Tina Turner Movies

Before Tina Turner achieved worldwide fame as a solo act, she was setting stages ablaze as part of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, one of the most exciting R&B acts of their time, and the Ike and Tina Turner EP is a home video release which features four tunes from appearances the Turners recorded for German television in the early 1970's. Songs featured are "River Deep, Mountain High", "Proud Mary", "Honky Tonk Woman", and "Get Back". The DVD also features selections from other titles in this series, including performances by Leon Russell, Jack Bruce, Edgar Winter, and Rick Wakeman. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Future Goodbye Columbus director Larry Peerce was still only a few years out of the University of North Carolina when he directed The Big T.N.T. Show. This sequel to 1964's The T.A.M.I. Show is, like its predecessor, little more than a concert film, but a well photographed one (originally on videotape, it was transferred to 35-millimeter film). A wide variety of pop artists show up to do their thing, including Roger Miller, Joan Baez, Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, the Ronettes and The Lovin' Spoonful. And here's a real 1960s hot flash: Man From UNCLE star David McCallum shows up to warble a ballad and accompany himself on the guitar. Some of the most entertaining moments are unintentional: the slightly inaccurate lip-synching, the unplugged electric guitars, etc. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Czech filmmaker Milos Forman's first American production stars Linnea Heacock as Jeannie Tyne, a runaway teenager. While she wanders aimlessly around New York, her suburban parents, Lynn (Lynn Carlin) and Larry (Buck Henry), desperately search for their "missing" daughter. Larry and his best friend, Tony (Tony Harvey), inaugurate a search, but their expedition is sidetracked by a drinking binge at a local bar. Meanwhile, Lynn and Tony's wife, Margot (Georgia Engel), begin discussing their sex lives. Jeannie does finally return home, to constant questioning by her parents about which drugs she has taken; later, after Lynn and Larry join a support group for the parents of runaway children, they turn around and get stoned on marijuana themselves during one of the group meetings, then lapse into a randy game of strip poker -- little realizing that their daughter is close at hand and within earshot. As a critically revered lampoon of late-'60s sensibilities, Taking Off is full of "unknown" Manhattan-based performers who became famous during the '70s and '80s, including Paul Benedict, Vincent Schiavelli, Allen Garfield, Audra Lindley, and, in fleeting roles as auditioning singers, Carly Simon, who performs "Long Time Physical Effects," and Kathy Bates (billed as Bobo Bates), who performs "Even the Horses Had Wings." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

No longer professionally linked to his brother Terry Sanders, screenwriter/director Denis Sanders returned to the documentary format in which he'd started his career in the mid-1960s. After enjoying success with the up-close-and-personal Elvis: That's the Way It Is, Sanders decided to focus his attention on the world of gospel music. His 1971 feature-length documentary Soul to Soul follows a group of American gospel luminaries during a tour of Ghana, celebrating the 14th anniversary of that country's independence. Featured performers include Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, Roberta Flack, Les McCann, The Staple Singers, Willie Bobo and Eddie Harris. Soul to Soul proved to be Denis Sander's last documentary effort; his next film was the love it-or-hate it horror spoof Invasion of the Bee Girls. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tommy (Roger Daltrey) is a "deaf, dumb and blind kid" who retreats into himself after the death of his father. His mother, Nora (Ann-Margret), and stepfather Frank (Oliver Reed) take him to see a specialist (Jack Nicholson) but Tommy is apparently a hopeless case. That is, until Tommy discovers that "he sure plays a mean pinball." Tommy gains fame when he defeats the Pinball Wizard (Elton John) for the world championship. As a result, Tommy becomes such a celebrity that he even founds his own religious cult. But his fans begin to commercialize his fame, while Tommy wants to stick to the straight and narrow. When Tommy wants to end the commercialization of his message, his supporters accuse him of being hypocritical and turn on him. Ann-Margret, with a slinky red dress slit way up the side, was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, losing out to Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Pop star Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees star in this musical, loosely based on the popular 1967 Beatles album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the story, Billy Shears, who now heads the Lonely Hearts Club Band, is the grandson of the famous Sergeant Pepper. He is confronted by the need to save the magical musical instruments of the band from the bad guys, led by music tycoon B.D. Brockhurst (Donald Pleasance), who want to steal them. If they succeed, the magic which infuses "Heartland U.S.A." will disappear. Among the many Beatles' songs performed in the film by well-known popular artists are: "She's Leaving Home" (Bee Gees, Jay MacIntosh, John Wheeler), "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (Steve Martin), "Got To Get You into My Life (Earth, Wind & Fire), "When I'm 64" (Sandy Farina), "Come Together" (Aerosmith), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (sung by the Bee Gees, Paul Nicholas), "With a Little Help from My Friends" (Peter Frampton, the Bee Gees), "Fixing a Hole" (George Burns), and "Get Back" (Billy Preston). ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Originally, filmed at the Roxy in Los Angeles during 1982, this video features singing legend Chuck Berry belting out several of his greatest hits. The equally renowned Tina Turner joins him for one song, and later rejoins him in a choreographed farewell performance. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

About 15 years after the events of Mad Max 2, nuclear war has finally destroyed what little was left of civilization. Grizzled and older, former cop Max (Mel Gibson) roams the Australian desert in a camel-drawn vehicle -- until father-and-son thieves Jebediah Sr. (Bruce Spence) and Jr. (Adam Cockburn) use their jury-rigged airplane to steal his possessions and means of transportation. Max soon winds up in Bartertown, a cesspool of post-apocalyptic capitalism powered by methane-rich pig manure and overseen by two competing overlords, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) and Master (Angelo Rossitto), a crafty midget who rides around on the back of his hulking underling, Blaster (Paul Larsson). Seeking to re-equip himself, Max strikes a deal with the haughty Aunty to kill Blaster in ritualized combat inside Thunderdome, a giant jungle gym where Bartertown's conflicts are played out in a postmodern update of blood and circuses. Although Max manages to fell the mighty Blaster, he refuses to kill him after realizing the brute is actually a retarded boy. Aunty's henchmen murder Blaster nonetheless, then punish Max for violating the law that "Two men enter, one man leaves." Lashed to the back of a hapless pack animal and sent out into a sandstorm, a near-death Max is rescued by a band of tribal children and teens. The descendants of the victims of an airplane crash, the kids inhabit a lush valley and wait for the day when Captain Walker, the plane's pilot, will return to lead them back to civilization. Some of the children, refusing to believe that Max isn't Walker and that the glorious cities of their mythology no longer exist, set off in search of civilization on their own. Max and three tribe members must then rescue their friends from Bordertown and the clutches of Aunty Entity -- a quest that ends in a lengthy desert chase sequence that echoes the first two Mad Max films. Spence also appeared in Mad Max 2 in a different role, that of the Gyro Captain. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi