Fred Tate is a prodigy. He's also a lonely, little boy with the emotional needs that his single mom covers. Worries about world problems gives him ulcer. He takes a quantum physics summer college class at 7.
After losing her job, making out with her soon-to-be former boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson faces spending the holiday with her family.
Director:
Jodie Foster
Stars:
Holly Hunter,
Anne Bancroft,
Robert Downey Jr.
After a young woman suffers a brutal gang rape in a bar one night, a prosecutor assists in bringing the perpetrators to justice, including the ones who encouraged and cheered on the attack.
Director:
Jonathan Kaplan
Stars:
Kelly McGillis,
Jodie Foster,
Bernie Coulson
Compilation of five horror stories from _"Tales from the Darkside" (1983)_ that takes the viewer into the dark world of vampires, cursed objects and sinister humor. Despite the title, only the final story is by Stephen King.
Struggling to recover emotionally from a brutal assault that killed her fiancé and left her in a coma, a radio personality begins a quest for vengeance against the perpetrators that leaves a bloody trail across New York City.
A witness to a mob assassination flees for her life from town to town, switching identities, but cannot seem to elude Milo, the chief killer out to get her.
Director:
Dennis Hopper
Stars:
Dennis Hopper,
Jodie Foster,
Dean Stockwell
Billy Wyatt is a washed-up baseball player who is called back home to handle the ashes of his childhood sweetheart/first love who had committed suicide. As he searches for what to do with ... See full summary »
Dede is a sole parent trying to bring up her son Fred. When it is discovered that Fred is a genius, she is determined to ensure that Fred has all the opportunities that he needs, and that he is not taken advantage of by people who forget that his extremely powerful intellect is harboured in the body and emotions of a child.Written by
Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>
When Fred first enters Jane's office, there is a card on her desk (at around 52 mins) that Fred takes (at around 57 mins) but which is soon back on the desk (at around 1 min). See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Fred Tate:
It's funny, cause I *think* I can even remember being born. For the first two weeks of my life I didn't even have a name. Dede couldn't make up her mind. She finally decided on Fred. She said that she had never heard of a little kid named Fred before.
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Before I go on with this review, let me share exactly why a film like this means so much to me, and why I can relate so much to it. The film is about a boy genius, a young man with exceptional intelligence and skills. I don't think it's ever clearly stated in the film, but his personality and his intelligence points to him being an autist. Now, suffering(what a misdirecting word... like it's a disease or something) from a mild case of autism myself, being diagnosed with asperger syndrome, I can relate to the kid on a very personal level. However, the film has been pushed into being a mainstream drama, instead of being, shall we say a good one(or, at least an accurate one). The personality of the kid is accurate, but not all of his symptoms are. I actually saw a TV special, which involved a real person, a teenager, diagnosed with asperger syndrome. During the ten minutes that the special lasted, I learned more about being an asperger, recognized more of my own personality traits, and realized more about myself and being an asperger than I did through the 90 minutes of this film. It holds a lot of truth, but too much of it is watered down and forced into being mainstream, in which everything has to end fine and dandy, and in which everything has to make perfect sense. Maybe the film should have been longer; maybe it should just have been less mainstream, and more deep. I don't know. The film just lacks something. Everything in the film just immediately evokes some outbursts of "Aww" "Ohh", and doesn't really spark any further thought in the subject. I suspect that, was such a statistic made, most people who saw this film would prove to have done no further research or give no further thought into the subject of autism. And that's just the problem with the film. It evokes the emotions that it's supposed to, but that's it. Afterwords, everyone forgets about it, and gives it no further thought. Just like the audiences of mainstream dramas want; an hour and a half of emotions and drama, and then to return to their normal, everyday lives, with no new experiences or even the notion of thinking about autism, or any other non-commercial subject. However, apart from that, the film is well done. The plot is good. The pacing is good enough. The acting is very good; the three leads, Foster, Wiest and Hann-Byrd(the child actor) all do their jobs well, all give good performances. The child actor was a pleasant surprise, and truly delivered a believable performance. The characters are well-written and credible. I like that there is no definite "bad guy"; both Foster and Wiest mistreat the child, and mistake what he wants with what they want themselves. The graphics that are done to show when the kid concentrates on something or figures something out in a particular way are good, well done, and give a pretty good image of what it's like to be gifted and figuring something out much faster than a "normal" person could. Of course they're oversimplified, but what would you expect from a mainstream film? I suspect an independent film dealing with the subject would have been much better. All in all, if you're interested in the subject, it's decent, but I would recommend looking up the real information about it instead. If you have no knowledge of the subject, you can watch the film; just don't expect everything in it to be true. If you don't care about the subject, you can just watch it as you would any other mainstream drama. I recommend it to fans of dramas, but I warn anyone who knows a lot on the subject to approach with caution and take the film lightly. 7/10
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Before I go on with this review, let me share exactly why a film like this means so much to me, and why I can relate so much to it. The film is about a boy genius, a young man with exceptional intelligence and skills. I don't think it's ever clearly stated in the film, but his personality and his intelligence points to him being an autist. Now, suffering(what a misdirecting word... like it's a disease or something) from a mild case of autism myself, being diagnosed with asperger syndrome, I can relate to the kid on a very personal level. However, the film has been pushed into being a mainstream drama, instead of being, shall we say a good one(or, at least an accurate one). The personality of the kid is accurate, but not all of his symptoms are. I actually saw a TV special, which involved a real person, a teenager, diagnosed with asperger syndrome. During the ten minutes that the special lasted, I learned more about being an asperger, recognized more of my own personality traits, and realized more about myself and being an asperger than I did through the 90 minutes of this film. It holds a lot of truth, but too much of it is watered down and forced into being mainstream, in which everything has to end fine and dandy, and in which everything has to make perfect sense. Maybe the film should have been longer; maybe it should just have been less mainstream, and more deep. I don't know. The film just lacks something. Everything in the film just immediately evokes some outbursts of "Aww" "Ohh", and doesn't really spark any further thought in the subject. I suspect that, was such a statistic made, most people who saw this film would prove to have done no further research or give no further thought into the subject of autism. And that's just the problem with the film. It evokes the emotions that it's supposed to, but that's it. Afterwords, everyone forgets about it, and gives it no further thought. Just like the audiences of mainstream dramas want; an hour and a half of emotions and drama, and then to return to their normal, everyday lives, with no new experiences or even the notion of thinking about autism, or any other non-commercial subject. However, apart from that, the film is well done. The plot is good. The pacing is good enough. The acting is very good; the three leads, Foster, Wiest and Hann-Byrd(the child actor) all do their jobs well, all give good performances. The child actor was a pleasant surprise, and truly delivered a believable performance. The characters are well-written and credible. I like that there is no definite "bad guy"; both Foster and Wiest mistreat the child, and mistake what he wants with what they want themselves. The graphics that are done to show when the kid concentrates on something or figures something out in a particular way are good, well done, and give a pretty good image of what it's like to be gifted and figuring something out much faster than a "normal" person could. Of course they're oversimplified, but what would you expect from a mainstream film? I suspect an independent film dealing with the subject would have been much better. All in all, if you're interested in the subject, it's decent, but I would recommend looking up the real information about it instead. If you have no knowledge of the subject, you can watch the film; just don't expect everything in it to be true. If you don't care about the subject, you can just watch it as you would any other mainstream drama. I recommend it to fans of dramas, but I warn anyone who knows a lot on the subject to approach with caution and take the film lightly. 7/10