Mystic Pizza

Rating: R

Movie Release Date: October 21, 1988

DVD Release Date: January 9, 2001

Plot 411: Three friends struggle with love and life in small town Connecticut.

Review: This movie is like the female version of Diner, and it stars Julia Roberts as Daisy, Annabeth Gish as Kat and Lili Taylor as JoJo. The three girls are best friends (with Daisy and Kat being sisters) who work at a pizza joint in a small fishing town in Connecticut. They are all struggling with different identity crisises. Daisy feels threatened by her sister's impending departure to Yale and wonders about her future. Her way of dealing with this is to live up to her rep of wild nights. However, when she meets rich guy Charlie (Adam Storke) she dares to hope for a better future. Studious Kat envies her sister's carefree attitude and longs to fall in love. When she takes on a new babysitting job, she is drawn to her boss Tim (William R. Moses) despite his age and the fact that he's married. JoJo's problem is not the lack of a lover nor any doubt about her future. These are, in fact, her problems. After fainting at the alter, she isn't sure she's ready to marry her fiance Bill (Vincent D'Onofrio) and feels suffocated by her impending future. This is a great coming-of-age flick with which most girls will be able to relate. Small-town girls with big-city dreams is always a good theme. I really liked Gish's subtlety contrasted with Roberts' brash nature. And boy, did Roberts' have some big assets in this movie that I didn't notice her having before. She was J-Lo before there even was a J-Lo. Taylor was perfectly neurotic in her role, which made it all the funnier. We even get a peak at a very young Matt Damon in this movie.

Watch It: For a great '80s teen flick of doubt, soul searching and hormones.

Skip It: And go straight to Diner.

The Player

Rating: R

Movie Release Date: April 10, 1992

DVD Release Date: July 16, 1997

Plot 411: A movie producer murders a regected writer but the show must go on.

Review: This was a really interesting film about the movie industry. While I don't have any firsthand experience with that life, this movie really did paint a complete picture of what it could be like. I'd even go so far as to say it's probably an accurate portrayal. The plot bumps along pretty quickly and keeps your attention, but it's the little things in the background or the dialogue that make this film. The frenetic energy surrounding everything on the studio lot, during meetings and even at parties is all focused on making movies. There's not one aspect of life that seems devoid of trying to get your script produced or get actors on your film. It's all gotta be true. I loved all the snide comments and backstabbing. It's so Hollywood. Tim Robbins plays Griffen Mill, a producer at a major studio who believes he's getting replaced by Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher). In addition to this upheaval at work, he's also getting threatening postcards from one of the writers he hasn't bothered to call back. After confronting this writer (Vincent D'Onofrio), he accidently kills him and covers it up as a robbery. From there Mill's life spirals out of control as he tries to avoid being arrested. His life becomes one of the bad scripts he often rejects.

Watch It: For what I think is a very tongue-in-cheek inside look at the industry and a good idea of the difficulty of "making it" in the business.

Skip It: If you'd prefer to be oblivious and continue to write/audition in a vacuum. It might actually be better for you.