Art Linson Movies
Producer Art Linson started out managing rock groups before turning to film where he has worked closely with such directors as Jonathan Demme, Amy Heckerling and Brian De Palma. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Like the TV series that shared the same title, The Untouchables (1987) was an account of the battle between gangster Al Capone and lawman Eliot Ness, this time in the form of a feature film boasting big stars, a big budget, and a script from respected playwright David Mamet. Kevin Costner stars as Ness, a federal agent who has come to Chicago during the Prohibition Era, when corruption in the local police department is rampant. His mission is to put crime lord Capone (Robert De Niro) out of business, but Capone is so powerful and popular that Ness is not taken seriously by the law or the press. One night, discouraged, he meets a veteran patrolman, Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), and discovers that the acerbic Irishman is the one honest man he's been seeking. Malone has soon helped Ness recruit a gunslinger rookie, George Stone (Andy Garcia), and, joined by nebbish accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), the men doggedly pursue Capone and his illegal interests. At first a laughingstock, Ness soon has Capone outraged over his and Malone's sometimes law-bending tactics, and the vain mobster strikes back in vicious style. Ultimately, it is the most unexpected and minor of crimes, tax evasion, which proves Capone's undoing. All of the credits for The Untouchables boasted big names, including music from Ennio Morricone and costumes by Giorgio Armani. Director Brian De Palma continued his tradition of including a homage to past masters of the cinema with a taut stairway shoot-out reminiscent of a similar sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, (more)
- 1984
- R
Comprised of classic teen movie elements scattered like croutons over a salad, this undistinguished high school drama involves several inconsequential stories at once, set in a seven-day period before the beginning of school. Tom Drake (Christopher Penn, Sean's brother) is a high-school wrestler who loves Eileen (Jenny Wright), but she is more than just a little dubious about their relationship. Since her lecherous boss (Rick Moranis) will not leave her alone, men are at a low ebb in her life. Bill Conrad (Eric Stoltz) is a friend of Tom's who has already graduated and who asks him to share his apartment for awhile to help him out financially. Bill then decides to split with his girlfriend Anita (Lea Thompson), who is suddenly too young for his new status as a high-school grad. Miffed at his rejection, Anita starts a liaison with David Curtiss (Hart Bochner), without knowing that David is married and a father. Other than Bill's 15-year-old brother Jim (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), who follows a Vietnam vet around in adulation, the entire focus of the film is on teen love relationships played by twentysomethings from the vantage point of tensomethings, more or less. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Eric Stoltz, (more)
A single mother and her difficult son find family life isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be in this drama adapted from writer and professor Tobias Wolff's 1989 memoir of the same name. Nomadic, flaky Caroline (Ellen Barkin) just wants to settle down in one place, find a decent guy, and provide a better home for her handful of a son, Toby (Leonardo DiCaprio). When she moves to Seattle and meets the respectful, respectable Dwight Hansen (Robert DeNiro), she thinks she's got it made. Toby, however, feels differently after spending a few months with Dwight and his children and away from Caroline. The boy's stepfather-to-be seems to want to mold Toby into a better person, but to do so he emotionally, verbally, and physically abuses the kid. The marriage proceeds, and soon Caroline, too, recognizes Dwight's need to dominate everyone around him. She sticks with it, though, convinced it's the best thing for her son, and several years of dysfunction ensue. During this time, Tobias befriends another misfit, the possibly homosexual young Jonah (Arthur Gayle), while continuing to chafe under the yoke of his repressive stepfather. This Boy's Life provided the first lead role for future superstar DiCaprio. The film was written by Robert Getchell, who also penned such mother/son fare as Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and The Client. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Ellen Barkin, (more)
In this comedy, escaped prisoners Ned (Robert DeNiro) and Jim (Sean Penn) take refuge in a monastery where they pose as priests to avoid capture. Intending to flee across the Canadian border, the two convicts run into all kinds of unexpected trouble in their new-found priesthood. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, (more)
Inspired by the personal memoirs of Hollywood producer Art Linson, Barry Levinson's fictional showbiz comedy stars Robert De Niro as a struggling movie producer who has just suffered through his second divorce, and slowly finds his soul being ground up in the machinations of the Hollywood machine. Ben (De Niro) is an aging producer whose career was already on a downward turn when his personal life went straight into the toilet. Not only is Ben juggling two ex-wives and a daughter who seems to have grown up overnight, but his colleagues seem to take pleasure in watching him suffer while he attempts to complete his latest film on an impossible schedule.
"Fiercely" was supposed to be the visionary movie that revived Ben's career, but drug-addicted director Jeremy (Michael Wincott) has clashed with uncompromising studio chief Lou (Catherine Keener) following a disastrous test screening, and now it appears as if not even Sean Penn's presence in the film will be enough to make it a box-office hit. Meanwhile, Ben's ex-wife Kelly (Robin Wright Penn) can't seem to decide if she loves him or hates him, and his teenage daughter, Zoe (Kristen Stewart), has gone from playing with Barbie dolls to flirting with boys in the blink of a heavily mascaraed eye. As if that wasn't enough for one man to take in, screenwriter Scott (Stanley Tucci) is trying to broker a deal with Ben while simultaneously making a play for his former wife, and nebbish agent Dick (John Turturro) is so terrified of his own clients that he can't even ask Bruce Willis to shave his scraggly new beard for an upcoming role. It's all just another day in the world of runaway egos, treachery, betrayal, and deceit that is Hollywood, and if Ben can just make it to Cannes with a finished film under his arm and his sanity in tact, everything might just work out after all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
"Fiercely" was supposed to be the visionary movie that revived Ben's career, but drug-addicted director Jeremy (Michael Wincott) has clashed with uncompromising studio chief Lou (Catherine Keener) following a disastrous test screening, and now it appears as if not even Sean Penn's presence in the film will be enough to make it a box-office hit. Meanwhile, Ben's ex-wife Kelly (Robin Wright Penn) can't seem to decide if she loves him or hates him, and his teenage daughter, Zoe (Kristen Stewart), has gone from playing with Barbie dolls to flirting with boys in the blink of a heavily mascaraed eye. As if that wasn't enough for one man to take in, screenwriter Scott (Stanley Tucci) is trying to broker a deal with Ben while simultaneously making a play for his former wife, and nebbish agent Dick (John Turturro) is so terrified of his own clients that he can't even ask Bruce Willis to shave his scraggly new beard for an upcoming role. It's all just another day in the world of runaway egos, treachery, betrayal, and deceit that is Hollywood, and if Ben can just make it to Cannes with a finished film under his arm and his sanity in tact, everything might just work out after all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Catherine Keener, (more)
Based on the writings and experiences of "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Where the Buffalo Roam details the adventures of Thompson (Bill Murray) and his attorney (Peter Boyle), whose character is rewritten as Mexican-American rather than Samoan, as they pillage and plunder their way across America on a drunken, drug-saturated mission to...well, their mission is as yet undetermined, but they set about it anyway. Highlights include a staged broadcast of the Super Bowl from Thompson's hotel room and a scene in which he escapes from the police with a little help from his trusty sidekick. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Boyle, Bill Murray, (more)
