Steve Wax Movies

A child's perspective on the Haight-Ashbury counterculture of the 1960s informs filmmaker Ralph Arlyck's film concerning the perceptive and precocious four-year-old and his unique perspective on the chaos that was sweeping a nation. A student at San Francisco State University at the time when police in riot gear flooded the campus and revolutionary-minded idealists waxed poetic in the streets, Ralph Arlyck was befriended by a young boy named Sean who would occasionally come down from his mother's top-floor apartment to chat with the various inhabitants of the come-one-come-all commune. When Arlyck one day decided to turn on his camera during one of young Sean's frequent visits, the images and thoughts Arlyck captured on film would perfectly encapsulate the dying innocence of the era. Now, 30 years later and generations removed from that tumultuous time, Arlyck returns to San Francisco to seek out Sean and find out just what became of the barefoot four-year-old whose strange mix of childlike wonder and worldly viewpoints gave curious birth to a new hope for the future of a country on the brink. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Writer-director Nicholas Barker opens the doors into the lonely, cruel world of single adults in New York City in this bleak comic quasi-documentary which uses real New York singles as actors. Barker selected his four stars from a series of telephone interviews. The two men and two women are unlucky in love and hungering for attention. Mikey Russo is a 54-year-old screenwriter who hasn't yet sold a major script. He is also an aspiring actor. Though his interest in film hasn't brought him riches, it has given him a way to meet women. Michael De Stefano is a 40-year-old transportation worker who has spent 15 years answering personal ads trying to find the perfect wife. He goes through many encounters patiently hoping. Middle-aged, divorced Brenda Monte is struggling with financial problems and the trials of raising a teenage daughter alone. She is sexually adventuresome. Amy Copp, 28, is a baseball fan who wants to find a husband before she hits 30, but her weight problem keeps preventing her from succeeding. Barker uses some scripted scenes to fill in gaps between his semi-documentary portrayals of the romantic misadventures of this motley group. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

In this sports-oriented drama, Art Long (Dennis Quaid), a loser as a country singer, starts competing in local fist-fight matches in order to bring home a little extra cash -- and is caught up in his successes enough to continue on to the big national finals. Predictable from the first round onwards, Long is supported by his wife (Carlene Watkins), his father (Wilford Brimley), his mother (Fran Ryan), his friends, his fight promoter (Warren Oates) and just about everyone except his opponents in the ring. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi