Gabriel Byrne and Julianna Margulies head up a nautical salvage crew who discover a derelict ocean liner that's been missing since 1962. On board is a fortune in gold bullion—and several hundred ghosts. Pure formula—occasionally bizarre and gory, but in the main outrageously schlocky, with Margulies in plucky heroine mode—and comfortingly reliable.
The definitive example of High Godard (that brief period after his spectacular debut, À Bout De Souffle, and before the left-wing quasi-revolutionary abstractions of British Sounds and Passion), Bande À Part is a veritable checklist of stylish and insouciant Nouvelle Vague chic. There's the casually one-dimensional protagonists, in this case pseudo-gangsters Franz (Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and their new playmate Odile (Anna Karina).
Credit Atomic Kitten for one thing—their version of "Eternal Flame" is partially responsible for this Valley High reunion. Susanna Hoffs' acting career (with her mum) is a thing of the past, so the chief Bangle has motivated her crew to come up with an assured, if airbrushed, female power pop disc that's loaded with tooth-kind melodies: "Stealing Rosemary" and "Single By Choice" are instant brain worms. Whether demand for the Bangles' cute Cali cool exists today is open to debate. Hurrah for big hair, anyway.
Occasionally ponderous 1983 thriller set in pre-Glasnost Russia (in fact filmed in Helsinki). William Hurt stars as the cop who teams up with Joanna Pacula's Soviet dissident and Lee Marvin's American businessman to investigate the mystery of three bodies found in Gorky Park.
Gary Oldman, miscast but blowing hard in Peter Medak's 1993 thriller, is a sleazy cop who takes bribes to spend on his wife (Annabella Sciorra) and mistress (Juliette Lewis). As if that wasn't enough girlie action, he lusts after hot hitwoman Lena Olin, but his dick leads him into a world of violent trouble. Wilfully sexist and almost camp, but hey, you can't say it's dull.
