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Gary Chason
An emo grocery bagger living with his divorced dad in a low-income apartment complex is gradually drawn into the bizarre world of pornographic fiction in this tale of teenage drama from first-time feature filmmaker Bryan Poyser. Seventeen year-old Wes Slack (Rusty Kelly) was only looking to get laid when he discovered that shady neighbor Dusty Meyer (Gary Chason) is an ex-porn filmmaker who currently makes a living writing for Dear Pillow magazine - a prurient rag featuring sexually charged letters submitted by readers. Fired from his dead-end job and frustrated by his inability to make any real friends, Wes decides to try his own hand at writing due to the fact that he has direct access to his neighbor's most intimate fantasies. Lusty property manager Lorna (Viviane Vives) has a habit of indulging in phone sex from her nearby apartment, and lately Wes has been listening in on every word thanks to the assistance of a powerful police scanner. As Wes begins transcribing Lorna's illicit telephone conversations for submission to Dear Pillow, however, Dusty discovers the true source of his pupil's inspiration and secretly hatches a plan of his own. Now, as harmless fantasy begins to take dangerous root in reality, Wes fast begins to suspect that he has gotten in over his head. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rusty Kelly, Gary Chason, (more)
- 1992
Whatever else turns out to be real or false in this film, the antipathy that the office-worker therein has for his overbearing wife is clearly real. Everything else is up for grabs, including the two men whom he discovers in the house when he gets home from work. They claim that he hired them to murder his wife, but he doesn't remember it at all. When his wife comes home, the discussions and arguments continue, culminating in the apparent murder of his wife and the office worker being arrested for it, along with the two hired hit men. Then, he discovers that this whole scenario has been arranged by his wife to keep him distracted while preparations for a surprise birthday party are being made. Then the clerk discovers that the party, too, may have been an imaginary product of someone's dreams. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Austin Pendleton, Catherine Hyland, (more)
Texasville is Peter Bogdanovich's much-delayed sequel to The Last Picture Show. Adapted from Larry McMurtry's novel and told as a series of episodes, Texasville follows the characters from The Last Picture Show as they reunite in a small Texas town nearly 30 years after the end of the last movie, and face a number of adult problems, as well as confronting lingering emotions and memories from adolescence. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, (more)
In this slasher film parody, a psychotic serial killer called "The Breather" is killing off sexually active high school students when not making threatening phone calls (with a rubber chicken disguising his voice). Among The Breather's weapons of choice are paper clips, eggplants, and wooden horse-head bookends, and one of the murders is committed to commemorate Jamie Lee Curtis's birthday. Student Bodies was written and directed by Mickey Rose, who previously collaborated with Woody Allen on the screenplays for several of Allen's early films. The film had a notoriously difficult production and producer Michael Ritchie (best known as director of such films as The Candidate and Downhill Racer) opted to take his name off the picture, instead using the Director's Guild pseudonym Alan Smithee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kristen Riter, Matthew Goldsby, (more)
After making a series of acclaimed and controversial films in his native France, director Louis Malle made his American debut with this disturbing but visually beautiful story about Hattie (Susan Sarandon), a prostitute working in New Orleans' Storyville district at the turn of the century. When Hattie becomes pregnant, she opts to keep her baby and gives birth to a daughter named Violet, raising her in the brothel where she continues to work. Twelve years later, Violet (Brooke Shields) is old enough to attract the attentions of the brothel's customers, but emotionally has one foot in the adult world of her surroundings and the other in the naïveté of childhood. With Hattie's consent, Violet's virginity is auctioned off to the customers of the house; but for Violet, the pull between childhood and adulthood becomes most clear -- and most painful -- when she draws the affections of Bellocq (Keith Carradine), a photographer who has been working on a photo series about Storyville prostitutes. Violet's blend of childlike innocence and adult sensuality is profoundly attractive to him, but their relationship quickly becomes problematic, especially when Hattie leaves Violet behind to get married. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon, (more)
