, and Latin dialogue.

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