Gotcha!

This week's suggestion is a cute little spy flick from the 80's.
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Gotcha! stars Anthony Edwards as a college student who goes to Europe on vacation and unwittingly falls for a spy (Linda Fiorentino) who uses him as a courier.
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It is a little bit cliche in parts and a bit dated (KGB bad guys, East Germany...). But it's funny and suspensful. A good movie if you're in the mood for something light, yet isn't completely mindless.

Final

This week, my suggestion is the 2001 cerebral thriller Final.
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It's about a man who wakes up in a hospital babbling that he's from another time. He's suffering from delusions and flashbacks of an auto accident.
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It stars Denis Leary. Yes, THAT Denis Leary - comedian and usually bad actor. But in Final he shows that he actually can act!
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And it's a good thing. This movie is driven on atmosphere, dialogue and acting. This isn't an edge-of-your-seat thriller like The Sixth Sense. It doesn't have the big payoff like The Sixth Sense, and it's not as good (how many are?). But it is intriguing enough that I recommend seeing it.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

Time to change gears again (pun intended). Who Killed the Electric Car? is a must-see documentary from 2006.
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Written and directed by Chris Paine, this is an unflinching look at the electric cars from the mid to late 1990s and the forces that conspired against them: big oil, big business, California and federal governments...
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There is a lot of really good information packed into this movie. Why it makes more sense for electric rather than hydrogen, for example.
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I haven't seen Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, but I'd venture a guess that Who Killed the Electric Car? is as important a movie. If you haven't seen this yet, I recommend it highly!
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Paine is filming a sequel, Revenge of the Electric Car, which is due out in 2011. I can hardly wait. If it's half as good as the first it'll be worth the price to see it in the theatre.

Oscar

If you're in the mood for a silly comedy that won't strain your mind, you'll enjoy this week's suggestion: 1991's Oscar.
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It stars Sly Stalone as "Snaps" Provolone, a gangster boss (circa 1930s) who promises his dying father he'll give up the racket. Unfortunately for him, circumstances - along with the police, family, his henchmen - conspire against him.
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It's got a wonderful supporting cast: Tim Curry, Marisa Tomei, Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, Kutwood Smith, to name a few.
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This is a cute, light-hearted comedy in the same vein as Clue. It's directed by John Landis, one of the Clue writers.

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It isn't quite as good as Clue. But then again, very few are.

The Last Innocent Man

My suggestion this week is a taut court-room thriller from 1987, The Last Innocent Man.
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It's an HBO film starring Ed Harris as the best defense attorney in Portland. He's burned out but gets seduced into defending a man charged with murdering a woman vice cop.
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As always, Harris is great, and so is the supporting cast: Roxanne Hart (Highlander), David Suchet (Foolproof), and Bruce McGill (Animal House).
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It's rated R for nudity, language and a little violence.
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It got less-than-glorious reviews on imdb.com, and an average viewer rating of 6.6 out of 10 stars. But I really liked this movie.
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Yes, it has some cliches but the main characters are all 3-dimensional; superbly written, directed and acted.