Madcap

Robert Zemeckis is arguably a close second behind Steven Spielberg as the contemporary American director who has most consistently gained critical acclaim while generating massive box office and popular appeal with a slew of iconic films. Even Zemeckis' purported failures—and there indubitably are some—are often lionized for their breathtaking vision and utilization of modern special effects techniques like motion capture. But just a cursory review of the man's contributions to film over the past 40 years reveals a staggering array of acclaimed and often insanely popular titles: Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away….

A childless couple unable to adopt decide that a couple who just had quintuplets won't mind if they steal one of the babies. Thus begins the Coen brothers' madcap romp RAISING ARIZONA. Holly Hunter stars as Ed, a cop who is devastated when she learns that she cannot get pregnant. Nicolas Cage is her husband, H.I., an ex-con who wants nothing more than to make his wife the happiest woman in the world. So if she wants a baby, she's going to have a baby, one way or another.

El Gran Calavera a dark comedy directed by Luis Buñuel deals with a family's attempt to change the spending habit of the indulgent and hedonistic patriarch, Alfredo (Luis Alconira). The family decides to try to fool him into spending less by telling him that his large fortune is gone. He discovers that this is a ruse but – in order to teach his family that they are all worthless and lazy and to vindicate his own reputation – he continues to feign ignorance while sneaking off during the day to conduct his very prosperous business.

Without doubt, the recordings of Tangerine Dream have made the greatest impact on the widest variety of instrumental music during the 1980s and '90s, ranging from the most atmospheric new age and space music to the harshest abrasions of electronic dance. Founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese in Berlin, the group has progressed through a full three dozen lineups (Froese being the only continuous member with staying power) and four distinct stages of development: the experimentalist minimalism of the late '60s and early '70s; stark sequencer trance during the mid- to late '70s, the group's most influential period; an organic form of instrumental music on their frequent film and studio work during the 1980s; and, finally, a more propulsive dance style, which showed Tangerine Dream with a sound quite similar to their electronic inheritors in the field of dance music.