Joe Madden Movies
Veteran performer Joe Madden worked as a character actor and played small roles in several New York-produced films during the '70s. Before that he had been a vaudeville and burlesque entertainer in the early 1900s. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
A road trip rolls through a small town where the line between the dead and the living has become a bit problematic in this horror parody. A handful of twentysomethings are driving to Galveston, TX, in an RV to attend the wedding of a close friend. After a long day on the road, the travelers find themselves in a tiny town called Lovelock, where the only available accommodations are at a bed and breakfast run by the eccentric Mr. Wise (David Carradine). One of the kids, Johnny (Oz Perkins), notices that Mr. Wise is carefully looking after a small box; curious about its contents, Johnny opens it, only to unleash a torrent of evil spirits who turn the local rednecks into bloodthirsty creatures hovering somewhere between life and death. Dead & Breakfast features supporting performances by Portia de Rossi, Diedrich Bader, Jeremy Sisto, and David Carradine's daughter Ever Carradine; co-star Oz Perkins is also the offspring of a well-known actor, Anthony Perkins. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ever Carradine, Brent David Fraser, (more)
Writer/director Wayne Kramer offers a glimpse into the aging Las Vegas casino world with the romantic drama The Cooler. Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) is extremely unlucky at gambling, and he owes the Shangri-La casino over 100,000 dollars. He is so unlucky that he is hired as a "cooler," someone to gamble next to high rollers and give them some of his bad luck to stop them from winning. This arrangement works out for awhile, until Bernie has almost paid off his debt and meets cocktail waitress Natalie Belisario (Maria Bello). The two start to fall in love and Bernie's luck begins to change. However, the old-fashioned mob boss Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) isn't going to let Bernie go so easily. Meanwhile, Larry Sokolov (Ron Livingston) arrives on the scene to help update the business management of the old mobster-run casino. Also starring Joey Fatone and Paul Sorvino as lounge singers. The Cooler was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- William H. Macy, Maria Bello, (more)
An aspiring actor leaves his home in Brooklyn for adulthood in Manhattan in Paul Mazursky's loosely autobiographical comedy-drama. In 1953, would-be thesp Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker) flees his hysterically clinging mother (Shelley Winters) for a $25-a-month (!!) apartment in bohemian Greenwich Village. Between Method-like acting classes, a movie audition (where he meets a posturing actor played by Jeff Goldblum), and work at a juice bar, Larry hangs out with a circle of archetypal Village eccentrics, including suicidal Anita (Lois Smith), womanizing poet Robert (Christopher Walken), and flamboyantly un-closeted homosexual Bernstein (Antonio Fargas), as he negotiates the pitfalls of love and sex with liberated girlfriend Sarah (Ellen Greene). The fallout over the group's ill-fated love affairs, and the Lapinskys' inopportune surprise visits, finally lead Larry to make peace with his past as he contemplates his future in Hollywood. Mazursky looks back to the 1950s as in such other 1970s films as American Graffiti, Grease, and TV's Happy Days, but his Greenwich Village life is less a time of lost pre-'60s innocence than a precursor of things to come. Sex, Larry jokes, may be serious, but it is also an omnipresent fact of life rather than something to be feared or repressed; love is the real problem. Even as Larry's friends strike various poses, they are all out to do their own thing as best they can. Critical response to Mazursky's nostalgia trip was mixed when the film was released, but the performances, particularly Winters, were admired. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lenny Baker, Shelley Winters, (more)
In Paul Mazursky's rueful character drama, 57-year-old Art Carney plays Harry, a 70-plus Manhattan widower who loses his tiny apartment to the wrecking ball. Accompanied by his pet, an aged cat named Tonto, Harry sets out on an odyssey to Los Angeles. During his journey, he finds a kindred spirit in a youthful hitchhiker (Melanie Mayron), who eventually finds happiness with Harry's grandson (Joshua Mostel). Harry makes stops at the homes of his grown children (Philip Bruns, Ellen Burstyn, and Larry Hagman), but each visit is more disappointing than the last; he also touches base with an old flame (Geraldine Fitzgerald), who has slipped into senility. By the time he arrives in L.A., Harry has become dispirited by his desultory visits with friends and family, but he eventually realizes that each new day can be a beginning rather than an end. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Art Carney, Ellen Burstyn, (more)
- 1972
- NR
In Greaser's Palace, Alan Arbus plays a zoot-suited character named Jesse, who is not only a Christlike figure, he is Christ. En route to Jerusalem, where he hopes to find work as a "singer-dancer-actor," Jesse finds himself in a dusty western town. At first, he is targeted for extermination by town boss Seaweedhead Greaser (Albert Henderson) but all this changes when he brings Greaser's son Lamy (Michael Sullivan) back from the dead. Jesse's healing powers lead to all sorts of wacked-out complications and, inevitably, a bizarre confrontation with the town looney, exotic dancer Cholera (Luana Anders). A very young Robert Downey Jr. (the son of the director) appears as a Quasimodo-like child. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1970
This allegorical film by Robert Downey finds humans all playing the role of animals in cages as they wait to be gassed. Flashbacks are used to tell the character's fantasies outside the cage. It is hard to tell if the characters are supposed to be animals, although a depressed prized fighter plays a boxer and a bald man is supposedly a Mexican hairless. Robert Downey Jr. makes an early film appearance as a puppy. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lawrence Wolf, Charles Dierkop, (more)
- 1970
- PG
Wealthy, insensitive young Beau Bridges buys an inner-city tenement, planning to evict the present occupants and construct a luxury home for himself. But once he ventures into the tenement, he grows quite fond of the low-income ethnic types who dwell within. He even kicks over the traces of his WASP upbringing by romancing black tenants Diana Sands and Marki Bey. Though essentially a comedy, The Landlord offers several painful truths about ghetto existence. Essentially, Beau Bridges acts as the audience's "eyes:" we learn as he learns, we grow as he grows. The Landlord represents the first directorial effort of Oscar-winning film editor Hal Ashby. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, (more)
The Owl and the Pussycat began life as a two-character Broadway play by Bill Manhoff, about a stuffy author who entered into an explosive relationship with his neighbor, a foulmouthed, freewheeling prostitute. Manhoff wrote the part of the hooker for a black actress, but all that changed when Barbra Streisand was cast in the role for the film version. George Segal portrays the male lead, and the play's two-character austerity was expanded to a cast of 19 speaking parts. Beyond the added characters (including Robert Klein as Segal's swinging roommate), the heart and soul of the film is the Segal-Streisand relationship; he is utterly appalled by her lifestyle, she is turned off by his prudishness, and both are made for each other. The Owl and the Pussycat was adapted for the screen by Buck Henry, who shows up in a cameo role in one of the bookstore scenes. The film represented the last work of cinematographer Harry Stradling, who'd previously photographed Streisand in Funny Girl; Stradling died during production, and was replaced by Ernest Laszlo. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, George Segal, (more)
