Dale Robinette Movies

Michael Douglas stars as a treasure-hunting eccentric in this Alexander Payne-produced comedy from director Michael Cahill. Recently released from a mental institution and reunited with his teenage daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood), Charlie (Douglas) decides there's century's old gold buried near their lower-middle-class neighborhood, and sets out on an obsessive quest to find it. Along the way, the estranged parent and child rekindle a long-lost bond with each other. Featuring a score by David Robbins, King of California screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Charles Bronson, weary and comatose, is trotted out again as the cocked crusader Paul Kersey in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. Director Michael Winner has jumped ship for this installment, replaced by J. Lee Thompson (who has seen better days). Kersey is back in L.A. and dating attractive reporter Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz). Of course, the clock is ticking, and the gong goes off when Karen's daughter overdoses on crack. Before you can say "kaboom" the drug dealer, along with a large cast of bit players, are blown to bits by the single-minded vigilante. An enterprising publisher whose own daughter has died from a drug overdose hires Kersey to wipe out the city's two rival drug dealers and their legions of flunkies. Kersey has no trouble agreeing, and using the technique limned in Yojimbo, he methodically eliminates gang members, first from one side and then the other, until one gang's paranoia about the other gang causes the two competitors to engage in a major confrontation that impacts both groups. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Pop singer Neil Diamond stars in this ill-begotten second remake of Al Jolson's seminal 1927 musical The Jazz Singer. The moth-eaten story concerns a cantor's son who desires success as a pop singer, despite the wishes of his imperious father. The film takes place in the present day with Yussel Rabinowitz (Neil Diamond) playing a young (though middle-aged looking) cantor performing at the synagogue of his father (Laurence Olivier). Yussel is married and has settled down to a life of religious devotion to the teaching of his fath. But on the side, he writes songs for a black singing group, and when a member of the quartet takes ill, Yussel covers for him at one of their gigs by wearing blackface! The nightclub engagement is such a success that Yussel abandons his family -- and his father's synagogue -- and leaves his New York home for Los Angeles, hoping to break into the music business. Almost immediately he is spotted by spunky agent Molly Bell (Lucie Arnaz), who books him as an opening act for a touring comic. Yussel hits it big, but his father resents Yussel's forsaking their traditional Jewish ways. His father disowns him, rending his garments and bellowing, "I hef no son!" ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Chaos reigns in the Catskills in this low-budget teen comedy. Kavell (Michael Lembeck) and Bergman (Philip Casnoff) are college students who spend their summers working in the dining hall at Camp Oskemo, an upstate New York summer camp where they're the senior waiters. Serving food to bratty children doesn't interest them nearly as much as trying to make time with the female counselors at the camp, among them pretty but chaste Vicki (Lisa Shure) and attractive but significantly less virginal Evie (Fran Drescher). Kavell and Bergman also wage an annual war against the junior waiters with the help of deranged server Grossman (Dennis Quaid), but their real nemesis is Wallman (David Huddleston), the owner of the camp who makes no secret of his dislike for the waiters. Over the course of one eventful summer, Kavell, Bergman and their fellow food slingers dose the entire camp with amphetamines, taint the Kosher meals with pork, screen pornographic movies during Parent's Weekend, run a tank through the campgrounds and destroy the waiter's housing and most of what surrounds it. Hilarity, or something like it, ensues. While seemingly influenced by Meatballs, Gorp was actually shot at roughly the same time as Bill Murray's summer camp vehicle, though it was released nine months later. Director Joe Ruben later went on to better things, including True Believer, Sleeping With The Enemy and The Forgotten. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The redoubtable Angel (Stuart Margolin) is prepared to take full advantage of the fact that his brother-in-law Aaron Kiel (Milt Kogan) becomes the new police commissioner. Assigned to provide security for Kiel's welcoming party, Lt. Chapman (James Luisi) is none too thrilled that he may have to kowtow to Angel, who in addition to being a notorious lowlife is also a friend of Chapman's eternal nemesis Jim Rockford (James Garner). But when art thieves invade the party, steal $2,000,000 worth of paintings and force all the male revellers to remove their trousers, Chapman is forced to swallow his pride and "make nice" with Jim so that the thieves will be tracked down and captured with a minimum of embarrassment for the Police Force. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

It's Laverne (Penny Marshall) vs. Shirley (Cindy Williams) when a handsome but irresponsible playboy named Bart (Dale Robinette). Having swept Shirley off her feet with a smooth line of charming patter, Bart goes for a double-header by using the same technique on Laverne. Central to the plot is a pact between the two girls in which each promises the other never to "steal" a boy friend--a pact that turns out to be built upon an extremely shaky foundation. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Several people overhear a phoned-in murder threat aimed at prominent ecologist Kenneth Krug (Eric Braeden). The caller seems to be a hooker with whom Krug is having an affair--and after a bloody shoot-out, it appears as if the woman has carried out her threat, even though no body is found. Investigating, Kojak (Telly Savalas) begins to suspect that the elusive "hooker" does not exist, and that the murderer was actually Krug's scheming wife Carol (Susan Sullivan). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi