Lynda Obst Movies

Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell, and Drew Barrymore are the stars of this Western whose main gimmick is making heroes into heroines. They all start out as prostitutes, as Cody (Stowe) shoots a drunken colonel who attempts to molest Anita (Masterson). She is about to be lynched for defending her friend when the other "bad girls" ride in and rescue her, pursued by detectives. The rest of the film follows their adventures as they get caught up in hostage situations, bank robberies, shootouts, and romantic interludes with handsome young cowboys with never a hair out of place or an unsightly smudge of Western dust. Amazingly, all four former prostitutes are able to ride, shoot, rope, and fight as well. Bad Girls is not likely to be thought of as a realistic view of how women lived in the Old West. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Terry Gilliam directed this adaptation of Richard LaGravenese's mystical (and mythical) tale of redemption in the hard-time town of New York City. Jeff Bridges is shock radio DJ Jack Lucas, whose low opinion of humanity lends itself well to his radio talk show, where the enmity rubs off on his listeners. One fan in particular takes Jack's rants to heart and goes to a fancy restaurant with a gun, murdering innocent diners. Jack is so distraught at what his on-air suggestion wrought that he sinks into a three-year depression, drinking himself to sleep and mooching off of his girlfriend Anne Napolitano (Mercedes Ruehl, in an Oscar-winning performance), an attractive owner of a video store. Hitting bottom, Jack slumps to the river, prepared to commit suicide. To his rescue comes a crazed but witty homeless man named Parry (Robin Williams), who tells Jack he's destined for great things -- all his has to do is find the Holy Grail (conveniently located in mid-town Manhattan) and save Parry's soul. He also wants Jack to help him out with the woman of his dreams, Lydia Sinclair (Amanda Plummer), a shy type who works at a publishing company. Parry was once a university professor became unglued by a tragic event in his past; Jack soon realizes that to save himself, he first must save Parry. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A young woman is faced with the disturbing reemergence of a man she once loved in this psychological thriller. Embry Langan (Charlie Hunnam) was a wealthy but reckless student at an exclusive private college until he mysteriously vanished, with airline tickets to Europe left unused and plenty of money still in the bank. Two years later, Katie Burke (Katie Holmes), Embry's girlfriend, is still dealing with his disappearance as she goes into the home stretch of her college career. With exams, a thesis, and job interviews to think about, Katie is already walking an emotional tightrope when Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt), a police detective, enters the picture. Handler, a recovering alcoholic, has been ordered to reopen the Langan case, and as he questions Katie about the missing man, she finds her obsession with her former beau taking over her life, which leaves her all the more unnerved when she begins seeing Embry around the campus. Meanwhile, Handler's investigation begins to suggest Langan's disappearance may have been more sinister than imagined, and could be connected with other cases of missing students. Abandon marked the directorial debut for screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for his script for Traffic. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Johnny Wolfe (Charlie Schlatter) is an Ohio teen whose alcoholic mother Marie (Tuesday Weld) has been a huge Elvis Presley fan since the 1950s. To cheer her up on her birthday, Johnny kidnaps the king of rock & roll (David Keith) after a 1972 concert. Elvis settles in to the Wolfe's den by decorating the house to his flamboyant tastes and helping Marie and her daughter Pam (Angela Goethals) through some difficult times. After Johnny convinces Elvis to perform with him at a high-school talent competition, he also lectures Elvis that he has lost touch with his roots and urges him do drop his schmaltzy Las Vegas image. This implausible but entertaining feature was given the go-ahead by the Presley estate and contains none of the legendary excesses that led to the king's death in 1977. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Two New Yorkers fight the battle of the sexes to a standstill (without entirely realizing it) in this romantic comedy. Andie (Kate Hudson) is a young journalist who longs to cover political stories, but in the meantime she finds herself writing for a women's magazine called Composure, where her editor Lana Jong (Bebe Neuwirth) has her writing a fluffy advice column. After hearing of the latest dating laments of her relationship-challenged friend Michelle (Kathryn Hahn), Andie sells Lana on the idea of writing a piece on the things women do to alienate the men they love, which she'll demonstrate by winning and then driving away a man in a mere ten days. Meanwhile, Ben (Matthew McConaughey) is an advertising man who wants to land a prestige diamond account at his firm. Ben is competing with his pals, Spears (Michael Michele) and Green (Shalom Harlow), for the assignment, so Ben tells his boss Phillip Warren (Robert Klein) that he's the man for the job because he understands the fair sex so well he can make any woman fall for him in less than two weeks. As fate would have it, Andie and Ben end up choosing one another for their mutual assignments, with neither knowing about each other's secret agenda as Ben strives to hold on to Andie while she does everything in her power to annoy him. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was loosely based on the self-help book of the same name (subtitled The Universal Don't of Dating) written by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Originally aired as a two-part miniseries on NBC, The 60's follows two families whose lives mirror much of the political and social tumult of that decade. The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian (Jerry O'Connell) joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael (Josh Hamilton) becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie (Julia Stiles) gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor (Charles S. Dutton), a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet (Leonard Roberts) moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton (David Alan Grier). The 60's incorporates much newsreel footage from the era in an attempt to give the proceedings a greater realism, as well as a soundtrack of many popular songs of the era, including a new recording of Bob Dylan's Chimes Of Freedom by Dylan and Joan Osborne. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the book by Meg Wolitzer, This Is My Life is the directorial debut for Nora Ephron, who adapted the script with sister, Delia Ephron. Dottie Engels (Julie Kavner) is a single mother with aspirations of becoming a standup comedian. When her Aunt Harriet dies, Dottie gets an apartment in Manhattan with her daughters, teenaged Erica (Samantha Mathis) and ten-year-old Opal (Gaby Hoffmann). Soon, Dottie's career is taking off and her agent, Claudia Curtis (Carrie Fisher), gets her on a comedy tour. Everything seems to work out well for Dottie, except that her daughters are left without a mother. Erica, who has just started dating Jordan (Danny Zorn) gets especially mad when she hears Dottie talking about her personal information on a talk show. The two girls are further upset with their mother's choice for a boyfriend, Arnold Moss (Dan Aykroyd). Eventually, Erica and Opal try to track down their real father, Norm (Louis di Banco), in upstate New York. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Even without money problems, many divorced single parents have a hard row to hoe. At the drop of a hat, a competent, responsible professional person can be reduced to a frazzled, bumbling parent, when his or her children become unexpected daytime wards. This is what happens to Jack Taylor (George Clooney) when his ex-wife suddenly decides to elope, leaving their daughter with him. Unhappily for him, his reporting job demands one-hundred-percent commitment as he attempts to link corruption with city hall. The same sort of thing is true in the life of architect Melanie Parker (Michelle Pfeiffer). She must not only somehow prepare a complex multimillion-dollar real-estate development presentation, but must also keep up the pretense that she doesn't have a son because her boss loathes children. When Jack flubs his assignment of getting the two children off on a school day-trip, he and Melanie, who barely know each other, have to take turns caring for the kids. Mishap follows mishap, as the initially antagonistic Jack and Melanie get to know one another. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide