by Alex Castle
“The money’s getting to be out of control now… sometimes, the more money you have, the more blues you can sing,” Jimi Hendrix told Dick Cavett on national TV. Thirty years later, the Notorious B.I.G. was a little more succinct: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” We all like to imagine that our problems would be over if we could just get a big check to cover expenses, but it’s not that easy — at least, not in the movies.
This past week Leonardo Dicaprio took on the iconic role of Jay Gatsby, haunted, self-made millionaire in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, pining after a lost love he can never get back. There’s something satisfying about watching the rich have a hard time, and there is no shortage of great movies to prove that point, just a click away on Blockbuster On Demand!
Brewster’s MillionsOne of Richard Pryor’s best comedies has him as a penniless minor-league pitcher who learns he’s inherited $300 million from a long-lost uncle, on one condition: he has to squander $30 million and leave nothing to show for it. An inventive look at how the rich get rich without even trying, featuring John Candy as Pryor’s best friend.
Alicia Silverstone plays a richer-than-rich girl who spars with her socially conscious ex-stepbrother (Paul Rudd) at home and reigns supreme at school, taking pity on an uncool classmate (Brittany Murphy) with a free makeover and playing matchmaker. Before long her puppet-mastery starts to backfire and she has to reassess. A cult classic.
“I’ll give you one million dollars for a night with your wife,” super-rich Robert Redford offers struggling architect Woody Harrelson, and one of the most talked-about movies of the ’90s is underway. What is it about happily married Demi Moore that prompts this offer? Should they take it? If they do, then what? Directed by Adrian Lyne, the master of upperclass ennui (Unfaithful, Fatal Attraction).
Matt Damon showed the world that he was for real with his performance as a chameleonic con man slithering his way into the jet set, specifically shipping heir Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) and his girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). Beautifully shot in Italy and set in Read More
This week the artist formerly known as Marky Mark goes big, in several senses of the word, as a bodybuilding bank robber in Michael Bay’s action comedy Pain & Gain, opposite the artist formerly known as The Rock. Admittedly, Marky’s career has not been 100%, ahem, “Good Vibrations,” but considering he started out as a one hit wonder-slash-underwear model, his batting average is better than it has any right to be — as the Mark Wahlberg section on Blockbuster On Demand more than demonstrates. Feel it feel it!
LADYBUGS
