Merle Kilgore Movies
- 1983
Richard Thomas stars as country music star Hank Williams Jr. in this made-for-TV biopic, based on Williams' own memoirs. Williams wasn't yet four years old when his father, the legendary country singer/songwriter Hank Williams, died en route to a show. By the time he was eight, his mother, Audrey (Allyn Ann McLerie), had put Hank Jr. on-stage, singing his father's songs as a novelty act. As a teenager, Williams was signed to a recording contract, still specializing in his father's material. Williams made a respectable living in the music business, but he longed to create a musical identity of his own. Williams' struggle to come out from under the long shadow of his father's legacy was a difficult one, and it took a prolonged bout with alcoholism, an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and a near-fatal fall while mountain climbing before Williams was able to come to terms with his father's reputation, forging a country-rock style all his own and finding success on his own terms. Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story also features Williams' long-time manager and friend Merle Kilgore as himself; country star Naomi Judd also makes a cameo appearance as one of Hank's many one-night romances on the road, and a 14-year-old Christian Slater plays Hank's son. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Loretta Lynn was one of the first female superstars in country music and remains a defining presence within the genre; with her strong, clear, hard-country voice and tough, no-nonsense songs about husbands who cheat and wives who weren't about to be pushed around, Lynn introduced a feminist mindset to Nashville years before the phrase "women's liberation" became common currency. Coal Miner's Daughter is a screen adaptation of Lynn's autobiography, starring Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. One of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family despite grinding poverty in Butcher's Holler, KY, Loretta married Dolittle "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she was only 13 years old. A mother of four by the time she was 20, Lynn began singing the occasional song at local honky-tonks on weekends, and at 25, she cut (at Mooney's suggestion) a demo tape that earned her a deal with an independent record label. Loretta and Mooney's tireless promotion of the record (including a long road trip through the south in which they stopped at every country radio station they could find) paid off -- Loretta's first single, "Honky Tonk Girl," hit the charts and earned her a spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Stardom called and Loretta never looked back, but success brought with it both joy (a long string of hit records and sold-out concerts and a close friendship with Patsy Cline) and sorrow (a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork and a great deal of stress to a marriage that endured -- but just barely). Sissy Spacek won an Academy award for her vivid, thoroughly natural performance as Loretta (she also did her own singing), and Levon Helm (drummer for the legendary rock group the Band) made an impressive screen debut as her father. Ernest Tubb makes a cameo appearance as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, (more)
Roadie is a showbiz saga about the working slobs who make live pop-music performances happen. Texas good ol' boy Travis W. Redfish (pop singer Meat Loaf) drives a Shiner beer truck on his appointed rounds, but he becomes smitten with rock groupie Lola Bouillabase (Kaki Hunter), a "roadie" whose sole ambition in life is to bed her idol, Alice Cooper (playing himself). Travis' grizzled pappy, Corpus C. Redfish (Art Carney), feels disgusted by his son's lifestyle. After hearing that Cooper and his band are on tour, Lola sets out to catch up to them and offer her services, with Travis in pursuit. Along the way, they meet a number of pop-music stars -- Blondie, Asleep at the Wheel, Hank Williams Jr., Roy Orbison, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- who are all working on their own tours. Travis signs on, himself, as a groupie for a rock band, and is quickly dubbed "greatest roadie of all time," but he soon realizes that he must return to Texas for the wedding of his sister and his best friend. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meat Loaf, Kaki Hunter, (more)
- 1979
In this made-for-TV drama, a spunky waitress (Deborah Raffin) is left to support herself, her two small children, and her unborn baby when her no-good husband runs off. Determined not to spend her life in a dead-end job, the woman quits waitressing and sets out to become a truck driver. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
Following 24 characters through 5 days in the country music capital, Robert Altman's 1975 epic presents a complexly textured portrayal (and critique) of American obsessions with celebrity and power. Among the various stars, aspirants, hangers-on, observers, and media folk are politically ambitious country icon Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) and his fragile star protegée Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley); Tom (Keith Carradine), a self-absorbed rock star who woos lonely married gospel singer Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin); Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles), a talentless waitress painfully humiliated at her first singing gig; Albuquerque (Barbara Harris), a runaway wife with dreams of stardom; nightclub owner Lady Pearl (Barbara Baxley), who reminisces about "those Kennedy boys"; single-minded groupie L.A. Joan (Shelley Duvall); vapid BBC commentator Opal (Geraldine Chaplin); and campaign guru John Triplette (Michael Murphy), who is trying to organize a concert rally for the unseen but always heard populist presidential candidate-cum-demagogue Hal Phillip Walker. Everything comes to a head during a climactic concert at Nashville's replica of the Parthenon temple, as the entertainment-hungry audience is momentarily woken out of its stupor by unexpected violence, only to be lulled into a restorative sing-along to "It Don't Worry Me." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Gibson, Barbara Baxley, (more)
A disaffected man seeks a sense of identity in one of the key films of Hollywood's 1970s New Wave. Once a promising pianist from a family of classical musicians, Bobby Eroica Dupea (Jack Nicholson, in his first major starring role) leads a blue-collar life as an oil rigger, living with needy waitress girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black) and bowling with their friends Elton (Billy "Green" Bush) and Stoney (Fannie Flagg). Feeling suffocated by responsibilities, Bobby seeks out his sister, Tita (Lois Smith), and, discovering that his father is gravely ill, he reluctantly heads back to the patrician family compound in Puget Sound with a pregnant Rayette in tow. After a road trip featuring a harangue from hitchhiker Palm (Helena Kallianiotes) about filth, and Bobby's ill-fated attempt to make a menu substitution in a diner, he tucks Rayette away in a motel before heading to the house. There Bobby seduces his uptight brother Carl's cultured fiancée, Catherine (Susan Anspach), but Rayette shows up unexpectedly. As Rayette's crassness collides with the snobbery of the Dupea circle, Bobby loses patience with both sides. After trying to reconcile with his mute father, Bobby departs, unwilling to give in to either destiny. Director Bob Rafelson and screenwriter Adrien Joyce (aka Carole Eastman) used the creative control afforded by the low budget to craft a European-influenced character study, catching a cultural mood of anomie and resentment as it was embodied in Bobby. Neither older generation nor hippie, Bobby fits in nowhere, and his desire for independence conflicts with his emotional emptiness. Nicholson's nuanced performance of simmering frustration resonated with 1970 audiences caught between Nixon's "silent majority" and the troubled counterculture; a substantial hit, Five Easy Pieces was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, and established Nicholson as a star. Offering no "easy" answers to Bobby's existential crisis, Five Easy Pieces is one of the pre-eminent films in the early-'70s cycle of alienated American art movies, as even the fantasy of rebellion is reduced to merely running away. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, (more)
- 1965
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In this musical comedy, an enterprising young husband decides to help out his wife by staging a benefit with Country and Western singers when the Italian opera company she had scheduled suddenly cancels. Mayhem ensues when two bunglers get confused and show up dressed in Italian costumes. Songs include: "Young Love," "Don't Let Me Cross Over," "Hello Walls," "Columbus Stockade Blues," "John Henry," "Born to Lose," "Honky Tonk Angels," "Abilene," "Ain't that a Shame," and "Careless Love." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
