Scott Beach Movies

A criminal trying to reform is forced to endure the most humiliating punishment of all -- hanging out with his son -- in this family comedy. Ray Gleason (Ted Danson) is a thief whose ambitions far outstrip both his skill and his intelligence; Ray is just bright enough to have realized this, and he's decided to go straight and open a bake shop (he learned how to decorate cakes during his last stay in prison). However, Ray needs to raise some working capital, so in association with his buddies Bobby (Saul Rubinek) and Carl (Gailard Sartain) he is planning his last heist, in which they hope to walk away with a highly valuable collection of rare coins. Ray also happens to have an 11-year-old son, Timmy (Macaulay Culkin), whose mother died several years ago; Timmy has been living with his aunt, but when she gets married and goes away on her honeymoon, Timmy ends up staying with Ray. Timmy is a lot smarter than his dad and quickly figures out what Ray and his cronies have been up to; he's long felt a great deal of resentment toward his father for not being around when he needed him, so Timmy steals the loot from the robbery and uses it to blackmail Ray into spending some quality time with him. Timmy also thinks that it's high time Ray settled down, so when he notices that Theresa (Glenne Headly), an undercover cop, has been following Ray's trail, Timmy tries to play matchmaker and bring them together. Getting Even with Dad would prove to be the next-to-last screen appearance for former pre-teen superstar Macaulay Culkin; he was 14 when this film was released, and within five years he was a married man attending the Rhode Island School of Design. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

History tells us that would-be automobile mogul Preston Tucker was a silver-tongued con man, who misappropriated his investors' money and played fast and loose with ethics and legalities in the pursuit of his dream. Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola isn't buying this: to hear Coppola tell it, Tucker was "Mr. Smith Goes to Detroit," a sincere visionary who tried and failed to buck the Big Three auto manufacturers. Moreover, he was a staunch defender of family values, as witness his inseparable relationship with his loyal wife (Joan Allen) and adoring children. It was for his family's sake, rather than any dreams of financial gain, that Tucker created the oddball three-headlight vehicle which he envisioned as the "car of the future". Naturally, the corporate fat cats of 1947 can't abide competition from a rugged individualist; thus, with several politicos in their pockets, they crush the Tucker and the man who built it. We'd have been more inclined to believe the story had Coppola adopted a straightforward Capraesque approach and not utilized all sorts of complicated camera trickery. Somehow, by presenting Tucker in so showoffy a directorial manner, the character comes off more as a sleight-of-hand artist than a bastion of sincerity. Even so, Jeff Bridges does a nice job as Tucker, as does Martin Landau as Tucker's incongruous business partner. Jeff's dad, Lloyd Bridges, appears in an uncredited role as a "bought" senator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Covering some 15 years, The Right Stuff recounts the formation of America's space program, concentrating on the original Mercury astronauts. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American in space; Fred Ward is Gus Grissom, the benighted astronaut for whom nothing works out as planned; and Ed Harris is John Glenn, the straight-arrow "boy scout" of the bunch who was the first American to orbit the earth. The remaining four Mercury boys are Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid). Wolfe's original book related in straightforward fashion the dangers and frustrations facing the astronauts (including Glenn's oft-repeated complaint that it's hard to be confident when you know that the missile you're sitting on has been built by the lowest bidder), the various personal crises involving their families (Glenn's wife Annie, a stutterer, dreads being interviewed on television, while Grissom's wife Betty, angered that her husband is not regarded as a hero because his mission was a failure, bitterly declares "I want my parade!"), and the schism between the squeaky-clean public image of the Mercury pilots and their sometimes raunchy earthbound shenanigans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Ronald Sukenick, this off-beat, slyly satirical road movie chronicles two decades in the life of a traveling mercenary who philosophizes about American culture and hopes to find himself while carrying out the orders of his enigmatic employer, who gives him assignments via bowls of vegetable soup. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A former baseball player (Alan Arkin) has descended into alcoholism, and meets up with a has-been entertainer (Carol Burnett) when both spot a briefcase containing secret documents. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

It's the last night of summer 1962, and the teenagers of Modesto, California, want to have some fun before adult responsibilities close in. Among them are Steve (Ron Howard) and Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), college-bound with mixed feelings about leaving home; nerdy Terry "The Toad" (Charles Martin Smith), who scores a dream date with blonde Debbie (Candy Clark); and John (Paul Le Mat ), a 22-year-old drag racer who wonders how much longer he can stay champion and how he got stuck with 13-year-old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) in his deuce coupe. As D. J. Wolfman Jack spins 41 vintage tunes on the radio throughout the night, Steve ponders a future with girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams), Curt chases a mystery blonde, Terry tries to act cool, and Paul prepares for a race against Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford), but nothing can stop the next day from coming, and with it the vastly different future ushered in by the 1960s. Fresh off The Godfather (1972), producer Francis Ford Coppola had the clout to get his friend George Lucas's project made, but only for $750,000 on a 28-day shooting schedule. Despite technical obstacles, and having to shoot at night, cinematographer Haskell Wexler gave the film the neon-lit aura that Lucas wanted, evoking the authentic look of a suburban strip to go with the authentic sound of rock-n-roll. Universal, which wanted to call the film Another Slow Night in Modesto, thought it was unreleasable. But Lucas' period detail, co-writers Willard Huyck's and Gloria Katz's realistic dialogue, and the film's nostalgia for the pre-Vietnam years apparently appealed to a 1973 audience embroiled in cultural chaos: American Graffiti became the third most popular movie of 1973 (after The Exorcist and The Sting), establishing the reputations of Lucas (whose next film would be Star Wars) and his young cast, and furthering the onset of soundtrack-driven, youth-oriented movies. Although the film helped spark 1970s nostalgia for the 1950s, nothing else would capture the flavor of the era with the same humorous candor and latent sense of foreboding. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Based on his award-winning student short, George Lucas's debut feature cerebrally celebrates the possibility for individual freedom against all odds. In a 1984-esque white-washed future underground dystopia where sexuality is banned, all humans sport shaved heads and the same shapeless outfits as they go about their work in a mandated state of sedation, listening to exhortations to "Buy and Be Happy." Black-clad robot cops chant a mantra to their victims that "everything will be all right" and automated confessional booths emit soothing therapeutic bromides. But unbeknownst to THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has been reducing their meds, resulting in their mutual discovery of love and THX's subsequent imprisonment for drug evasion and sexual misconduct. Determined to find the pregnant LUH, THX breaks out of prison with the help of his cellmate SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and an escaped TV hologram (Don Pedro Colley). With fugitive pursuits strictly budgeted, THX only has to evade the robocops until the funds run out, but surveillance is omnipresent and THX's vehicle keeps overheating. Making the only film produced through the first incarnation of Francis Ford Coppola's independent studio American Zoetrope, Lucas and his small crew, including co-writer and sound editor Walter Murch, shot THX 1138 in northern California with no interference from distributor Warner Bros. When Warners saw the austere result, however, they recut the film before its release. Neither the studio's nor Lucas's cut was a popular success, but THX 1138's coolly minimalist style and story-telling gained fans on the college screening circuit, just as Stanley Kubrick's poetic 2001: A Space Odyssey had attracted a large youth audience in 1968. When Lucas returned to sci-fi after American Graffiti, he traded restraint for nostalgic fun in the film that guaranteed his creative freedom in Hollywood: Star Wars. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide