Elaine Falone Movies
- 1988
- R
Though a fine cast was assembled for this comedy, none can save this embarrassingly humorless satire. Henderson Dores (Daniel-Day Lewis) is a very proper British art expert sent to rural Georgia by his boss to purchase a painting by Renoir. The present owner, hillbilly Loomis Gage (Harry Dean Stanton), claims he bought the painting for $500 in France in 1946. Dores offers $10 million, but Gage's scheming son Freeborn (Maury Chaykin) has made a deal with a rival art dealer for $15 million. Steven Wright plays Dores' business rival Pruitt with his typical deadpan charm, and Joan Cusack and Laurie Metcalf provide romantic interest. Tea and crumpets collide with moonshine and cornbread in this feature, but the results are unpalatable. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Day-Lewis, Harry Dean Stanton, (more)
- 1981
- PG
A would-be Nashville star finds himself in hot water during a stay in Georgia in this drama based (very loosely) on the hit song of the same title. Travis Child (Dennis Quaid) is a country singer looking for his big break, crisscrossing the country playing honky-tonks with his younger sister (and manager), Amanda (Kristy McNichol), in tow. Travis has a bad habit of drinking too much and putting the moves on the wrong women, leaving tough-as-nails Amanda to bail him out. One night Travis runs afoul of Seth Ames (Don Stroud), the sheriff of a small Georgia town who isn't against using his fists to teach lawbreakers a lesson; thanks to Ames, Travis ends up behind bars, but Amanda is able to persuade a sympathetic state trooper, Conrad (Mark Hamill), to help raise bail. In exchange, Travis has to work off his debt as a bartender at a local watering hole (where he hopes he might get to play a few tunes for the customers), and between drawing beers and pouring shots, he meets a beautiful local girl amed Melody (Sunny Johnson). However, as romance begins to bloom between them, Travis find himself in trouble again when he discovers Melody already has a boyfriend -- Seth Ames. Both Dennis Quaid and Kristy McNichol do their own singing in The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, with Quaid also writing several of his character's tunes. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kristy McNichol, Dennis Quaid, (more)
A William Diehl novel was the source of the noirish nailbiter Sharky's Machine. Sharky (Burt Reynolds) is an undercover cop who fouls up an assignment and is kicked downstairs to the vice squad -- a rough-shod bunch of hellraisers who make life miserable. Soon, however, Sharky's life does a 180 when he encounters Dominoe (Rachel Ward) a prostitute seemingly in danger from her interaction with a number of very seedy thugs. To protect her, Sharky lines the high-rise apartment across from her residence with security cameras and surveillance equipment -- which only makes matters sticky as Sharky begins to fall in love with her. The film opened to a very warm critical reception (Janet Maslin observed that "Burt Reynolds establishes himself as yet another movie star who is as valuable behind the camera as he is in front of it"). It also features one of the most dangerous stunts on film, wherein the late stuntman Dar Robinson free falls from 16 stories off the ground. The "machine" of the title refers to Sharky's fellow cops, played by heavyweights Brian Keith, Charles Durning, Bernie Casey, and others. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Vittorio Gassman, (more)
