Rick Garia Movies
- 1987
- R
Better known as It's Alive III, Island of the Alive details the further exploits of the murderous mutant infants introduced in director Larry Cohen's It's Alive! (1974). Said infants are shipped off to a desert island, where they are completely cut off from civilization. The government intends to eliminate the penned-up infants, but Michael Moriarty, the father of one of the babies, organizes a protest against this wholesale slaughter. It is clear to anyone who can read that director Cohen is drawing parallels between the quarantined children and society's treatment of AIDS victims. The strength of Cohen's direction and storytelling prowess is slightly weakened by some inadequate special effects in the closing scenes, wherein the babies reproduce and wreak havoc on the Mainland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Moriarty, Karen Black, (more)
In a well-wrought sex comedy with one foot in the feminist camp and another on a banana peel, Casey Meadows (Deborah Foreman in an excellent performance) defies social custom when she gets a job as a limo driver. The manager of the Brentwood Limousine Company, McBride (Howard Hesseman), and her co-workers give her both a hard time and some of the worst fares possible. She is eventually assigned to chauffeur an overworked executive (Sam Jones) who just broke up with his girlfriend. After drowning his sorrows in the back seat of the limo, the ingrate wakes up in Casey's bed the morning after, refusing to believe he had anything to do with her. Their antagonistic relationship is stressed all the more when she has to drive him on a vacation and the car breaks down. What Casey does not know is that she has not been given the complete scoop on her passenger. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deborah Foreman, Sam Jones, (more)
This attempt at parodying a world of hookers, child pornographers, and drug cartels never quite gets off the ground. Though these topics are not inherently amusing, director Penelope Spheeris takes the plot of Hardcore as a springboard and develops a few parallel stories that are meant to be funny. Pauline Stanton (Trish Van DeVere) is desperately hoping to rescue her daughter Lori (Robin Wright) who is working for the evil Walsh (Frank Gorshin) as a call-girl. As some policemen work on trying to get the goods on Walsh and send him up for white slave trading, another policewoman is involved in trying to bring down a child pornographer in her neighborhood. Yet another cop, detective Romero (H.B. Haggerty) is after a New York mob boss. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronny Cox, Frank Gorshin, (more)
