Joseph Eubanks Movies
- 1994
Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) would rather not hear Pembleton's (Andre Braugher) theory that drug dealer C.C. Cox was murdered by a cop. One of the suspects in the killing is Sgt. Jimmy Tryon (Michael S. Kennedy), a former lover of Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) -- and a man who seems too eager to confess. Meanwhile, Munch (Richard Belzer) has issues with his present girlfriend (surprise!); and Bolander (Ned Beatty) is encouraged by waitress Linda (Julianna Marguiles) to take up the cello again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, (more)
A frustrated writer helps save a woman being railroaded by the law -- or is she? -- in this comic mystery with romantic overtones. Phil Blackwood (Tom Selleck) is a best-selling mystery novelist who has run into a bad case of writer's block. Hoping to find inspiration for his next book, Phil goes to the city courthouse and witnesses the arraignment of Nina Ionescu (Paulina Porizkova), a beautiful Romanian immigrant who is accused of killing a man with a pair of scissors. For Phil, it's love at first sight, and after sneaking into jail disguised as a priest, he makes her an offer. Phil offers to let her stay at his house, and he provides her with an alibi -- she can claim that she couldn't have committed the crime, because she was with him at the time of the attack. Nina agrees, but after Phil encounters a handful of dangerous foreign agents, Nina's acrobatic parents, and a highly suspicious district attorney, he begins to wonder if Nina might have committed the murder after all. Her Alibi also features William Daniels as Sam, and James Farentino as Frank Polito; the song "Falling In Love" was written and recorded for the film by Randy Newman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Selleck, Paulina Porizkova, (more)
Forever interested in the kitsch built into past eras, director John Waters chooses the TV dance show craze of the early '60s for his playful focus in Hairspray. Ricki Lake plays Tracy Turnblad, just one of several alliteratively named characters coming of age in 1962 Baltimore, where "The Corny Collins Show" is the most popular American Bandstand-type program, watched by hundreds of young dreamers each day after school. Being chosen to dance on it is the ultimate status symbol and every young girl's dream, and Tracy improbably wins a featured spot when she infiltrates a dance contest and makes a better impression than her favored rival, the catty Amber von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick). Always able to have fun, even when she's being mocked by the jealous popular girls, Tracy wins the affections of Amber's boyfriend and soon begins leading a movement to integrate the dance show, which has previously featured blacks only in a once-weekly theme night. She is arrested following a demonstration at a local theme park owned by Amber's father (Sonny Bono), who subscribes to the same theory of race relations as "The Corny Collins Show." Tracy's adventures are also filtered through her loving but eccentric parents (Divine and Jerry Stiller) and involve a humorous cultural clash with pot-smoking beatniks (Ric Ocasek and Pia Zadora). ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ricki Lake, Michael St. Gerard, (more)
