Director: Steven Spielberg.

Writer: J. M. Barrie.

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Years  ago, Peter Pan left Neverland and married Wendy Darling’s granddaughter Moira. He has become the corporate lawyer Peter Banning, and entirely forgotten his childhood as Peter Pan. He’s successful, but drinks too much, and never has time for his wife Moira and their children, Jack and Maggie.

When the family travels to London to visit Wendy (Maggie Smith), who is now an old woman, his kids are kidnapped by Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman). Wendy tries to tell Peter of his past, but he doesn‘t want to believe her.

Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts) visits Peter that night, and takes him to Neverland. There he hears Hook boasting of kidnapping Peter’s children to use as bait, so Peter reveals himself.

Hook wants to have Peter and his children killed, but Tinker Bell begs him to give Peter three days to train for a duel. Then she takes Peter to the Lost Boys, led by Rufio, who initially don‘t believe he really is Peter Pan. Tinker Bell convinces them that he is Pan, and they re-train him.

His memories and old abilites gradually come back, and at the same time Peter starts to realize the love he has for his wife Moira and their children.

Inspired by his new feelings, he fights and wins Hook, and manages to convince his children that he cares for them beyond anything else, and takes them back home.

He awakens in his regular clothes at the famous statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and sees Tinker Bell one last time. He assures her that he still believes in fairies, and then she leaves, and he returns to his beloved family.

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Director: Roger Donaldson.

Writer: Ken Friedman.

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In Cadillac Man, Robin Williams plays the used-car salesman Joey O’Brien in Queens who never stops looking for business. He often looks for stalled funeral processions to see if he can make a sale, and he will even help load the coffin if he thinks he will make him a sale. As the movie opens, this smooth talking pitchman is being pulled in 5 directions at the same time.

He has an ex wife (Pamela Reed) who keeps begging him for more money, a teenage daughter who stays out all night, and two sticky girlfriends whose names he can’t even keep straight. On top of that, he owes $20,000 to a gangster — and if he can’t sell at least dozen cars within one day, he’s going to be laid-off.

On the day of the dozen car sale (and the final day of O’Brien’s deadline), the car dealership is taken hostage by a motorcyclist played by Tim Robbins, who believes his wife (Annabella Sciorra) is cheating on him. Joey manages to prevent the man from doing any harm to the other hostages, as police surround the dealership.

After most of the hostages are released, the police wound the assailant because they think his gun is still loaded. O’Brien promises to stick with him while he recovers. In the end, he gets back together with his wife and drives off as the hero of the day.

The film reveals Joey as a two faced, womanizing bastard, still it gets you sympathizing for him at the same time. It is easy to understand someone having financial problems, and Joey’s economic desperation is played for frantic laughs.

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Director: Danny DeVito.

Writer: Adam Resnick.

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Death to Smoochy

Robin Williams plays the popular children’s show host Randolph Smiley, who is fired over a bribery scandal, when he is caught when parents are paying him for letting their kids on his show.

The Rainbow Randolph show is canceled and the TV station that aired Randolph’s show, is looking for a new show. The men in charge of the TV station want to find someone who has ethics and principals and who won’t end up in a big mess like Randolph did.

They find and hire Sheldon Mopes (Edward Norton), a squeaky clean, overly honest children’s entertainer and charity worker who soars to national popularity as the puffy purple rhino Smoochy.

Randolph has fallen on some bad times since his show was canceled. He has lost his apartment, he has no more money, and bills are piling up. When he sees Smoochy’s wild success,  Randolph loses it and blames Smoochy for his problems.

He becomes increasingly jealous as he watches Smoochy become much more popular than he ever was. Soon he finds out that his ex girlfriend Nora Wells (Catherine Keener) is dating Sheldon, and that drives him mad, so he starts plotting a fierce revenge against poor Smoochy.

Sheldon accidentally gets involved with bad people including members of the Irish Mob, who end up wanting to kill him. Although Randolph wants to kill Smoochy himself, he finally realizes that he is a sweet, innocent man.

After a violent outburst, where Sheldon is saved from being killed, he and Randolph meet face to face. The two (including Nora) decide to join forces as Rainbow Randolph and Smoochy the Rhino.

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Director: Chris Columbus.

Writers: Anne Fine (novel), Randi Mayem Singer (screenplay).

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Mrs. Doubtfire

Robin Williams plays the heartbroken Daniel Hilliard who at the same time loses his job and his  beloved family, as his wife Miranda, played by Sally Fields files for a divorce.

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She gets full custody of their three children Lydia, Chris and Natalie, and doesn’t want Daniel to see them more than once a week, as she sees him as a poor diciplinarian and not a good role model.

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He is determined to find a way to spend more time with the kids, and when he finds out that Miranda is looking for a housekeeper, he disguises as the Scottish nanny Euphegenia Doubtfire, with the help of his makeup artist brother Frank, and gets hired.

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As Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel is able to be with his kids every day, and secretly be the firm father figure he never was before, by letting the kids do daily chores and homework, but still finding time to take part in their favorite activities.

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When Miranda introduces her new boyfriend Stuart Dunmeyer (Pierce Brosnan) to the family, Daniel tries everything he can to push him away.

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In the end, his cover is blown when his son Chris catches him urinating like a man, and in short, all hell breaks loose. They end up in family court, where Daniel’s visitation rights are further restricted.

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Later Miranda realizes that the children need their father as much as they need him, and they establish a joint custody, with a happy ending for all of them.

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Director: Gus Van Sant.

Writers: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

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Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is a brilliant drama about the severly abused orphaned genius Will (Matt Damon) who works as a janitor at MIT, wasting away his life and talent in order to avoid coping with his inner pain.

There he secretly solves a difficult math problem posed by a mathematics professor, Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgaard). The professor urges the mystical solver to emerge, but without result. The professor then poses a more difficult problem in an attempt to catch the mystical solver, and finds Will working on solving the problem and is amazed to discover that he came up with the correct solution.

Later, Will gets arrested for beating a man who’d bullied him in kindergarten. Professor Lambeau agrees to place Will under his personal supervision where he must study mathematics  and get psychiatric treatment.

Will solves all the math problems without any trouble, but alienates every psychiatrist he sees, until he finally goes to Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), who gradually helps him come to terms with himself, so that in the end he decides to go to California with his girlfriend (Minnie Driver), to face new challenges.

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Director: Penny Marshall.

Writers: Oliver Sacks (book), Steven Zaillian (screenplay).

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Awakenings

The film Awakenings is based on a true story by Dr. Oliver Sacks.  Robin Williams plays the doctor Malcolm Sayer who in 1969 gets permitted to try an experimental drug on a group of people who have been comatosed for years and even decades, hoping them to awaken from their comas.

One of the patients, Leonard Lowe (Robert DeNiro) completely „awakens” from his coma, which inspires Sayer to ask for funding from donors so that all the other patients can receive the medication and experience “awakenings” back to reality.

Leonard, who went into a coma in his early teens, is slowly adjusting to his new life, and finds himself attracted to Paula, who is a daughter of another hospital patient.

He is delighted with the simplest things such as the breeze from a fan, and brushing his teeth, and he never complains about what he has lost, only relishes what he has gained.

Tragically, the drug only seems to have temporary effects on the patients, and as the first patient to awaken from his coma, Leonard is the first one to start suffering from spasms and mania, but still he insists to continuing the experiment, for others to learn from.

In the end, he falls back into coma again, this time for good, but this wonderful film is really about telling us to enjoy life to the fullest.

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