Michael Douglass

The American President

What sounds like the high-concept romantic comedy pitch from hell--widower president falls for smart lobbyist while the world watches--is actually intelligent, charming, touching, and quite funny. Granted, it's wish fulfillment all the way (when was the last time you saw a president who was truly presidential?), but in the capable hands of writer Aaron Sorkin (TV's Sports Night) and director Rob Reiner, The American President is incredibly enjoyable entertainment with quite a few ideas about both romance and the government. Michael Douglas stars as the president, who after three years in office starts thinking about the possibility of dating. When he auspiciously encounters cutthroat environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), sparks begin to crackle and the two begin a tentative but heartfelt romance. Of course, his job gets in the way--their first kiss is interrupted by a Libyan bombing--but darn it if these two kids aren't going to try and make it work! However, they hadn't counted on the president's Republican antagonist (Richard Dreyfuss), who starts carping about family values. The predictable plot--Douglas finally goes to bat for his lady and his country--is leavened by Sorkin's wonderful, snappy dialogue and a light touch from the usually subtle-as-a-sledgehammer Reiner. Both manage to create a believable White House-office atmosphere (with a crack staff including Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox, Anna Deavere Smith, and Samantha Mathis) as well as a plausible and funny dating scenario. The true success of the movie, though, rides squarely on Douglas and Bening; this is unequivocally Douglas's best comedic performance (ergo his best performance, period) and Bening, usually such a good bad girl, takes a standard career-woman role and fleshes it out magnificently. You can see in an instant why Douglas would fall for her. One of the best unsung romantic comedies of the '90s. --Mark Englehart

The world's most powerful man has met his match! Michael Douglas is the widower President wooing environmental lobbyist Annette Bening in this romantic hit by Rob Reiner.Running Time: 115 min.System Requirements:Starring: Michael Douglas Anette Bening Martin Sheen Michael J. Fox Anna Deavere Smith Samantha Mathis Shawna Waldron and David Paymer. Directed By: Rob Reiner Running Time: 115 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 1999 Warner Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 053939255027

The Ghost and the Darkness

Val Kilmer stars as Lt. Col. John Patterson, a 19th-century Irish engineer drafted by Britain's railroad bosses to build a trestle bridge over an African river, thus expanding the empire a tiny bit more. In Tsavo, Patterson is instantly hailed for killing a man-eating lion that had been making life hell for native workers. But morale sinks when a pair of unstoppable big cats devour more men and destroy the project. Along comes an Ahab-like, expatriate American hunter (Michael Douglas) to help Patterson face the almost preternatural powers of the two killers. The script by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is based on fact, though the film owes more to Spielberg (specifically to Jaws) than history. There are also suggestive echoes of Kipling and Conrad in the material and characters, and there are hints of emotional complexity and psychological nuance that make one wish this could have been a great film instead of a merely fun one. --Tom Keogh

A renowned big game hunter joins forces with an engineer to kill the lions which threaten completion of a bridge in 1896 East Africa.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 29-DEC-2004
Media Type: DVD

Shining Through

Uncomfortably close to Ben Hecht and Alfred Hitchcock's film Notorious, this World War II drama (based on a novel by Susan Isaacs) concerns a love affair between a spy (Michael Douglas) and a secretary (Melanie Griffith) that goes south when duty turns him cold and pushes her into dangerous, behind-the-lines intelligence work. Liam Neeson plays the gentleman Nazi unwittingly providing Griffith with cover as domestic help. The best parts of the film are the twists and turns in the romance (Douglas is very good at playing a character who can turn off all feeling at will) at the beginning, while the German scenes are less compelling despite such high stakes for the heroine. The climax--taking us back to Notorious whether it wants to or not--is quite gripping, largely due to Douglas's performance. --Tom Keogh

In this romantic espionage thriller set against the backdrop of World War II, a secretary from Queens is transformed into a government spy. After discovering her attorney boss and lover is actually a secret agent, she convinces him to let her go undercover. With the help of a fellow operative she penetrates the Berlin home of a high-ranking enemy official, and works swiftly to accomplish her mission.

A Chorus Line

Michael Douglas stars as a choreographer who subjects 16 dancers to a grueling audition in this Academy Award-nominated adaptation of the landmark Broadway musical. Featuring Marvin Hamlisch's Oscar-nominated music and Jeffrey Hornaday's (Flashdance) sizzling choreography this thrilling portrayal of life behind the velvet curtains is truly "One Singular Sensation"!After narrowing down hundreds of Broadway hopefuls Zach (Douglas) leads a select group of dancers on the tryout of their lives. In an audition twist Zach asks each performer personal and intimate questions-with results that powerfully affect not only the young performers but the hardened stage veteran as well.System Requirements: Running Time 118 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: PG-13 UPC: 027616884596 Manufacturer No: 1004380

If you've never seen this popular production performed on stage in its original form as one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history, the movie version is probably your next best option--heck, it's your only option! But beware the major difference between the experience of stage and screen, because A Chorus Line is a perfect example of a show that doesn't translate well from one medium to another. Director Richard Attenborough gives it his best shot, cutting some of the production numbers and adding new ones while "opening up" the show to explore the off-stage lives of struggling performers as they prepare for another grueling audition. Michael Douglas plays the harsh, workaholic director who puts the auditioning "gypsies" through the paces, winnowing a large group of hopefuls down to eight lucky cast members for his next big show. There's a subplot about the director's former girlfriend, who returns for the big audition, and along the way the other hopefuls sing and dance while revealing their various hopes and fears. On screen, the musical works best when focused on its dramatic passages; otherwise it's impossible to escape the fact that this material is best suited to live performance. --Jeff Shannon

Romancing the Stone (Special Edition)

Director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Contact) had a hit with this 1984 comedy that first teamed Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito. Turner steals the show from the guys, however, playing a pushy romance novelist who gets stuck among some dangerous figures in Colombia and has only a rumpled guide (Michael Douglas) as an ally. The chemistry between the stars is infectious (the trio went on to make a sequel, Jewel of the Nile, and then an interesting, dark comedy directed by DeVito, The War of the Roses). Zemeckis--whose specialty at the time was creating set pieces of raucous action (as in his Back to the Future)--keeps things hopping with lots of kinetic material. --Tom Keogh

When her sister is kidnapped by thugs searching for a priceless jewel in the Colombian jungle a romance novelist (Kathleen Turner) soon finds her own life filled with cliffhangers and danger. All alone she sets out to rescue her sister and meets up with a handsome fortune seeker (Michael Douglas) who convinces her to beat the bandits to the treasure.System Requirements:Running Time 105 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG UPC: 024543266945 Manufacturer No: 2236694

The Game

It's not quite as clever as it tries to be, but The Game does a tremendous job of presenting the story of a rigid control freak trapped in circumstances that are increasingly beyond his control. Michael Douglas plays a rich, divorced, and dreadful investment banker whose 48th birthday reminds him of his father's suicide at the same age. He's locked in the cage of his own misery until his rebellious younger brother (Sean Penn) presents him with a birthday invitation to play "The Game" (described as "an experiential Book of the Month Club")--a mysterious offering from a company called Consumer Recreation Services. Before he knows the game has even begun, Douglas is caught up in a series of unexplained events designed to strip him of his tenuous security and cast him into a maelstrom of chaos. How do you play a game that hasn't any rules? That's what Douglas has to figure out, and he can't always rely on his intelligence to form logic out of what's happening to him. Seemingly cast as the fall guy in a conspiracy thriller, he encounters a waitress (Deborah Unger) who may or may not be trustworthy, and nothing can be taken at face value in a world turned upside down. Douglas is great at conveying the sheer panic of his character's dilemma, and despite some lapses in credibility and an anticlimactic ending, The Game remains a thinking person's thriller that grabs and holds your attention. --Jeff Shannon

A self-centered businessman is enrolled in a \""game\"" as a birthday present from his brother, and soon finds everything he controlled slipping from his grasp.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 14-FEB-2006
Media Type: DVD

Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys is one of those movies in which more twists and turns disrupt the life of the hero in one weekend than would bother most of us our whole lives. Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is an aging one-novel wunderkind at a small Pittsburgh college who's laboring on his seven-years-in-the-making, 2000-plus page second opus with no end in sight. The morning of the college's literary lollapalooza, WordFest, Grady's wife leaves him; that evening, his mistress (Frances McDormand) announces she's pregnant (she's also the chancellor of the school, as well as the wife of Grady's boss). Grady's voracious editor (Robert Downey Jr.) is also in town, transvestite date in tow, determined to read the highly anticipated new book; there's also the nubile student (Katie Holmes), who seems more than willing to ease Grady's pain. And then there's James Leer (Tobey Maguire), the mordant and brilliant writing student who's the catalyst for Grady's lost weekend, which involves a soon-to-be-dead blind dog, a stolen car, and the jacket that Marilyn Monroe wore when she wed Joe DiMaggio.

Had enough flights of fancy? It's only the beginning, and in the hands of director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) and screenwriter Steve Kloves (The Fabulous Baker Boys), Wonder Boys will have you begging for more. Adroitly adapting Michael Chabon's novel and distilling it to its droll, melancholy essence, Kloves and Hanson have fashioned a briskly unsentimental and darkly funny tale; these characters may be down on their luck, but they sure don't feel sorry for themselves. Douglas, by turns dryly sarcastic and sincerely heartfelt, single-handedly makes up for years of alpha-male posturing as the passive pothead Tripp, and whoever thought of pairing him with the resilient McDormand is brilliant--they convey the complexities and history of their relationship in a single glance or movement. And under Hanson's guidance, the rest of the cast is truly exceptional, with Maguire in a breakthrough performance and Downey at his manic best. The ending of Wonder Boys may feel a little too pat, but after everything these characters have been through, a happy ending seems a just reward. --Mark Englehart

A college professor who's been divorced three times and hasn't been able to overcome writer's block, gets his boss's wife, the college chancellor, pregnant.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-AUG-2006
Media Type: DVD

Falling Down

This film, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a media avalanche of stories about middle-class white rage when it was released in 1993. In fact, it's nothing more than a manipulative, violent melodrama about one geek's meltdown. Douglas, complete with pocket protector, nerd glasses, crewcut, and short-sleeved white shirt, gets stuck in traffic one day near downtown L.A. and proceeds to just walk away from his car--and then lose it emotionally. Everyone he encounters rubs him the wrong way--and a fine lot of stereotypes they are, from threatening ghetto punks to rude convenience store owners to a creepy white supremacist--and he reacts violently in every case. As he walks across L.A. (now there's a concept), cutting a bloody swath, he's being tracked by a cop on the verge of retirement (Robert Duvall). He also spends time on the phone with his frightened ex-wife (Barbara Hershey). Though Douglas and Duvall give stellar performances, they can't disguise the fact that, as usual, this is another film from director Joel Schumacher that is about surface and sensation, rather than actual substance. --Marshall Fine

Traffic

Featuring a huge cast of characters, the ambitious and breathtaking Traffic is a tapestry of three separate stories woven together by a common theme: the war on drugs. In Ohio, there's the newly appointed government drug czar (Michael Douglas) who realizes after he's accepted the job that he may have gotten into a no-win situation. Not only that, his teenage daughter (Erika Christensen) is herself quietly developing a nasty addiction problem. In San Diego, a drug kingpin (Steven Bauer) is arrested on information provided by an informant (Miguel Ferrer) who was nabbed by two undercover detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán). The kingpin's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), heretofore ignorant of where her husband's wealth comes from, gets a crash course in the drug business and its nasty side effects. And south of the border, a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) finds himself caught between both his home country and the U.S., as corrupt government officials duke it out with the drug cartel for control of trafficking various drugs back and forth across the border.

Bold in scope, Traffic showcases Steven Soderbergh at the top of his game, directing a peerless ensemble cast in a gritty, multifaceted tale that will captivate you from beginning to end. Utilizing the no-frills techniques of the Dogme 95 school, Soderbergh enhances his hand-held filming with imaginative editing and film-stock manipulation that eerily captures the atmosphere of each location: a washed-out, grainy Mexico; a blue and chilly Ohio; and a sleek, sun-dappled San Diego. But Traffic is more than a film-school exercise. Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (adapting the British TV miniseries Traffik to the U.S.) seamlessly weave the threads of each separate plotline into one solid tale, with the actions of one plot having quiet repercussions on the other two. And if you needed more proof that Soderbergh takes unparalleled care with his actors, practically all the members of this cast turn in their best work ever, the standout being an Oscar-worthy Del Toro as the conflicted moral conscience of the film. While no story is fully resolved in the film, you'll be haunted by these characters days after you've seen the film. By far one of the best movies of 2000. --Mark Englehart

Disclosure

Michael Crichton's bestselling novel was both a high-tech thriller and source of controversy with its hot-button plot about a man's charge of sexual harassment against a female colleague and former lover. The movie, directed by Barry Levinson, turned these issues into a prurient thriller gussied up in glossy production values, virtual reality computer graphics, and steamy sex between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Having cornered the market on roles for men whose brains are located south of their waistline, Douglas is well cast as the computer-industry guy who loses a plush promotion to the opportunistic Moore, and he's perfected the expression of paranoid panic. If you don't think about it too much, this is one of those films that can draw you into its manipulative web and really grab your attention. Disclosure is more entertaining than thought provoking (because the filmmakers basically danced around the story's potential controversy), but there's enough star power and visual glitz to make this an enjoyable ride. --Jeff Shannon