Explorers (1985, Wolfgang Müller)
This film blends some elements of E.T.. with The Goonies and classic sci-fi films, as three young friends are drawn into a space fantasy adventure. The protagonists of this film are three neighborhood kids, Ben Crandall (Hawke), Wolfgang Müller (Phoenix), and Darren Woods (Presson).
Ben is obsessed with aliens, and one night he has a dream about a circuit board. He proceeds to draw out the board; with the aid of the brainy Wolfgang, the two friends begin to assemble the device. After a fight at school, Ben meets Darren, a new kid in the neighborhood that appears to be tough. The three continue working on the circuit board. All three have a recurring dream which includes seeing each other and flying about a giant version of the circuit board.
They quickly discover that the circuit board enables the creation of a sealed bubble that can be remotely steered. It can force open the ground and allows space travel.
The first bubble is made in their workshop, and is about 3 inches diameter, and makes holes in anything that it goes through. Their next experiment is away from town. The bubble is about 5 feet diameter and forms around one of the boys and gives him a scary unexpected flight.
The three build a home-made spacecraft out of an amusement ride seat (a "Tilt-A-Whirl"), with windows from washing machines and televisions. Darren names it the Thunder Road, after the Bruce Springsteen song. Their first flight results in property damage and a close call with the police, and a UFO report in a newspaper. They do not want to finish where the circuit board is taking them, so they reverse polarity (shutting the bubble off, which allows in a fresh supply of air) and return to the ground.
Another dream and circuit board results in a device that creates oxygen. They install three breathing apparatuses connected to this device. Two of these apparatuses are each a small medical mouth-and-nose transparent oxygen mask coupled to the air supply by a thin transparent hose. The other is a wider single corrugated black hose linked to a scuba diving full face mask of the type with two flat eye windows and an inner mouth-and-nose mask.
They embark on an adventure deep into outer space. An alien spaceship shows up and scoops up the boys' spaceship. Ben and Darren get separated from Wolfgang. They end up meeting an intimidating spider-like robot that proceeds to smell and frisk them. They then come across Wak (Robert Picardo), a friendly but odd alien. They set out to look for Wolfgang, who is lounging under a window with Neek (Leslie Rickert), a female alien. Both of the aliens are enamored with TV and radio signals they can pick up; Wak mimics sounds and voices perfectly and proceeds to entertain them. The boys discover that the aliens have been sending the circuit schematics to Ben's dreams in order to meet some of the people who have been beaming the signals into space.
A bigger spaceship shows up and scoops up the aliens' ship. Wak suggests to the boys that they are space pirates and tries to get the boys to leave quickly. Before they reach the boys' ship, it proves to be carrying the aliens' father and that Wak and Neek are errant children who stole one of the family cars. The father alien reprimands the alien children, visibly angry at the theft as well as the presence of the Earthlings. Neek gives Ben a flat round device about 4 inches diameter. When asking what it is, Ben is told "The stuff that dreams are made of". The boys are quickly sent home by the father alien.
After the flight, the boys' spaceship lands in a harbor and sinks, but the boys swim to land safely. Lori Swenson (Amanda Peterson), a girl in Ben's class that he has a crush on, has a dream involving the three boys and wakes up to see the crash of the ship.
At the end of the film, the three boys experience another dream. Ben is in class when the communication device starts glowing. The students disappear, to be replaced by the Thunder Road. Ben goes to touch the ship, and the dream moves to the three boys flying towards a more complicated circuit board. This time Lori shares the dream, and the four children begin to fly through clouds, wondering what the next adventure will be.
Stand by me (1986, Chris Chambers)
Stand by me is a coming of age film set in the fictional castle rock, Oregon in 1959. It portrays a journey embarked by four 12 year old boys across the woodlands near their hometown to see the dead body of another boy wo was close to their own age. The film is told to the recollection of the main character, Gordie Lachance, a freelance writer. It describes how his friend Vern overheard his older brother discussing the body of a missing boy after accidentally coming across it in the woods with his friend.
The lead characters go on a journey into the woods to find the body of a boy named Ray Brower, who was struck by a train while picking berries in the woods. Throught the boys misadventures and conversations, the viewer learns about each characters personality. Each of the boys for varying reasons, lives in the shadow of their fathers and older brothers.Gordies talent for storytelling (as illustrated by his improvised short story LARD-ASS") pegs him as the most likely of the four to have a promising future.
The film contrasts the four main characters, who are depicted as well-meaning and relatively and virtuous, with a gang of bullies led by a local hood, "Ace Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland)
Characters
The main characters are Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton)and his three friends Chris Chambers (River Phoenix), Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman) and Vern Tessio (Jerry O´Connell), all twelve years old.
Each has a physical and/or emotional burden. Chris is from a family of criminals and alcoholics and, despite his intelligence and desire to break the generational curse, he is usually stereotyped accordingly. Teddy is an eccentric and physically deformed after his mentally-unstable father (whom Teddy sees as a war hero who "stormed the beach at Normandy") held his ear to a stove and nearly burned it off, thus forcing him to wear a hearing aid. Vern, overweight and timid, is easily scared, and thus often picked on. Gordie is a quiet, bookish boy with a penchant for telling stories, rejected by his father following the death of his football-star older brother Dennis "Denny" Lachance (John Cusack) in an automobile accident. The story is narrated by the adult Gordie (Richard Dreyfuss), who makes brief appearances at the beginning and end of the film.
The Mosquito Coast (1986, Charlie Fox)
Maverick inventor Allie Fox finds little support for his inventions in the United States. He is a highly open-minded man, disgusted by American culture, economic structure, and class division. In an act of extreme rebellion, he decides to move to the Mosquito Coast of Honduras with his wife and four children. There he purchases a township in the jungle, from a businessman in a local bar. After many difficulties, the Fox family finally arrives at the small town of Jeronimo, the little village Allie had previously purchased. Allie Fox then starts to create his own anti-establishment paradise in Honduras, and lives there with the indigenous Zambus and Maywit family.
Under Allie's authoritarian leadership, his family, the Zambus and the Maywits manage to build a comfortable settlement in the jungle. The small village includes an ice factory (dubbed the "Fat Boy", one of the most brilliant among Allie Fox' inventions), providing useful cooling for the settlement and the entire region. During several occasions Allie enters into conflict with Reverend Spellgood, a missionary who wishes to spread the word of Christianity to his township. One day three armed men demand to stay at the settlement. The threat and loss of freedom is countered by Allie making a bedroom for the men inside the ice factory, trapping them inside and attempting to kill them using the machine's rapid freezing process. However, the three guerrillas start shooting from inside, causing an explosion which not only kills them, but also destroys the whole settlement and pollutes the river.
Although the other family members want to return to the U.S., Allie insists in starting a new life again, at a new location. He lies to them, saying the U.S. has been destroyed in a nuclear war, which some of the children believe. On occasion, family members plan to sneak away to leave, or even consider killing Allie. As Mr. Haddy, a local man and friend of the family, had warned, during the rain season the water level gets high and their new settlement is also destroyed.
On the move again, the Fox family arrives at a mission church and small township. Suffering from mental anguish, Allie sets the church on fire, after which the missionary with whom he had come into conflict earlier shoots him. On the way home, travelling downstream by boat, he is paralyzed and dying. The family lies, telling him that they are going upstream, as he wants. They are in reality going downstream towards the ocean and back to America.
The book is written from the viewpoint of the eldest son, Charlie.
A night in the life of Jimmy Reardon/Aka Aren´t you even going to kiss me goodbye (1988, Jimmy Reardon)
The teen drama A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon is directed by William Richert, who adapted the screenplay from his own semi-autobiographical novel Aren't You Even Going to Kiss Me Goodbye? Set in a wealthy Chicago suburb during the 1960s, middle-class Jimmy Reardon (River Phoenix) hangs out with his upper-class best friend, Fred Roberts (Matthew Perry), and sleeps with Fred's snobby girlfriend, Denise Hunter (Ione Skye). He spends his time writing poetry and drinking coffee while he decides what to do after high school. His parents won't help him pay for tuition unless he attends the same business college as his father did, but Jimmy doesn't want to follow that path. Instead, he focuses on coming up with enough money for a plane ticket to go to Hawaii with his wealthy yet chaste girlfriend, Lisa Bentwright (Meredith Salenger). On the night of a big party, Jimmy is given the task of driving home his mother's divorced friend, Joyce Fickett (Ann Magnuson), who conveniently seduces him. Since he is late picking up Lisa, she goes to the dance with the rich Matthew Hollander (Jason Court) instead. Jimmy then crashes the family car and shares an intimate rapprochement with his father (Paul Koslo).
Little Nikita (1988, Jeff Grant)
Roy Parmenter is an FBI agent in San Diego; 20 years ago his partner was killed by a Soviet spy, nicknamed Scuba, still at large. Scuba is now trying to extort the Soviets; to prove he's serious, he's killing their agents one by one, including "sleepers," agents under deep cover awaiting orders. Roy interviews a high school lad, Jeff Grant, an applicant to the Air Force Academy. In a routine background check, Roy discovers that Jeff's parents are sleepers. He must see if Jeff is also a spy, confront the parents yet protect them, and catch his nemesis. Meanwhile, the Soviets have sent their own spy-catcher, the loner Karpov, to reel in Scuba. Alliances shift; it's cat and mouse. Written by J. Hailey /
Running on empty (1988, Danny Pope/Michael Manfield)
The story revolves around parents Annie and Arthur Pope (Lahti and Hirsch) who in the 1970s were responsible for the anti-war protest bombing of a napalm laboratory. The incident accidentally blinded and paralyzed a janitor who wasn't supposed to be there. They've been on the run ever since, relying on an underground network of supporters who help them financially. At the time of the incident, their son Danny (Phoenix) was two years old. As the film begins, he is in his late teens, and the family (along with younger son Harry) are again relocating and assuming new identities.
As the film progresses, Danny's overwhelming talent as a pianist catches the attention of his music teacher at high school. The teacher begins to pry into Danny's personal life, particularly questioning why records from his previous school are unobtainable. While he pushes Danny to audition for Juilliard, Danny also falls in love with Lorna (Plimpton), the teacher's teenage daughter.
As the pressure to have his own life and realize his own dreams intensifies, Danny reveals his family secret to Lorna. Meanwhile, Annie finds out about Danny's audition, and begins to come to terms with the fact that she must let her son go and find his own way. This does not sit well with Arthur, even as Annie risks their safety to contact her estranged father and arrange a home and life for Danny if they should decide to leave him behind.
In the end, Arthur realizes that he is becoming the very type of authoritarian that he once rebelled against, and that he has no right to limit his son's freedoms. The family leaves Danny behind and heads off for their next identity in a new town.
Indiana Jones and the last crusade (1989, Young Indiana Jones, just in the prologue)
The prologue depicts a young Indiana Jones in 1912 as a Boy Scout in Utah, battling graverobbers for the Cross of Coronado (an ornamental cross belonging to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado). As the foiled grave robbers give chase, Indiana hides in a circus train, in the process using a whip, scarring his chin, and gaining a fear of snakes. Although he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the Sheriff that Indiana was the thief, and he is forced to return it, while his oblivious father, Henry, is working on his research. The leader of the hired robbers, dressed very similarly to the future Indiana, gives him his fedora and some encouraging words. In 1938, an adult Indiana is on the robbers' ship, the Coronado, off the Portuguese coast, retrieving the Cross and donating it to Marcus Brody's museum.
I love you to death (1990, Devo)
Joey Boca (played by Kevin Kline) is the owner of a pizza parlor located in Tacoma, Washington and has been married to Rosalie (played by Tracey Ullman) for years. Rosalie is horrified to discover than Joey is a womanizer, and has been cheating on her for a long time.
Rosalie doesn't want to allow Joey the pleasure of having every woman he wants, so she refuses divorce. Taking extreme measures, she enlists the help of her mother (played by Joan Plowright), and co-worker Devo (played by River Phoenix) to kill Joey in order to put an end to his infidelity. They also hire two incompetent, drugged-out hitmen (played by William Hurt and Keanu Reeves).
However, Joey proves nigh on impossible to kill. Despite multiple attempts to poison, shoot, and bludgeon Joey to death, he remains blissfully unaware that he is being targeted.
My own private Idaho (1991, Mike Waters)
The story follows two friends, Mike (River Phoenix) and Scott (Keanu Reeves), as they embark on a journey of personal discovery that takes them to Mike's hometown in Idaho and then to Italy in search of Mike's mother. Scott is based on Prince Hal, the son of the king in the Shakespearean history Henry IV. He is the son of the wealthy mayor of Portland, Oregon and claims his street behavior, which includes prostitution to male clients, is largely rebellion. Mike, however, is gay, narcoleptic and has no other means of support. The two develop a strong friendship that is tested by Scott's ambivalence to street life and his forthcoming inheritance, as well as Mike's romantic affection for his companion.
The hustling aspect of the film presents male intimacy that "flirts with the possibility that its protagonists are gay" Aside from this, hustling sets up an environment centered on the road already. Mike and Scott's situations differ because of Mike's particular restriction of means of support. Scott on the other hand maintains an heir position which he plans on embracing after his twenty-first birthday. Therefore motivation to go on the road is unique to each character. The lack that Mike holds leads him to take on the road to find his mother, while Scott's temporary rebellion against his father influences him. While on the road, each of the characters is faced with life changing situations and people. For Mike, the journey seems to continue endlessly, time repeats itself because he is again abandoned. The first time he was abandoned by his mother, this time his best friend Scott does so. Conversely Scott's plan to change into a good son is enabled by the finding of a wife on the road and return to his family. Both of these journeys trace recurring road movie character motives and endings that transform character identity.
Dogfight (1991, Eddie Birdlace)
The first portion of the film is set on November 21, 1963 (the day before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated). Birdlace and three of his Marine buddies have arrived in San Francisco for twenty-four hours, before shipping off to Vietnam, and are planning on attending a "dogfight" that evening. They separate to attempt to find dates, and Birdlace ducks into a coffee shop, where he encounters Rose, a waitress, on her break, practicing her guitar. She is not particularly ugly, but Rose is rather plain, and is shy and extremely awkward. Birdlace attempts to charm her, complimenting her on her guitar playing, and inviting her to a party. She is suspicious of his motives, but decides to accept his invitation.
While walking to the bar where the party is to be held, Birdlace begins to have second thoughts about playing such a cruel trick on Rose, and attempts to talk her out of going in. However they encounter one of Birdlace's buddies and his "date" in front of the bar, and so he has no choice but to proceed with Rose into the dogfight. Rose does not win the dogfight; Marci, the date of Birdlace's friend, Benjamin (it is later revealed that she is actually a prostitute whom he has hired) is the winner. In the ladies room, Marci clues Rose into the true nature of the party. Rose is devastated, and tears into Birdlace, and then storms off. Birdlace immediately regrets having treated Rose so cruelly, and chases after her. He convinces her to let him buy her dinner, in an attempt to make it up to her.
After dinner, the two walk to a club where Rose hopes to perform soon, and then to an arcade. Birdlace is surprised to find himself enjoying spending time with Rose, so much so that he forgets that he was to have met up with his three buddies at a tattoo parlor where they were to get matching tattoos to solidify their friendship. Rose tells Birdlace about her dream to become a folk singer, and he reveals to her that he will be shipping off to "a little country called Vietnam" the following day. She offers to write to him, and asks if he will write back. Birdlace walks Rose home, and they share an awkward moment on her doorstep, before she hesitantly invites him in. They attempt to talk but end up engaged in a clumsy, self-conscious sexual encounter.
As he is leaving, Rose gives him her address and asks him to write. Birdlace meets up with his buddies, where they board their bus. Birdlace makes up a story that he did not show up because he spent the night with the beautiful wife of an officer. Benjamin later shares with Birdlace that he saw him with Rose; Birdlace counters that he is aware that Benjamin's "date", Marci, was actually a prostitute. They agree to keep one another's secrets, as Birdlace tears up Rose's address and throws it out the window of the bus.
Rose is then shown with her mother, weeping and watching coverage of President Kennedy's assassination on TV.
The film then cuts to 1966, where Birdlace and his three friends are shown in Vietnam. They are playing cards and trying to pass time, when they are suddenly bombed. The scene descends to chaos.
Birdlace is then shown getting off of a Greyhound bus in San Francisco. Discharged from the Marines, is walking with a limp (presumably from his injuries from the explosion), and it is suggested that his three friends were all killed. He is taken by how much things have changed in the three years since he was last there with hippies and flower children everywhere. He walks to the neighborhood where Rose's coffee shop is, and goes to a bar across the street to have a drink. The bartender tells him that Rose's mother has turned the coffee shop over to Rose. He then makes his way across the street and into the coffee shop. Rose, not having heard from him in three years, is surprised to see him, and can only say "hi". She walks over to him, and they fall into an embrace, as the film ends.
Sneakers (1992, Carl Arbogast)
The movie opens in 1969, where Martin Brice and his friend Cosmo have been hacking prominent computer systems to play pranks. However, as Martin goes out to get pizza for the two, the police arrive and arrest Cosmo as Martin witnesses the incident from the street. Martin becomes a fugitive and takes up the assumed name of Martin Bishop.
In the present, Martin (now played by Robert Redford)has created a tiger team of "security specialists". In addition to Bishop, the team is: Donald Crease (Sidney Poitier), a former CIA agent and a high strung family man; "Mother" (Dan Aykroyd), a conspiracy theorist with unsurpassed technical skills and dexterity; Carl Arbogast (River Phoenix), a young genius; and Erwin 'Whistler' Emory (David Strathairn), a wisecracking blind man with superb hearing. They break a bank's security system and report the results to the managers who hired them. Martin is approached by Dick Gordon and Buddy Wallace (Timothy Busfield, Eddie Jones), who state they are from the National Security Agency and know of Martin's past. In exchange for not incarcerating Martin, they ask Martin to recover a "black box" decoder device that mathematician Gunter Janek (Donal Logue) has been developing for the Russian government under the guise of a company called "Setec Astronomy". Martin is forced to take the job and to reveal his past to his team to get their help. He also calls on his former girlfriend, Liz (Mary McDonnell), to help with social engineering for the job.
The team set up surveillance on Janek, but it is Whistler who figures out that the device is hidden in the answering machine in Janek's office. They retrieve the box then hold a large party in anticipation of the reward for its recovery. Mother, Whistler, and Carl explore what the box can do while Martin, Liz and some others are playing Scrabble. Martin recognizes that "Setec Astronomy" is a fake name, and he and Liz attempt to find anagrams finally settling on "Too many secrets". Simultaneously, the other team members discover the box is a universal decryption device that is able to bypass the encryption of any computer system. Martin calls for a lockdown until he and Donald can exchange the box. The next day the two drive to meet the NSA agents, but as Martin completes the exchange, Donald sees a newspaper article that Gunter was found murdered. He signals Martin that something is wrong and they both quickly leave the location. They soon learn that the Gordon and Wallace were never NSA agents, and that Janek was creating the box for the NSA.
Martin attempts to learn more about Gordon and Wallace from Gregor, a Russian consul member and acquaintance, but ends up captured by fake FBI agents, who kill Gregor with Martin's gun. Martin is knocked senseless, thrown into the trunk of a car and driven to an unknown location. Martin wakes up to find his old friend Cosmo (now played by Ben Kingsley) who explains that because of his computer skills he was able to aid an organized crime family and escape from from jail by faking his own death. Cosmo has been looking for the "black box", nominally to protect the family's interests. However, after further prying, Martin learns that Cosmo also plans to use the box to crash the world economy (by instigating bank runs, for example). Since Martin won't cooperate in this plan, Cosmo uses the box to link Martin's current identity to his past on the FBI computers, and then has Martin rendered unconscious again and returned to the city.
Martin quickly returns to his team and has them abandon their office space, moving into Liz's apartment. They call the NSA using complex call routing to prevent tracing and offer to recover the box in exchange for amnesty. Before the negotiations are complete, however, they disconnect the call to avoid being traced back to their location.
With the help of Whistler, Martin recalls enough of the sounds of the trip to Cosmo's office to be able to pinpoint its location, a toy company that is a front for Cosmo. Through various means, the team learns which office is Cosmo's, and what security features are in place and figure out how to bypass them. However, their plan involves entering Cosmo's secure room through the adjacent room, the office of Werner Brandes (Stephen Tobolowsky). Since one control requires voice identification, the team use Liz to go on a computer date to get enough spoken material to recreate the correct passphrase. With the sampled passphrase and Brandes security card, the rest of the team infiltrates the building. Martin himself takes the final steps to retrieve the black box. Unfortunately, Werner becomes suspicious and takes Liz to the toy company. Cosmo is about to dismiss the incident until he finds out that the date was set up through a computer dating service. The entire team, except for Whistler and Martin are captured and held at gunpoint.
Through coaching from Martin, Whistler is able to drive the van setting up the escape of the team. Martin is about to escape as well when he is confronted by Cosmo who threatens to shoot Martin. Martin turns over the box, apologizing to Cosmo for what happened those years ago, and leaves. As the group escapes, Cosmo opens the box and finds that it is empty; Martin has swapped the real box with a plain answering machine.
The group returns to their old offices where they are surrounded by NSA agents led by Bernard Abbott (James Earl Jones), who demands Martin return the box. Remembering a statement made by Gregor about the differences between Russian and American encryption, Martin then realizes that the box is only effective against American systems - the NSA had developed the box for domestic surveillance. As they are not legally permitted to do this, Martin realizes that he still has some leverage. In exchange for the box and his silence about it, Martin asks for his criminal record to be cleared. The rest of the group realizes they also can ask for nearly anything in exchange: Donald asks for a round-the-world trip for him and his wife; Mother, a Winnebago; Carl, simply a date with one of the female NSA agents, who agrees to his request; and Whistler, "peace on earth and goodwill toward men." Telling Whistler "I'll see what I can do", the NSA agents leave with the box, but Martin tells them that it doesn't work. After they leave, he then opens his hand to reveal the key processor from the box.
The last scene is a television news report: the reporter announces that the Republican National Committee has misplaced its funds and entered bankruptcy, while, simultaneously, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and The United Negro College Fund are seeing record earnings, "due mostly to large, anonymous donations," mirroring Martin's computer crimes from the beginning of the film and hinting that he has resumed his past habits. Or, possibly, that the NSA was fulfilling its promise to Whistler.
The thing called love (1993, James Wright)
Miranda Presley is an aspiring singer/songwriter from New York City who loves country music and has decided to take her chances in Nashville, Tennessee, where she hopes to strike it big as a musician. After arriving in the Music City after a long bus ride, Miranda makes her way top the Bluebird Cafe, a local watering hole with a reputation as a showcase for new talent. The bar's owner, Lucy, takes a shine to the plucky newcomer, and gives her a job as a waitress.
Before long, Miranda has gotten to know a number of other Nashville transplants who are looking to land a gig or sell a song, including sweet and open-hearted Kyle Davidson, moody but talented James Wright, and spunky Linda Lue Linden. As the four friends struggle to find their place in the competitive Nashville music scene, both Kyle and James display a romantic interest in Miranda, but she is drawn to James in spite of his moody temperament.
Silent tongue (1994, Talbot Roe)
The film is about a young man named Talbot Roe (Phoenix), who's gone insane over the death of his wife. Talbot's father, Presscott Roe (Harris) feels his son's pain and wants to find him a new wife. He goes back to the place where he bought Talbot's first wife, from Earmon McCree (Bates). He finds the dead wife's sister (Tousey), who is a champion horse rider and Mr. McCree's daughter, which makes her only half-Indian. Roe asks McCree if he could have his last daughter for his son, but McCree refuses. Then, Roe kidnaps her and tries to get her to help him, and she takes the deal for gold and four horses. But Talbot isn't taking any chances for her-- he's too afraid that she'll try to take his wife's corpse from him. And for the last few nights, he sees the ghost of his dead wife, who wants him to destroy her corpse, but he won't.
Dark blood (1993, Boy)
Dark Blood is an unfinished film (circa 1993) about a character named Boy (played by River Phoenix). Boy is a widower who lives as a hermiton a nuclear testing site, waiting for the end of the world while making dolls that he believes have magical powers. Boy ends up helping a couple (played by Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis) when their car breaks down as they are traveling through the desert. Dark Blood was written by Jim Barton and directed by George Sluizer.
Quelle bei allen Filmen: Wikipedia.de, IMDB.com / rottentomatoes.com / river-phoenix.org / myspace.com
