November at the movies
It's month number eleven in our '90s Movie of the Month Club. This month we focus on the best '90s movies released in the month of November... studios tend to release their Oscar worthy performances and best picture candidates.
This is November. The air is getting colder and the drinks are getting warmer. Let's watch some movies.
Misery (1990)
Novelist Paul Sheldon crashes his car on a snowy Colorado road. He is found by Annie Wilkes, the “number one fan” of Paul’s heroine Misery Chastaine. Annie is also somewhat unstable, and Paul finds himself crippled, drugged and at her mercy.
Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: James Caan, Kathy Bates
Malcolm X (1992)
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the ’50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
Director: Spike Lee
Cast: Denzel Washington, Angela Basset, Albert Hall
Scent of a Woman (1992)
Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous middle-aged man who lives with his niece and her family.
Director: Martin Brest
Writer: Giovanny Arpino, Bo Goldman
Cast: Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, Gabrielle Anwar
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Wealthy and precocious teenager Juliet transfers from England to New Zealand with her family, and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. When their parents begin to suspect that their increasingly intense and obsessive bond is becoming unhealthy, the girls hatch a dark plan for those who threaten to keep them apart.
Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Kate Winslet, Melanie Lynskey
Leon: The Professional (1994)
Leon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective “cleaner”. But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda’s thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Leon’s footsteps.
Director: Luc Besson
Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman
Casino (1995)
In early-1970s Las Vegas, low-level mobster Sam “Ace” Rothstein gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he’s a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro, his ex-hustler wife Ginger, her con-artist ex Lester Diamond and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
In director Baz Luhrmann’s contemporary take on William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard’s dialogue remains.
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes
Set it Off (1996)
Four black women, all of whom have suffered for lack of money and at the hands of the majority, undertake to rob banks. While initially successful, a policeman who was involved in shooting one of the women’s brothers is on their trail. As the women add to the loot, their tastes and interests begin to change and their suspicions of each other increase on the way to a climactic robbery.
Director: F. Gary Gray
Cast: Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Kimberly Elise
Sling Blade (1996)
Karl Childers is a mentally disabled man who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, John Ritter
The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors’ and victims’ families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Director: Atom Egoyan
Cast: Ian Holm, Sarah Polley
Starship Troopers (1997)
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico’s military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as “the Bugs”.
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards
Elizabeth (1998)
The story of the ascension to the throne and the early reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, the endless attempts by her council to marry her off, the Catholic hatred of her and her romance with Lord Robert Dudley.
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes
Enemy of the State (1998)
Hotshot Washington lawyer, Robert Dean becomes a victim of high-tech identity theft when a hacker slips an incriminating video into his pocket. Soon, a rogue National Security agent sets out to recover the tape – and destroy Dean.
Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight
All About My Mother (1999)
A single mother in Madrid sees her only son die on his birthday as he runs to seek an actress’ autograph. Beside herself with grief, she returns to Barcelona to tell the boy’s father about the death of the son he never knew he had.
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Cast: Penelope Cruz
The Insider (1999)
Tells the true story of a 60 Minutes television series exposé of the tobacco industry, as seen through the eyes of a real tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand.
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer
Trouble deciding which movie to watch tonight? Spin the wheel. Let fate decide.
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