B.J. Rack Movies

Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field makes her debut as a director of a theatrical feature with this gently satiric comedy. Mona Hibbard (Minnie Driver) is a woman from a small town in Illinois who never enjoyed much of a rapport with her parents. Looking for approval and validation, Mona began entering local beauty pageants in her early teens; now in her early 20's, Mona is still grimly determined to one day walk away a winner as she finds herself in the early innings of the Miss American Miss competition, organized by Verna Chickle (Kathleen Turner). Somewhere along the way, Mona became a single mother; determined not to let this stand in the way of a pageant victory, Mona has persuaded her best friend Ruby (Joey Lauren Adams) to raise her daughter Vanessa (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) as her own. However, Vanessa seems to have sensed that something is wrong; she feels a much greater bond with Mona than her "mother," and (like nearly everyone else), she's noticed that she looks a lot more like Mona than Ruby. Beautiful also features Kathleen Robertson, Bridgette Wilson, and Leslie Stefanson. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A straight-laced high-school valedictorian schemes to get the entire senior class stoned in order to circumvent his principal's mandatory drug-testing policy. Henry Burke (Matt Bush) is the kind of teenager every parent dreams about having; he never ditches school, gets straight A's, and he's secured a college scholarship to pay for his higher education. Unfortunately there's just one thing standing in between Henry and his bright future -- his high-school principal. An uptight authoritarian with a hard-line anti-marijuana stance, Principal Gordon (Michael Chiklis) announces that the entire senior class will undergo mandatory drug testing, and anyone who refuses will be immediately expelled. Henry has just danced with Mary Jane for the very first time, and now his entire future is on the line thanks to a few innocent tokes. But Henry is a bright kid, and when he and local pothead Travix Breaux (Sean Marquette) put their heads together, they come up with a brilliant plan to subvert the testing policy: if they can just get every student in school stoned, Principal Gordon's plan to crucify his pot-loving charges will go completely up in smoke. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In a near-future world in which the fast-paced digital lifestyle has given rise to a worldwide plague called Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, Johnny (Keanu Reeves), a data courier, accepts an assignment that he hopes will allow him to pay for the restoration of the childhood memories he dumped in order to outfit his brain with the microchip necessary for him to carry out his profession. Narrowly escaping a Yakuza ambush in which his employers are killed and the mnemonic trigger capable of unlocking the data in his brain is partially destroyed, Johnny travels from Beijing to New Jersey, where he hopes to recover the data before "neural seepage" destroys his mind. Teaming up with would-be bodyguard Jane (Dina Meyer) and a rebel group known as the LoTeks who live in an abandoned bridge, he tries to outrun the assassins of mysterious businessman Takahashi (Beat Takeshi Kitano) -- and the Street Preacher (Dolph Lundgren), a bionic madman. Along the way, he meets a mysterious electronic entity, a sentient dolphin, and Spider (Henry Rollins), a cybernetics expert, all of whom attempt, with various degrees of success, to learn why the data in Johnny's head is so important. Science fiction author William Gibson's original short story Johnny Mnemonic helped usher in the age of cyberpunk when it appeared in Omni magazine in 1981; it later appeared in the collection Burning Chrome (alongside the story that provided the basis for Abel Ferrara's New Rose Hotel). Although Gibson himself wrote the screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic, the film diverges considerably from the story. Molly Mirrors, a recurring character in Gibson's fiction, was replaced by the figure of Jane to fend off licensing conflicts with any future film version of Neuromancer, the author's most celebrated novel. Other plot elements -- most notably the LoTeks' bridge habitat -- were borrowed from later Gibson fiction such as the novel Virtual Light. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

While one would imagine that the average New Yorker would be used to dealing with bugs after years of apartment dwelling, a scientific experiment gone wrong results in an insect that even Raid can't handle in this sci-fi/horror thriller. In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading a deadly disease that is claiming hundreds of the city's children, so entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) uses genetic engineering techniques to create what she and her colleague (and husband) Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam) call the Judas Breed, a large insect that will feed on the disease carrying roaches. Since the Judas bugs have been designed so that they can't breed, the mutated species should die out in a matter of a few years. However, Susan, Peter, and their staff severely underestimated the cockroach's ability to adapt to its conditions. The Judas Breed has indeed found a way to reproduce itself, but more importantly, the insect has grown remarkably large (sometimes reaching six feet in length), has developed a taste for meat, and can mimic the appearance and behavior of other creatures with uncanny accuracy -- including humans. Susan and Peter have learned that huge swarms of the Judas Breed are living beneath the city in the subway system, and with the help of Leonard (Charles S. Dutton), a transit system employee who knows the labyrinth of subway tunnels like the back of his hand, they search out the humanoid insects before they can take over the city. Mimic also features Giancarlo Giannini, Josh Brolin, and F. Murray Abraham. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A sequel to the sci-fi action thriller that made him and star Arnold Schwarzenegger A-list Hollywood names, writer/director James Cameron upped the ante with this follow-up by employing a more sweeping storyline and cutting-edge special effects. Linda Hamilton returns as Sarah Connor, now a single mother to rebellious teen John Connor (Edward Furlong), during the late nineties. Having been informed by a time-traveling soldier in the first film that John will one day grow up to become humanity's savior from a computer-controlled Armageddon, Sarah has responded by becoming a muscle-bound she-warrior bent on educating John in survival tactics and battle strategies. Her ranting about humankind's future has landed Sarah in an insane asylum and John in the foster care system. The rebellious John has responded to his situation by getting into scrapes with the law. When a new and improved Terminator android called the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) arrives from the future to eliminate John, an older model T-800 (Schwarzenegger) is sent to protect the boy. The T-1000, however, has the ability to morph itself into any shape it desires, allowing it chameleon-like powers and near indestructibility. The T-800 saves John's life and helps break Sarah out of the institution. Staying only one step ahead of the dogged T-1000, Sarah leads her son and the T-800 to the headquarters of Cyberdyne Systems, the company that will invent a robotic intelligence that will eventually take over the world. There, they attempt to convince inventor Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) to help them stop the future from ever occurring by destroying his work. Dyson sacrifices himself in an explosion to save the world, leading to a final showdown between the two Terminators at a steel foundry. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), which won four Oscars in technical categories for its groundbreaking effects, was followed by a short sequel filmed exclusively as an attraction for theme parks, Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time (1996). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi