Loyd Catlett Movies

Produced by Hollywood iconoclast BBS Productions, film critic-turned-director Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film pays homage to Hollywood's classical age as it chronicles generational rites of passage in Anarene, a fictional one-horse Texas town. In 1951, high school seniors Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) play football, go to the movies at the Royal Theater, hang out at the pool hall owned by local elder statesman Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), and lust after rich tease Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd in her film debut). As the year passes, Sonny learns about the pitfalls and compromises of adulthood through an affair with his coach's wife Ruth (Cloris Leachman) and a thwarted elopement with Jacy after she dumps Duane. Following two tragic deaths, and with Duane gone to Korea and Jacy packed off to college in Dallas, Sonny is left behind in Anarene, wise enough to absorb the life lessons of Sam the Lion and Jacy's mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn). He is determined to honor Sam's legacy as the town's conscience, despite a telling sign of incipient communal disintegration: the closing of the Royal Theater after a final showing of Howard Hawks's Red River. Paying tribute to classical Hollywood directors like Hawks and John Ford, Bogdanovich used old-time cinematographer Robert Surtees and shot The Last Picture Show in crisp black-and-white, with a restrained style devoid of the kind of "new wave" techniques (jump cuts, zooms, and jittery hand-held camerawork) used by such contemporaries as Arthur Penn, Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, and Martin Scorsese. As in such Ford films as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Bogdanovich relies on careful visual composition in deep focus to help communicate the regret over the passing of an era. Hailed as one of the best films by a young director since Citizen Kane (1941), The Last Picture Show premiered at the New York Film Festival and went on to become a hit. It was also nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Larry McMurtry's and Bogdanovich's adaptation of McMurtry's novel. John Ford stalwart Johnson won Supporting Actor and Leachman won Supporting Actress, beating out their cohorts Bridges and Burstyn. For an audience steeped in movie history and caught up in the chaotic 1971 present, The Last Picture Show presented a nostalgic look backward that was not so much an escape from the present as a coming to terms with what the present had lost. Its 1990 sequel Texasville, in which Bridges and Shepherd played later incarnations of their original characters, was not as successful. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by the iconoclastic Richard Condon (of Manchurian Candidate and Prizzi's Honor fame), Winter Kills was one of the vanguard efforts in the "JFK conspiracy" school of literature. Jeff Bridges stars as Nick Kegan, the scion of a powerful Kennedyesque family, who has done his best to make himself obscure after the assassination of his older brother, the former president of the U.S. While working as an oil rigger, Nick is introduced to a terminally ill gentleman who claims to have been "the second assassin." His curiosity aroused, Nick begins digging into what was supposed to be a closed case -- and, predictably, what he finds out isn't pretty. This, however, is the only predictable element of this mesmerizingly mazelike yarn. A failure when first released, Winter Kills fared somewhat better when director William Richert arranged to rerelease the film through his own company and restore several scenes that had been cut by its previous backers. Elizabeth Taylor appears uncredited as one "Lola Comante." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The only installment of the Halloween series to abandon the Michael Myers story line, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is an intricate sci-fi horror hybrid. A week before Halloween, an older man named Harry Grimbridge (Al Berry) is wounded by a mysteriously dispassionate group of assailants in an industrial parking lot. After receiving treatment at a local hospital from Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) -- a hard-drinking divorced father of two -- Grimbridge is killed by an assassin who later sets himself on fire. Blowing off his own kids, Challis teams up with Grimbridge's daughter, Ellie (Stacey Nelkin), to find out why the middle-aged toy salesman was murdered. The duo's search soon leads them to a Halloween-mask factory run by inventor and practical joker Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy). In between bouts of passionate lovemaking, Ellie and Challis begin to realize that the sinister old businessman has something other than treats in mind for America's kids -- something to do with the Silver Shamrock masks that Challis' children and thousands of other youngsters have bought for the holiday. Original screenwriter Nigel Kneale, whose scripts for Britain's Quatermass TV series made him a beloved science fiction fixture, sued the producers of Halloween III to have his name removed from the credits after seeing the gory finished product; director Tommy Lee Wallace ultimately received screenplay credit. John Carpenter, director of the first Halloween film, co-produced the third installment with Debra Hill, who would later soldier on without Carpenter for additional, belated sequels. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

A variation on the "buddy-cop" hybridized genre, 48 HRS. greatly bolstered the career of Nick Nolte and made comedian Eddie Murphy a bonafide box-office sensation. When a pair of reckless cop-killers break out of prison, grizzled detective Jack Cates (Nolte) is left no alternative but to spring fast-talking hustler Reggie Hammond (Murphy) from the penitentiary in order to find the criminals. The catch: the pair only have 48 hours to complete their assignment before Hammond must return to prison. Naturally, the two despise each other and even engage in fisticuffs, but eventually the danger facing them proves a strong enough common bond for them to play on the same team, and even achieve a little mutual admiration. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

A woman trying to keep a momentary indiscretion quiet finds herself in more trouble than she ever imagined in this comedy written and directed by Robert Benton. Nadine Hightower (Kim Basinger), who is significantly more beautiful than intelligent, is fast-talked into posing for some cheesecake pictures by sleazy photographer Raymond Escobar (Jerry Stiller). When Nadine learns that Escobar plans to use the pictures for a set of racy playing cards, Nadine decides to steal the photos back, and she enlists the help of her soon-to-be-former husband Vernon (Jeff Bridges), who is already engaged to the winner of a local beauty pageant. In the midst of the robbery, intruders shoot and kill Escobar in the next room; Nadine and Vernon grab an envelope marked "Nadine" and make tracks. But the envelope doesn't contain any photos; instead, there are plans for a road to be built in town that reveal dirty dealings by local politicians, and now Nadine and Vernon are on the run from both Escobar's killers and land baron Buford Pope (Rip Torn). Popular country and western group Sweethearts of the Rodeo perform several tunes for the film's soundtrack. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Adapted by screenwriter Rafael Yglesias from his own novel, Fearless explores the complex struggle back to mental health of post-traumatic stress disorder victim Max Klein (Jeff Bridges). One of few survivors of a fatal plane crash, Klein remains calm and assists other survivors out of the burning debris, earning praise as a hero by the media. After stoically departing the tragedy without a word to emergency officials, Max returns home with detached feelings towards his wife (Isabella Rossellini) and son, along with a bizarre, seemingly authentic belief that he is now impervious to harm. Bill Perlman (John Turturro), a psychiatrist for the airline, fails to reach Max about his newfound fearlessness, but asks for his help in aiding Carla (Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Rosie Perez), a fellow crash survivor filled with grief and guilt over the loss of her baby. In one of his earlier roles, Benicio del Toro plays a small part as Carla's boyfriend. ~ Lisa Kropiewnicki, All Movie Guide

Opening within one month from each other in 1994, Blown Away invited many comparisons to Speed. Both are pyrotechnical displays involving mad bombers and a multitude of flying building debris and body parts. The cop and the mad bomber in this one are Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges), a veteran of the Boston Bomb Squad planning to retire from the force, and Ryan Gaerity (Tommy Lee Jones), a revenge-crazed explosives expert who has recently escaped from a detention center in Northern Ireland. It seems that Gaerity is out to get Jimmy and has been nursing his grudge for the past twenty years. Back in his Irish past, Jimmy, then known as Liam, was a student of Gaerity, who constructed bombing devices for the IRA. But when Gaerity's bombing plans included the killing of innocent civilians, Liam opposed him and thwarted his efforts. As a result, Liam escaped to the United States to become Jimmy, and Gaerity was arrested and sent to prison. But now that Gaerity is out of jail, he is traveling to Boston to wreak havoc upon the city in revenge for what Jimmy has done to him. His plan is to create so many bombings in Boston that the bomb squad's strength will be depleted, allowing him to get to Jimmy and his family. The goal? Blowing up Jimmy's wife (Suzy Amis) and stepdaughter at a Boston Pops concert. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide