Julie Andelman Movies

In a takeoff of once-popular radio "shock jock" Morton Downey Jr., Dan (John Larroquette) is offered the opportunity to host an in-your-face talk show, where controversy and confrontation is a way of life. Dan soon discovers that he's in way over his head, thanks to the Machiavellian manipulations of the show's producer, Margo Hunter (Susan Anton). Meanwhile, Mac (Charlie Robinson) and Quon Le (Denice Kumagai) encounter innumerable obstacles in their efforts to visit Graceland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This bargain-basement slasher film from Oklahoma was shot entirely on video -- a format trumpeted proudly on the cassette sleeve, but definitely nothing to be proud of -- which manages to accentuate the uncomfortable sleaziness of the proceedings. The plot involves a secret society of creeps who gather regularly in ceremonial garb to worship the god "Canis" and offer the occasional human sacrifice in his honor. Their right to dismember is eventually challenged by a bookish hero and a pudgy heroine, who spend most of their time standing around talking while the wacky Canis cultists continue to slash, hack and saw away at the coeds of a small Midwestern college. The prototype of a short-lived series of shot-on-tape horror features for the early home-video market, this should have been plain evidence that the format was ill-suited to feature-length projects. The acting is of the high school Drama Club variety at best, and the underlit videography gives the impression of deranged home movies from a vacation to hell. Followed by a marginally more competent sequel, Revenge, which features a cameo from John Carradine. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Based on the writings and experiences of "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Where the Buffalo Roam details the adventures of Thompson (Bill Murray) and his attorney (Peter Boyle), whose character is rewritten as Mexican-American rather than Samoan, as they pillage and plunder their way across America on a drunken, drug-saturated mission to...well, their mission is as yet undetermined, but they set about it anyway. Highlights include a staged broadcast of the Super Bowl from Thompson's hotel room and a scene in which he escapes from the police with a little help from his trusty sidekick. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

"You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets; you do it at home. The rest is bulls--t, and you know it." Returning to the autobiographical milieu of his 1968 debut Who's That Knocking at My Door? for his third feature, Martin Scorsese examined the daily struggles of a wannabe hood to keep his morals straight on the streets of Little Italy. Driven equally by his wish to become a respectable gangster like his uncle (Cesare Danova) and his desire to live his life like St. Francis, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) takes on his energetically unhinged friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) as his own personal penance, intervening to get Johnny Boy to pay off a debt to the local loan shark Michael (Richard Romanus). Despite his promises to his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson) that they will move out of Little Italy once he strengthens his position in his uncle's world, Charlie's involvement with Johnny Boy further ensnares him in the neighborhood. When Johnny Boy decides to mouth off to Michael rather than pay him, Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Teresa try to flee Michael's murderous anger (and an assassin played by Scorsese), forcing Charlie to realize that the rules of the streets do not mesh with absolution. Whereas fellow "film school generation" director Francis Ford Coppola transformed the Hollywood gangster movie into metaphorical epics about the Mafia and capitalism in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Scorsese revised the genre in the opposite direction, focusing on the gritty minutiae of daily life and drawing from personal memory. Combining documentary-style realism (even though most of the film was shot in L.A.); kinetic editing and camera movement; and expressionistic lighting, angles, and film speed, Scorsese presents an intimate picture of the trivial incidents and latent violence of Charlie's and Johnny Boy's world, naturalistically unfolding their experiences rather than simply explaining what motivates them. They lead a claustrophobic, petty existence that Scorsese and screenwriter Mardik Martin witnessed growing up in Little Italy, complete with a soundtrack of hit songs like "Be My Baby" and "Jumping Jack Flash" that had poured out of neighborhood radios. Mean Streets opened at the New York Film Festival to excellent notices and played strongly in New York but failed to duplicate that level of business elsewhere. Even so, Mean Streets established Scorsese and De Niro as formidable young talents and marked the beginning of a long-running and fertile collaboration that continued in such films as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), and Goodfellas (1990). Scorsese's exceptional grasp of the texture of day-to-day life, the rhythm and cadences of street talk, and cinema's visual and aural possibilities makes Mean Streets one of the pivotal films of the 1970s, as well as of Scorsese's career, and an influence on such future filmmakers as Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, among many others. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide