Chris Columbus Movies

The son of Poseidon travels the Earth with the hopes of quelling a battle of the gods in this adaptation of the first book in Rick Riordan's best-selling children's book series. Veteran director Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) directs from his own script with co-writer Craig Titley. 3:10 to Yuma's Logan Lerman toplines a godlike cast that includes Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, and Sean Bean. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Heroes' star Haden Panettiere stars as Beth Cooper, a high school cheerleader whose plagued with romantic advances from the valedictorian of her class in the teen comedy I Love You Beth Cooper. Chris Columbus produces and directs the Fox Atomic production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

While Los Angeles has been the capital of major studio filmmaking in America since the early ears of the 20th Century, in the northern part of California, San Francisco has become home to a different breed of filmmaker -- artists who treasure their independence and carefully guard their creative vision, even while working in the highest echelons of the commercial movie business. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas are just two of the best-known directors to emerge from the San Francisco film community, and Fog City Mavericks is a documentary which pays homage to a number of important filmmakers from the City by the Bay. In addition to Coppola and Lucas, Fog City Mavericks profiles directors Clint Eastwood, Carroll Ballard, Philip Kaufman and Chris Columbus, pioneering independent auteur John Korty, experimental filmmaker Bruce Conner, producer Saul Zaentz, editor and sound designer Walter Murch, cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel, digital animation moguls Brad Bird, Pete Docter, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, and actor Robin Williams, and many more. While examining these individuals, the film also embraces the whole of the San Francisco film scene, and explains why these artists remain so loyal to their hometown. Fittingly, Fog City Mavericks received its world premiere at the 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this hit '80s hybrid of the horror movie and the teen flick, a single mom and her two sons become involved with a pack of vampires when they move into an offbeat Northern California town. Lucy (Dianne Wiest) and her sons, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim), move to Santa Carla to live with Lucy's lovable but curmudgeonly father (Barnard Hughes). Lucy gets a job from video store-owner Max (Edward Herrmann), then begins dating him, while Sam hangs out with Edward and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), a pair of vampire-obsessed comic-shop clerks. Soon Michael falls in with some actual vampires after becoming enamored of one of their victims: Star (Jami Gertz), a gypsy-like vixen who is trying to hold onto her humanity even though vampire leader David (Kiefer Sutherland) wants to play Peter Pan to her Wendy. When Michael visits the cavernous hangout of David and his cronies and unwittingly drinks from a wine bottle full of vampiric blood, he becomes an unwilling member of the bloodsucker biker gang. Soon, it's up to Sam and the Frog brothers to destroy David and his ilk without killing Michael and Star. Shot on location in the coastal California town of Santa Cruz and directed by Hollywood pro Joel Schumacher, The Lost Boys became a pop-culture phenomenon thanks to its attractive young stars, offbeat soundtrack, and hip, clever marketing campaign; the film's tagline -- "Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire." -- perfectly captured its knowing mixture of attitude and gore. The effects team who transformed Sutherland and company into snarling blood-suckers would go on to provide equally gruesome effects for Blade, another revisionist vampire flick, more than a decade later. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Straight-laced Henry Winkler takes a night-shift job as a morgue attendant. Winkler falls under the spell of wheeler-dealer coworker Michael Keaton, whose catchphrase "Is this a great country or what?" is the clarion call for his many get-rich-quick schemes. His latest plan is to turn the morgue into a nocturnal brothel, for the benefit of anything-goes hooker Shelley Long-and incidentally, to line their own pockets. Director Ron Howard and his frequent scripters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel turn the potentially lurid story material of Night Shift into an endearing comedy, with winning performances from its three often miscast stars. Keep an eye out during one of the party sequences for Kevin Costner as a carousing college boy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film adaptation of the Broadway musical based loosely on Puccini's opera La Bohème features many members of the original cast. It follows a year in the lives of seven friends living the disappearing Bohemian lifestyle in New York's East Village. AIDS and both its physical and emotional complications pervade the lives of Roger (Adam Pascal), Mimi (Rosario Dawson), Tom (Jesse L. Martin), and Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia); Maureen (Idina Menzel) deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne (Tracie Thoms), wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble; Benjamin (Taye Diggs) has sold out his Bohemian ideals in exchange for a hefty income and is on the outs with his former friends; and Mark (Anthony Rapp), an aspiring filmmaker, feels like an outsider to life in general, always behind the camera recording the events but never playing a part. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

This feverishly energetic comedy combines stop-motion animation and live action from director Henry Selick, creator of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). Brendan Fraser stars as Stu Miley, a cartoonist who created a randy monkey character called Monkeybone that has taken off in popularity, making him a celebrity. Stu's set to launch a TV series based on Monkeybone and marry his beautiful fiancée Julie (Bridget Fonda) when he's injured in a freak accident that puts him in a coma. He travels to Dark Town, a holding area for the comatose who wait to either regain consciousness or move on to the afterlife with the help of Death (Whoopi Goldberg). Dark Town is also a realm where fictional characters reside and before long Stu has met the vulgar Monkeybone, who travels back to the land of the living to inhabit Stu's body. Aided by Kitty (Rose McGowan), Stu must find a way to reclaim his body and put Monkeybone back in his place before the raunchy primate ruins his charmed life. Monkeybone is based on the cartoon graphic novel Dark Town by Kaja Blackley. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A single man faces the terrifying prospect of seeing his carefree life dashed by a visit from the stork in this comedy. Samuel Falkner (Hugh Grant) is a child psychiatrist who has no kids of his own and doesn't want any, which leaves him a bit shaken when his girlfriend of five years, Rebecca Taylor (Julianne Moore) announces that she's pregnant. Suddenly, Samuel is plagued by paranoid fantasies about how marriage and fatherhood will change his life, which are not at all soothed by frequent visits from Rebecca's chronically-pregnant friend Gail Dwyer (Joan Cusack) and her half-bright lummox of a husband, Marty (Tom Arnold). Too selfish to deal with Rebecca's needs, Samuel parts company with her and takes a last stab at playing the field, but when he sees an ultrasound of his soon-to-be-born son, he decides that it's time to face his responsibilities before it's too late. Nine Months also features Robin Williams in a small role as Dr. Kosevich, an ob-gyn with a weak grasp of the English language. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Chris Columbus mines Paddy Chaveysky's Marty for this bittersweet comedy about a lonely 38-year old Chicago cop dominated by his harridan mother. Danny Muldoon (John Candy), in spite of being well known and well liked in his neighborhood, still lives at home with his mother Rose (Maureen O'Hara, returning to the screen after a twenty year absence) and spends most of his time worrying about her. One night at the local Irish bar, he meets the shy Theresa Luna (Ally Sheedy), whose father is the local funeral director, and both Danny and Theresa immediately fall in love. The only obstacle to their happiness is the jaded opinions of Danny's friends. Rose, in particular, launches into a bigoted Italian salvo that intimidates Danny, making it difficult for him to continue the relationship. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The third installment in the widely beloved Spielberg/Lucas Indiana Jones saga begins with an introduction to a younger Indy (played by the late River Phoenix), who, through a fast-paced prologue, gives the audience insight into the roots of his taste for adventure, fear of snakes, and dogged determination to take historical artifacts out of the hands of bad guys and into the museums in which they belong. A grown-up Indy (Harrison Ford) reveals himself shortly afterward in a familiar classroom scene, teaching archeology to a disproportionate number of starry-eyed female college students in 1938. Once again, however, Mr. Jones is drawn away from his day job after an art collector (Julian Glover) approaches him with a proposition to find the much sought after Holy Grail. Circumstances reveal that there was another avid archeologist in search of the famed cup -- Indiana Jones' father, Dr. Henry Jones (Sean Connery) -- who had recently disappeared during his efforts. The junior and senior members of the Jones family find themselves in a series of tough situations in locales ranging from Venice to the most treacherous spots in the Middle East. Complicating the situation further is the presence of Elsa (Alison Doody), a beautiful and intelligent woman with one fatal flaw: she's an undercover Nazi agent. The search for the grail is a dangerous quest, and its discovery may prove fatal to those who seek it for personal gain. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade earned a then record-breaking $50 million in its first week of release. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Teenager Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) would rather party with her boyfriend, but when her beau breaks their date she reluctantly accepts a babysitting job. It isn't all TV and icebox-raiding when Chris' best friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) calls her to announce that she's stranded at the bus station. With her youthful charges in tow (one of whom, 15-year-old Brad (Keith Coogan), has a hopeless crush on the babysitter), Chris heads into downtown Chicago to go to Brenda's rescue. Thus begins a roller coaster ride of comic mishaps, unexpected perils and hairbreadth escapes. IN one bit, blues singer Albert Collins refuses to allow Chris and company to leave the nightclub they've wandered into until they agree to sing along with a song borrowed from, of all things the 1939 B-picture Nancy Drew, Reporter! . Screenwriter and Steven Spielberg protégé Chris Columbus made his directorial debut with Adventures in Babysitting. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Also released under the title Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear, this film follows the adventures of young John Watson (Alan Cox) when he is shipped off to boarding school and meets up with the brilliantly bizarre Sherlock Holmes (Nicolas Rowe). The two boys strike up a friendship and promptly become involved in the investigation of a number of mysterious murders. When their curiosity gets them into trouble with a dangerous religious cult, Watson and Holmes must struggle to avoid capture while attempting to notify the authorities. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide