New York cabbie Pete Robbins (Michael Sarrazin) shares a house with invisible dragon Elliott (voice of Barbra Streisand). Acting on a tip from another driver, Pete decides to invest in pork bellies, but needs $3000. Elliott decides to get the money by dealing with various disreputable characters: loan sharks, cattle rustlers, and Pete's abusive adoptive parents
Dennis Quaid stars as Pete, a disillusioned ex-knight fleeing the evil King Terminus (Jim Dale), accompanied by his invisible green dragon companion, Elliott (voiced by Sean Connery). But the past is not so easily evaded, as an old act of loyalty draws Pete and Elliott back to the kingdom of Passamaquaddy to right a great wrong and free the people they had turned their backs on.
It’s a very cheesy movie, but I like Dragonheart. Here’s a fan-made trailer that I think captures some of the best elements of the movie.
Master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) and the unacknowledged love of his life, Yu Shu Lien (Helen Reddy) search for the thief of the Green Destiny Sword – actually a disguised cartoon dragon named Elliot – tracking it to Pasamaquaddy, Maine. There, they find it in the possession of a young man named Pete (Zhang Zhiyi), who uses his extraordinary martial arts abilities and Elliot’s fiery breath to fight off the evil duo of Dr. Terminus (Jim Dale) and the Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-Pei) while saving a ship in a terrible storm and taking part in extravagant musical numbers.
And if you think that’s a strange mix, check this out.
Apprentice wizard Pete (Peter MacNicol) is sent by his master to slay a dragon to stop its terrible practice of demanding virgin sacrifices. When he meets the dragon, however, the two form a friendship that allows them to stand against the mundane oppression of the outside world. And then the dragon has to go and kill the princess, ruining everything.
Aside from the title, this little clip really has nothing to do with either movie. But the guy shoots of a home-made bazooka – how cool is that?
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The Dollanger children move to their grandparents' summer home under the condition, imposed by their stern grandmother (Louise Fletcher), that they remain sequestered in the attic and never venture downstairs. Their strange new life of implied incest and sugared donuts is threatened when an invading force of extraterrestrials also moves into the attic. Mayhem ensues. Memorable scenes of oldest daughter Cathy (Kristy Swanson) going all Slayer on the ETs.
Aliens in the Attic opens tomorrow. We fear for the future of humanity.
Displaced New Jerseyite Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio) finds a mentor in aging bank robber and handyman, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman). Butch teaches his young protégé how to defend himself against the Cobra Kai, a gang from a local karate school. To settle things once and for all, Butch convinces Daniel to enter the local karate tournament, never dreaming that the final opponent is the entire Bolivian Army!
This movie made an indelible mark on my psyche when it first came out. This scene is, to many people of my generation, a defining moment in cinema. And no, I’m not telling you what generation that is.
And, just for fun, here’s a very famous kick from the other movie.
A pair of alien children (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig), apparently abandoned by their parents on Earth to try and avert an invasion, enlist the help of a pair of cowboys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) and a cabbie (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) to help them evade the evil forces hunting them and get them back home. But an unusual bond develops between the cowboys, leading to a night of passion that the children shouldn’t have been allowed to watch, and which makes the cabbie strangely thoughtful.
This is just wrong. On every conceivable level. But you’re going to watch it anyway, aren’t you?
Miss Beatrix Potter is a young woman whose mother has forbidden her to enter the local school of sorcery. However, the temptation is too much. She applies, is accepted, and attends the school where she learns all about wishing and mycology. When an amorous changeling half-rabbit/half-man named Harry begins chasing her about campus, Miss Potter uses all of her powerful education to transform herself into a scarecrow and frighten him away.
Not all imaginary giant rabbits are our friends.
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During the Great Depression, a funeral-chasing con artist (Ryan O'Neal) who sells bibles to widows, finds himself stuck with an orphaned child who may or may not be his own. On his way to deliver the child to her aunt, the grifter continues to sell bibles to grieving widows until he knocks on the door of one and falls in love with her sister, Cher.
When you fall in love, it's like getting pizza in your eye.
[We briefly considered doing a Thursday Three-Way of bug movies in June. ("June Bugs." Get it?) In the intro, Phil would have said something to the effect that his anal obsessive-compulsive precocious freak-nerd nine-year old self would have impatiently pointed out that "June Bug" is incorrect nomenclature. They are, in fact, May Beetles. But nearly forty years later, mellowed by good food, better beer, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Phil is now prepared to accept the popular sobriquet. And besides, it's a B-52s song. As a farewell to June and its bugs, here is one spectacular bug-movie mash-up from Phil.]
To save them from the Blitz, the four Pevensie children are sent to the countryside to stay with their uncle, eccentric entomologist Dr. Nils Hellstrom. There they travel through a mystic portal to a strange realm where insects rule. With Tilda Swinton as the evil sorceress Thysania, James McAvoy as Mr. Attagenus, and Liam Neeson as the voice of the messianic Myrmeleo.
When I was nine years old my mother took me to see this movie, resulting in nearly four decades of screaming nightmares. Thanks, Mom.
Harry Potter (Jim Breuer) discovers an old book marked mysteriously "This book is the property of the Half Baked Prince" and teaches his friends Ron (Harland Williams) and Hermione (Guillermo Diaz) a few long-hidden secrets of herbology (ahem). When Ron is sent to Azkaban for accidentally killing Professor McGonagall's diabetic hippogriff with food he purchased on a munchie run, his friends set up an illegal herb racket with wizard-rapper Sir Smokes-a-lot (Dave Chappelle) to bail him out. Magical hijinks ensue.
Today is the birthday of prolific My Left Footloose contributor The Procrastinator (Squeal Like a Pig!, Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.) and we thought we'd celebrate by messing with her favorite actor, Alan Rickman. A gift? This delicious clip of Alan singing... just for you. Happy Birthday!
If that made you cry, buck up with John Sessions' excellent Alan Rickman impression in this excerpt from British panel show QI. Stick around 'til the end for why Rickman actually sounds the way he does.
A New York housewife (Barbra Streisand), bored with her life and marriage, attaches thousands of helium balloons to her house so that she can escape her humdrum existence. A young computer-animated boy stows away with her, they fly to South America, hilarity ensues, etc.
Will this be another hit for Pixar? (SQUIRREL!) Of course it will. "Up" opens today.
Catholic schoolgirl Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) teams up with symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) to foil a sinister Illuminati plot to blow up the St. Francis Academy for Girls with an antimatter bomb.
The official full-length trailer for Angels and Demons, which opens tonight.
On the evening of his retirement, aging Norwegian train engineer (and part-time elephant) Horten is startled by a voice coming from a tiny speck of dust, and is forced to reconsider his life and his loneliness. The inhabitants of the dust speck teach him the mantra, "A person's a person, no matter how old," which helps him cope with the grim retirement party thrown by his coworkers (a kangaroo and several evil monkeys).
A secret government agency dedicated to child-power energy generation recruits a crack team of agents -blue ogre Sully, walking eyeball Mike, a Brobdingnagian Sigourney Weaver, and a cockroach with the body of Hugh Laurie - to combat an invading horde of acid-spewing extraterrestrials whose offspring burst out of people's stomachs.
To rescue his swamp from an alien threat, an antisocial ogre enlists the help of Starfleet cadets Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhuru, Chekov, and Scott to transport a princess across the wilds of uncharted space. Along the way, the ogre falls in love and lots and lots of things blow up... and, according to the trailers, there's some sex.
The long-awaited J. J. Abrams adaptation of Star Trek opens tomorrow... or in some cities, today.
Max, a lion from the New York Zoo, travels to Africa and has a passionate affair with a Danish plantation owner (Meryl Streep).
Based on the post-apocalyptic children's novel by CS Lewis. In the year 2707, Thomas Jane leads a campaign of orphaned children through a mystical piece of furniture to Narnia, which has been destroyed by a war among four corporations and devastated by a mutant menace (Tilda Swinton) which threatens to kill all remaining human life.
The screening of Mutant Chronicles at ComiCon was roundly hated, but the director's been given the time and money to rework it so there's hope. The new version opens tonight with "Automatic small arms fire, explosives, and <pause> swords."
An escaped circus elephant returns to the Big Top to liberate his still-captive buddies. Highlight: memorable use of a magic feather in the air-strike scene.
An abortion clinic worker with a special heritage is called upon to save humanity from two renegade angels trying to exploit a loophole and re-enter Heaven. Spoiler: God is a sheepdog.
New My Left Footloose writer Steve is also a talented and twisted graphic artist. Just for you, he made this delicious movie poster for The Shaggy Dogma.
As Hannah Montana's popularity begins to take over her life, pop idol Miley Stewart takes a trip to her hometown to spend time with her family. There she becomes embroiled in their neuroses and extramarital affairs. She returns to her career exhausted, having concluded that being famous is more satisfying than anything else in the world - which breaks her father's achy, breaky heart.
Disney's feel-good Cyrus-fest Hannah Montana: The Movie opens tonight.
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