Michael-J.-Fox Movie Reviews

VHS movie reviews for "Michael-J.-Fox" sorted by average review score:

For Love or Money

Released in VHS Tape by Universal Studios (18 February, 1994)

MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Starring: Michael J. Fox and Gabrielle Anwar

With only a few exceptions (the Back to the Future series and a couple of others), Michael J. Fox has been unable to translate his TV success into movie stardom. It may just be a poor choice of material, such as with this limp Barry Sonnenfeld comedy about a New York hotel concierge trying to save up for his own hotel. What's he saving? The massive tips he gets from hotel guests for whom he does all manner of favors. But his conscience is tested when he falls for the mistress of one of his wealthiest clients and finds he must choose between his integrity and his dream. Fox is appealing, and so is Gabrielle Anwar, as the woman who changes him. But neither can rescue this slow-witted gloss on The Apartment. And what is Sonnenfeld, the stylish director of Men in Black and Get Shorty, doing with this dog? --Marshall Fine

Average review score:

this is about a woman named Gabrielle

Anwar, that is, who was at her peak in this movie. That faraway look she gives while waiting in the car of that Englishman, near the end of the movie, still haunts me to this day.

Otherwise, this is a remake of The Apartment starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine.

Feel Good Masterpiece

This is a fantstic movie. FOX and ANWAR are absoultley fantastic in this romantic comedy. Viewers will agree this movie has a 'feel' to it which a lot of movies (not just romantic comedies) fail to produce. I think it is a combination of the quality of writing and sonnenfelds directing with the Amazing proformances from not just the 2 stars but the supporting cast.

Oh yeah!!, one last thing this movie was VERY hard to find at AMAZON because Im from australia and this movie is called "The Conceirge" instead of "For Love or Money", i personally think the title "The concerige" sounds better because "For Love or Money" sounds like any romantic song or movie. However with the title "The concerige" the title spaces it out from the rest, which a movie like this should because this movie is simply amazing.

The Second Best MJF Movie...

The best being "Back to the Future", of course. However, this is by far the most underrated Fox movie, despite having memorable characters, clever plots, and a genuinely sweet spirit. A MUST-SEE for a Michael J. Fox fan.

For Love Or Money

Released in VHS Tape by Transworld Entertain (17 September, 1996)

MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Starring: Michael J. Fox and Gabrielle Anwar

Average review score:

this is about a woman named Gabrielle

Anwar, that is, who was at her peak in this movie. That faraway look she gives while waiting in the car of that Englishman, near the end of the movie, still haunts me to this day.

Otherwise, this is a remake of The Apartment starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine.

Feel Good Masterpiece

The Second Best MJF Movie...

Ripping Yarns

Released in VHS Tape by Twentieth Century Fox (26 September, 1991)

MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Directors: Alan J.W. Bell, Terry Hughes, and Jim Franklin (III)

After Monty Python's Flying Circus ended, the performers went their separate ways, and writing partners Michael Palin and Terry Jones enjoyed a modest success with Ripping Yarns, a series that gently mocked the kind of stiff-upper-lipped adventure stories that thrilled generations of schoolboys.

This tape contains three classic episodes, beginning with "Tomkinson's Schooldays," in which Palin plays a boy trapped in a bizarre boarding school where the pupils beat the headmaster and the school bully wields all the real power. When Tomkinson is caught trying to escape his punishment, he is to be entered in a grueling long-distance hopping race. Will his leg hold out? "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B" finds Palin in a German prisoner-of-war camp during the First World War. Sent there because of his repeated attempts to break out of every other camp, he finds his fellow prisoners curiously reluctant to make a bid for freedom. Undaunted, and determined to become the first man to escape from Stalag Luft 112B, he begins to build a glider from empty toilet-paper tubes. The final yarn in this collection is the best. "Golden Gordon" relates the finest hour of Gordon Ottershaw, the grimly faithful fan of a truly awful football team. When it appears that Barnstoneworth United will be disbanded to make way for a junkyard, Gordon sets out to put together his own team in the hope that he can see them win one more time. Anyone who has followed a sports team through a bad patch will feel Gordon's pain, and everyone else can watch out for a brief cameo appearance by John Cleese. --Simon Leake

Average review score:

Comedic Glow of the Setting Imperial Sun

Michael Palin is what is called a 'national institution' in Britain. An ex-Python man (no, not some snake tamer but an ex-member of the revolutionary 60s comedy group, Monty Python), he is also renowned for the simple charm of a series of travel programmes -- Around the World in 80 Days, etc. -- where his good manners, stiff upper lip, and self-deprecating humour are his true passport.

Ripping Yarns was a series of 30-minute comical tales filmed for the BBC, written with the help of fellow Pythoneer Terry Jones. The name evokes the old fashioned qualities of endurance, bravery, and heroism that you might find in an old book for boys from the period of the British Empire, and, indeed, most of the tales are set in the past and start out as mock heroic tales.

Although these yarns from the late 1970s actually make fun of the virtues on which the British Empire was supposedly based, there is clearly a lot of affection for that lost World as well.

In episode one, 'Tompkinson's Schooldays,' Palin playing an unhappy student makes fun of the brutality of the English public school sytem. One reviewer said this wasn't your typical English public school because the headmaster gets caned, the students are made to fight with a grizzly bear or are nailed to a wall as punishment, and the most important person at the school is the school bully who apparently occupies some kind of official position. In a strange way, however, this range of comic devises captures the sado-masochistic essence of what an old-fashioned English public school was like. It was this kind of institution that built up the self-control, hierarchy, discipline, and genial brutality necessary to build up and adminster a great empire as well as two World Wars.

Speaking of World War, episode 2 - 'Escape from Stalag Luft 112B' - takes aim at POW movies, portraying the rigid habits and stiff upper lip so essential to the self-worth of British officers. The lifestyle of the officers and the pointless meanderings of the escape committee, which exists more as a gentleman's club than an effective escape committee, is ridiculed. Palin plays a prisoner who arrives at Stalag Luft 112B not quite knowing the social rules of the prisoner officer class and tries to escape without going through the proper channels. In an odd way this seems to be criticising the inefficiency of British industry in the 1970s, which, entangled with old-fashioned procedures and official red-tape, was in a steep relative decline.

This story also reflects some of the class tension that Palin probably felt in real life when he left his working class background in Yorkshire to mix with upper class types at Oxford. The third episode on the tape, 'Golden Gordon,' reflects this working class culture with Palin playing Gordon Ottershaw, a dedicated fan of the local and very unsuccessful football team, Barnestoneworth United. The plot is reminiscent of the Magnificent Seven with Gordon cycling all over the Yorkshire dales to reassemble a team of old great players to fend off an attempt to sell the team and its stadium to a scrap dealer.

These tales are not only endearing and heart-warming, they are almost historical documents of a Britain that is fast disappearing -- losing its culture to America and its economy to Europe.

Simply Fabulous

If you like British Humor like Monty Python and friends you will certainly appreciate these Calssics. All the episodes on this tape and the other two tapes are incredibly funny. I can't believe they are no longer available even on video, if that is the case...WHERE ARE THE DVD'S?

Buy this video, you git!

Great stuff here. All 3 of the Ripping Yarns vids are excellent, & this, the first, is the strongest. Tomkinson's Schooldays & Golden Gordon are 2 of my favourite episodes from the series, & Escape From Stalag Luft 112B is right up there, too. Check it out.

Surviving Desire

Released in VHS Tape by Fox Lorber (26 March, 2002)

MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Director: Hal Hartley

Surviving Desire is actually three short films, two of which--"Theory of Achievement" and "Ambition"--demonstrate writer-director Hal Hartley at his most quirky and abstract. They consist mostly of a series of dialogues, presented out of context, about things like Brooklyn real estate, nonlinear art, and contrasting male and female approaches to suicide. Fans of Hartley will enjoy them; newcomers will probably find them baffling. The third film, however--"Surviving Desire," from which the collection takes its title--is one of the most charming pieces Hartley has made. This hour-long story follows Jude (Martin Donovan), a college teacher obsessed with a single paragraph from The Brothers Karamazov, who's fallen in love with Sofie (Mary Ward), one of his students who's writing a short story about him. As the romance plays itself out, philosophical conversations turn into metaphysical Abbott and Costello routines, Jude breaks into spontaneous dance, a rock band in the street serenades a woman in her apartment window--and gradually a rueful and whimsical sense of life and love rises out of Hartley's erratic rhythms. Hartley is an idiosyncratic filmmaker who's not to everyone's taste; this short film is probably an ideal introduction to his work. Some of his movies seem to be working too hard for a sense of poetry and end up feeling stilted, but in "Surviving Desire" all of Hartley's devices take flight. --Bret Fetzer

Average review score:

Ever Been A Human?

I laughed, I cried, I thought it was and is brilliant. Oh yeah, I fell in love with Martin Donovan. Hal Hartley saw inside my brain with this film. Jude (Donovan as college professor) falls for Sophie (his student), Jude (upset with himself and his life) is irritated with pal Henry for getting kicked out of college and getting "..a job in a bookstore".

Literary references, lust, cool music, spontaneous dancing, woeful action, marriage proposals, reality from the mouth of a homeless woman in red rubber boots... you recognize the characters as more than people like people you once met or now know, you discover yourself. So get it already!

Poetry Disguised as Film

Poets with an appreciation for life above the poverty line wisely select more frequented media like music, movies, or monology as their vehicle. The life of the most celebrated poets are still awash in Ramen and rent. Hartley's films are dense with pause-rewind-replay a line dialogue almost to a fault. I used to take myself as seriously as Hartley's roster of misfits sporting designer melancholy personas and crippled by philosphical dilemmas that serve as a nappy gnarled dreadlock for the movie to comb out. I loved Hartley's fims in my 20s. Now 39 I revisit with some wincing but not enough for me to change my mind that this and his other films are filled with true human wisdom and many revelations put into words for any willingly troubled liver of a non-illusion buffered life to intend to jot down but not find a pen within reach.

"I believe you are sincere & good at heart..."

This was the third Hartley film I saw & has remained my favourite. For me it holds all the quintessential characteristics of a Hartley film despite it not being feature length.Martin Donovan as usual gives a flawless performance as do the rest of the cast. Things to look out for......the bartender & the'dance routine'. GENIUS!

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

Released in VHS Tape by Ventura Distribution (09 April, 2002)

MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Director: Fred Olen Ray

Average review score:

A T&A & Blood & Guts Masterpiece!!

This movie has everything any red-blooded American male B-movie buff could ever ask for. Beautiful women. Killing. Beautiful women. Comedy. Beautiful women. A wiseacre detective a la Mike Hammer on valium. And all of it on the cheap. If you're one of those PC Nazis, you'll hate it, but if you can take low-brow comedy with a grain of salt it'll be a fabulous movie-going experience.

Funny, sexy

This is sure one funny/sexually appealing movie!...

The detective also was something else, he was such a funny guy!

In total favor of this movie...

A B-Movie Classic!

This movie is definitely not for everyone. Fans of low-budget horror and B-movies (you know, the ones so bad that they are good) will love it! Linnea Quigley is great in her role; she even does an erotic (sort of) dance with a chainsaw. What more could you ask for? I highly recommend this one. A+

High School Usa

Released in VHS Tape by United American Video (06 June, 1997)

MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Director: Rodney Amateau

Average review score:

I'm amazed I'd never heard of this film before. I bought it because I love Michael J. Fox and it looked like a funny movie. I was very impressed by it! Even though it was obviously a TV movie (there are fades for commercials still intact) and it is pretty low budget in terms of any kind of stunts or special effects, it's really funny and sports a great cast. In addition to Fox, you've got Anthony Edwards, Crispin Glover, Jon Gries, and half a dozen more recognizable names. The movie itself is really funny. It's about a guy (Fox) who likes a girl (Nancy McKeon), but she's dating the self-proclaimed king of the school (Edwards). Edwards' character and his cronies really give Fox's character (and the other non-kings) a hard time. So it's up to the underdogs to prove that kings don't belong in high schools. It's a great movie about friendship and there's even a drag race for an added bit of high school movie fun. Despite its moments of cheesiness, this is a real treat and I'd definitely recommend it.

an 80's must have!

I've been trying to find this movie for years! Another 80's classic, you'll be laughing all through the movie...."I'm getting my licence on Friday" is a classic line. This is a rare movie and a great classic to own.

Once of the best teen tv-movies of the 80s

Back in the 1980s, NBC had the midas touch when it came to making TV movies with the top teen stars of the period. This was the first of many: High School USA. It's also amazing because at the time, the teens of the cast were top stars:

Michael J. Fox (Family Ties) Nancy McKeon (The Facts of Life) Todd Bridges (Diff'rent Strokes) Dana Plato (Diff'rent Strokes) Crystal Bernard (Happy Days) Lauri Hendler (Gimme a Break) Cathy Silvers (Happy Days)

Even some up and comers like Crispin Glover and Anthony Edwards have notable roles. This wasn't only an 80s teenfest. It features some of the teen actors of the 50s and 60s, all who made welcomed returns to acting through this film. It has a funny plot and entangles many subplots. If you are a fan of 80s teen flicks, then get this one. It's fun to watch.

High School Usa

Released in VHS Tape by United American Video (22 August, 2001)

MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Director: Rodney Amateau

Average review score:

an 80's must have!

Once of the best teen tv-movies of the 80s

The X-Files: Conduit/Ice

Released in VHS Tape by Twentieth Century Fox (26 March, 1996)

MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Directors: William A. Graham, Paul Shapiro, Larry Shaw, Terrence O'Hara, Tucker Gates, James Wong (IV), Rod Hardy, Kim Manners, Robert Lieberman, and Richard Compton

Average review score:

"Ice" is a landmark.

"Conduit" is entirely forgettable, but "Ice," right out of the first season, is one of the scariest episodes ever--not from manipulative shock value, but essential drama. The real monster in this episode is fear, which can possess anyone with irrational violence at any time; the contagious worm is most frightening as a metaphor for this. The script is tight and the tension stellar, especially between the two leads, who let loose a little more panic than usual. The baby-faced young Scully charges around in a flnnel shirt and a sun-bleached, moisture-crimped ponytail, with unusually prominent authority as a scientist. The irony between the agents' first-season innocence and bewilderment and the intelligence of their dialogue and actions is in high relief.

conduit braught this tape down

I dont know what it was but conduit just wasnt that great of an episode, but it still wasnt a bad one either. But the money maker for this tape has to be ICE. Ice is about a parasite that gets into the back of people necks and can infect others with it. And of course mulder and scully, and a few other people are trapped in with whoever has it in their neck. i wont say who, but this episode is in my top 5. But i would say only rent it, because of conduit braught this tape down, if they would of replaced conduit with eve or something like that this would be perfect

ICE IS THE BEST EPISODE EVER MADE!

I am going to give a summary of Ice because frankly, I don't care about Conduit. Mulder, Scully, Two Doctors and a Geologist fly up to an Arctic outpost to investigate several girsly deaths. Almost immidietly, the pilot is killed by a worm like parasite that controlls it's host's mind. A storm suddenly hits the post and the rest are stranded with the worms. I won't say anything else because I would ruin the episode. I will say buy this tape over every other one.

Homeward Bound II - Lost in San Francisco

Released in VHS Tape by Disney Studios (23 April, 2002)

MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Director: David R. Ellis

This movie follows the unwritten law of sequels: bring back the same characters and put them in similar jeopardy with slightly tweaked circumstances. Instead of a cross-country journey, this time the pet trio must get from the San Francisco airport across the Golden Gate Bridge to their suburban home. Michael J. Fox and Sally Field return as the voices of Chance the bulldog and Sassy the cat, with Ralph Waite replacing the late Don Ameche as the elderly golden retriever. Their journey features dogfights, house fires, an epic battle with a pair of petnappers, and a love affair for Chance with a stray from the other side of the bridge (Carla Gugino). Sinbad voices another dog who guides them through the mean streets of the city by the bay, and Robert Hays stars as the father, but, frankly, that hardly matters. What does is the animals' banter, and they're funny. (Ages 3 and up) --Kimberly Heinrichs

Average review score:

What The Heck ??!!

I can't believe people actually liked this movie! I hated it! This is nothing but a rehash of the first movie. It has none of the charm. I loved the first movie-that was a good film. This one is not.

Thoroughly enjoyable; Possibly better than the first.

I adore this film. It is the absolute essence of what a "Good Sequel" should be. And so often Disney has made us believe that "Good Sequel" is an oxymoron! This one doesn't disappoint and definitely delivers the goods. "Homeward Bound" was an amazing movie. So was "The Incredible Journey." But "Homeward Bound II" is an entirely original, hilarious, beautifully made family movie. I watch it over and over, each time being as good as the first. I saw it with a friend and a sleepover recently and she'd never seen it before; she naturally found it wonderful.

NOT just a rehash of the original, "HB2" takes us on an adventure through San Francisco with the still-funny Chance, Shadow, and Sassy. Perfectly in sync with its predecessor yet pleasingly different enough, "HB2" is a love story as well. The best part of the film is Riley's gang of stray dogs. They are by far the most interesting characters in the movie, including Delilah, the Kuvasz who is Chance's love interest. (My question: Bando? What happens to the old bluetick coonhound after Delilah hooks up with Chance? Does he get with Sledge, the sheltie mix girl from the gang? Or does she like Stokey, the flea-infested terrier mix who is surprisingly charming and funny?)

From gorgeous scenery to run-ins with Ashcan & Pete, a boxer and bullmastiff just out looking for trouble, "HB2" is a great story from beginning to end. The score is superb. I read some crazy review of this movie which stated that the makers actually put gay jokes about animals in San Francisco!! I can assure you this is NOT true at ALL, and I don't know WHAT movie that reviewer was watching!!! There is nothing offensive in this film; it's perfect for family. Heck, I'm 16 and I've loved it for years.

Certainly underrated and underappreciated, "HB2" should not be missed! Let me recommend it to you so you don't miss out. It's a touching tale and a whole lot of meaningful fun.

Another amazing journey!

Now it starts off when the family is planning a plane trip to Canada. Chance the american bulldog thinks that instead of going to Canada he is going to the dog pound because his owner Jamie has been mean to him. Chance escapes from the cage and runs through the airport with Shadow the golden retriever and Sassy the Himilayan cat trying to stop him. Now these animals get lost in a city and comes across a gang of dogs that don't like humans.The animals will come across dog fights, rescuing a boy from a fire, and avoiding dog catchers. During their trip to finding the bridge back home Chance gets a girlfriend named Delilah.
This movie had it's funny moments like the first one but the only sad moment was when Chance lost his girlfriend going back home. I would recommend this movie if you liked the first one and see if you like it as much.

The Hard Way

Released in VHS Tape by Universal Studios (09 July, 1996)

MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Director: John Badham

Starring: Michael J. Fox and James Woods

In this raucous, high-energy action thriller from 1991, Michael J. Fox plays a spoiled Hollywood movie star who wants to bring vivid authenticity to his latest role as a big-city cop, so he recruits the real thing (James Woods) as his experienced mentor. This unlikely partnership doesn't sit too well with Woods, a hot-headed New York street cop who's a magnet for action-packed trouble. But that makes him just the right guy for Fox's research, which goes so far as to include Woods's girlfriend (Annabella Sciorra) and participation in some death-defying crime work. Fast, vulgar, and cranked at high volume, this is the kind of movie that contributed to the destruction of quality storytelling in mainstream Hollywood movies, but the screenplay scores bonus points for its lively characters and even livelier dialogue. Director John Badham is no slouch when it comes to action scenes, either, so if you buckle up and hold on tight, doing things The Hard Way can be surprisingly entertaining. To display the action in full widescreen glory, the DVD presents the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. --Jeff Shannon

Average review score:

They were fun to watch!

I am a james woods fan and a big MJF fan so i just made to enjoy this one. Rent it first to make sure you agree, cause I am the only one in the family that cares for this movie.

This movie's an excellent bad influence

Action is action, but the thing that makes this movie worth one's time is the dialogue. If your tongue is getting dull, this film makes a wonderful whetstone. It is not really either star's best work, but scenes from it are among the first images that come to my mind at mention of Woods or Fox. DVD technology is a major asset, because it brings the experience as close as it can be to sitting in the theater -- which is, really, the way films are designed to be enjoyed.

great action

this is a cool movie, and it's nice too see michael j fox in action. both he and james woods give a great perfomance. nice work

Michael-J.-Fox Movie Reviews

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