Tom Joyner Movies
- 2005
Popular black radio talk-show host Tom Joyner, whose syndicated morning program was heard in some 110 major markets, added to his workload with this weekly comedy-variety TV hour. Less issue-oriented than Joyner's radio show, the new series was top-heavy with A-list guest stars and audience participation. Regular segments include the "My Big Break" amateur talent contest, the "Old School" dance competition, a taste of "Local Flavor" from around the country, and "Bamboozled," featuring celebrity pranks and practical jokes. The Tom Joyner Show entered local syndication on September 26, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Joyner
In this Carl Reiner-directed romantic comedy, Bette Midler stars as a movie star named Lilly, who has had a fairly successful career which is now on the downturn. Years after a terrible divorce, she meets up again with her ex-husband Dan (Dennis Farina) at the wedding of their daughter Molly (Paula Marshall). Molly is marrying a young and promising politician, Keith Marks (Jamie Denton), and the wedding is a formal affair. Lilly and Dan have each remarried, and each despise the other's new spouse. Dan has taken up with the young bombshell who ruined the marriage, Rowena (Gail O'Grady). Lilly is wedded to their former marriage counselor, Alan (David Rasche), a psychobabble-spouting shrink. Lilly and Dan engage in a huge shouting match at the reception, and they are shooed outside, where their argument leads to a passionate reunion in a sports car. Impulsively, they run away together. Keith, seeking damage control to avert a possible political scandal, enlists Molly's help, and she hires a papparazi photographer, Joey (Danny Nucci), who has spent several years stalking Lilly with his camera and selling candid photos to celebrity magazines. Molly and Joey find Molly's parents at a hotel, but Lilly locks them in a room together so that she and Dan can have one old last romantic evening. Molly and Joey find themselves uncomfortably attracted to each other, leading to more romantic trouble. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Midler, Dennis Farina, (more)
Marisa Silver helmed this tightly directed hospital drama reminiscent of David Swift's 1962 The Interns. Jimmy Smits plays Dr. David Redding, who guides seven student doctors through their third year of residency at Los Angeles Central's medical school. The cast includes Laura San Giacomo as Lauren Rose, a hard-working waitress putting her uncaring husband Kenny (Jack Gwaltney) through medical school; Kenny eventually breaks down the resistance of cool fellow student Gena Wyler (Diane Lane). Kenny is also competing with doctor's son Michael Chatham (Adrian Pasdar), who wants to become the best surgeon at L.A. Central; Michael, however, has to reconsider his goals when he realizes that he also needs Gena's love. Bobby Hayes (Tim Ransom) and Suzanne Maloney (Jane Adams) are also struggling with medical school, but they are a support team who study, work, and even sleep together. Through all the competitions and love affairs it eventually takes the wisdom of a dying cancer patient (Norma Aleandro) to make the medical students realize the important things in life. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adrian Pasdar, Diane Lane, (more)
This special effects-heavy science fiction sequel moves the action from the first film's Amazon forest to the urban jungle of L.A. Danny Glover stars as Lt. Mike Harrigan, an LAPD detective baffled by his latest case, the ritualistic slaughter of several drug dealers by a devastating killer who leaves no traces. As Harrigan and his partners, Danny Archuletta (Ruben Blades), Leona Cantrell (Maria Conchita Alonso), and Jerry Lambert (Bill Paxton), try to figure out who or what killed the criminals, FBI investigator Stephen Keyes (Gary Busey) attempts to warn the team away from investigating further. When two of his team are killed in a particularly grisly way, Harrigan uncovers the truth -- their quarry is an alien creature that hunts humans for sport. Attracted to violence, its latest choice of prey is gun-toting Jamaican drug dealers. Keyes and his team know all about the nasty extraterrestrial and its bloody pastime because they've been studying it for ten years, and they've come up with a possible means of dispatching the beast. When that plan backfires, however, it comes down to Harrigan and an extremely irritated otherworldly foe, slugging it out in a rooftop confrontation. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny Glover, Gary Busey, (more)
A self-centered womanizer makes a wager that he will be able to propose to three women in a three month time and have each one accept in this romantic Philadelphia-set comedy. His three victims are an icy concert pianist, an innocent blonde receptionist for the Philadelphia Eagles, and a rich, horny hausfrau. The fellow plans to prove his success by videotaping each proposal. Sure enough he succeeds, but things quickly sour when the ladies find out that he's duped them. They then team up to get revenge and teach him a thing or two about real love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mark Harmon, Madeleine Stowe, (more)
Having crashed to Earth, an extraterrestrial space traveller must assume a human identity lest he be captured by the authorities. The alien (Jeff Bridges) chooses the likeness of the recently deceased husband of Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). At first dumbstruck, Jenny becomes both hostile toward and frightened of her guest. He gradually wins her confidence, learning a few vital English-language phrases so that he can explain his presence. The "starman" has come to Earth with a message of peace, in response to the similar message sent out on Voyager One. He asks for Jenny's help in transporting him to the Nevada desert, where his fellow aliens are to pick him up and take him to his home planet. Soon he and Jenny form a united front against a mean-spirited National Security Council agent (Richard Jaeckel), who intends to seize the starman and turn him over for scientific scrutiny (and possible extermination). While en route to Nevada, Jenny grows closer to the gentle-natured Starman, eventually making love with him. By the time he is poised to leave, she is carrying his child, leaving the field wide open for a sequel--which was never produced, though a weekly TV version surfaced in 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, (more)
- 1982
- PG
This heartwarming tale of courage and devotion is set during the Vietnam war and centers upon a young medic who makes extra money on the side dealing drugs. His life is forever changed when he meets an Army doctor who persuades him to help her save a group of war orphans. First she appeals to his sense of guilt; then she blackmails him into assisting. The children are cared for by a few Vietnamese nuns. The doctor and the medic bring them badly needed food and supplies. To do this, the brave duo must face enemy bombs and the resistance of the US government. This is based on a true story and though wrenching, it is not syrupy or sentimental. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Christopher, Susan Saint James, (more)
Bronco Billy stars Clint Eastwood (who also directed) as the impresario of a seedy wild west show. Going along for the ride is spoiled socialite Sondra Locke, who is "initiated" by being pressed into service as the wrong end of a knife-throwing act. The rest of the troupe, like Eastwood himself, are losers in life who yearn for the freedom and opportunity of the long-gone Old West. Despite its raucous ad campaign, Bronco Billy is at base a wistful character study, avoiding the usual trappings of car chases and redneck villains and offering quiet chuckles instead of belly laughs. Unfortunately it failed to click with the public, compelling Eastwood to temporarily return to his old crash-bang-pow formula in his next few films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, (more)
This sequel to Every Which Way But Loose finds Philo Beddoe (Clint Eastwood) on the road, orangutan companion Clyde in tow, as he makes his way as a bare-knuckle fighter. The action begins with Philo punching out a new victim while Clyde relieves himself on the seat of a police car, setting the tone for the rest of the story. From there, Philo and Clyde return home, where Philo, who still lives with Ma (Ruth Gordon), is offered a contest with Jack Wilson (William Smith), the Mafia-sponsored East Coast bare-knuckle champ. Philo inadvertently saves Wilson's life, but then the Mafia kidnaps his girlfriend (Sondra Locke) to force him to go ahead with the match. Philo and Wilson team up to battle the Mob, but somehow they end up fighting anyway in a grueling climactic sequence. Country music, bikers, the Mafia, an orangutan, pick-up trucks, defecation jokes, fighting, drinking, and swearing -- it's all here in this lowbrow comic stew. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, (more)
Despite being a less well-regarded virtual remake of the original film, Jaws 2 earned a tidy sum at the box office by combining its predecessor's winning formula with the popular teen horror craze, helping to spawn the era of blockbuster sequels. Roy Scheider returns as Sheriff Martin Brody, whose small resort town of Amity is poised to bounce back from the economic hardship it encountered after becoming widely known as the site of vicious shark attacks. But at the same time that Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) is welcoming a real estate developer to Amity, two divers disappear and a party of waterskiers is consumed by a shark. The incidents are explained away as accidents, but Brody knows better, tipping his bullets with cyanide and forbidding his sons Mike (Mark Gruner) and Sean (Marc Gilpin) to participate in a teen sailing regatta. Everyone foolishly chalks up Brody's fears to trauma-induced paranoia, and the regatta goes forward, with a hungry great white trailing the youthful contestants and hungrily picking them off one by one. Director Jeannot Szwarc would later helm another sequel, Supergirl (1984). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, (more)
- 1977
- PG
Beau Geste, the classic adventure story of a young man's dangerous journeys as part of the French Foreign Legion, becomes the subject of broad parody in this slapstick comedy. The original tale, best known to film lovers from William Wellman's 1939 classic, tells of several brothers who join the Foreign Legion after claiming responsibility for the mysterious disappearance of an invaluable family heirloom. Eventually, brothers Beau and Digby find themselves in conflict with their vicious commander, leading to a potential mutiny. The plot here is similar, with Michael York assuming Gary Cooper's role as Beau, and first-time director Marty Feldman co-starring as Digby. However, following the lead of former collaborator Mel Brooks, Feldman plays strictly for laughs, loading the story with jokes ranging from the satirical to the vulgar. A cast of notables keeps things lively, with Peter Ustinov and Ann-Margret mocking their own images as the sadistic commander and lusty Geste stepmother. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann-Margret, Marty Feldman, (more)
Paul Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, the coach of a pathetic minor-league American hockey team. His career at a standstill and his marriage in tatters, Dunlop has nothing to lose by taking on a new group of players who are one evolutionary step above Neanderthals. Only when the team begins winning does he decide to get behind these players, and to encourage the rest of the team to play as down-and-dirty as the newcomers. Straight-arrow team member Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean) resents this influx of gonzo talent, preferring to play clean. As the film's multitude of subplots play themselves out, Dunlop does his best to keep the outraged Braden on the team. Slap Shot is the sort of film for which the "R" rating was invented: Its nonstop barrage of profanity and its raunchy action sequences are of such intensity that the film will probably never be shown intact on commercial television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Strother Martin, (more)
- 1976
- Add The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings to QueueAdd The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings to top of Queue
Based on the novel by William Brasher, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings is set in the segregated south of 1939. African-American baseball pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams), tired of being jerked around by the less-than-ethical managers of the Negro League teams, forms his own barnstorming ball club. His partner in this endeavor is black catcher Leon Carter (James Earl Jones). Though boycotted by powerful Negro League manager Sallison Porter (Ted Ross), the Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings flourish, gaining a loyal fandom with every new game and cutting into the League's profits. Finally, Porter offers Long a deal: if the Motor Kings can win one big game with the Negro All-Stars, Long's team will be allowed to join the League. Also appearing in Bingo Long is Richard Pryor as a ballplayer who tries to break through the big-league color line by pretending to be everything from a Hispanic to a Native American named "Chief Tokohama"; if Pryor seems to disappear for long periods during the film, it's because his role was written to accommodate his many nightclub appearances. The producers originally wanted young Steven Spielberg to direct, but -- inspired by the success of Jaws -- he turned this down in favor of doing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, (more)
Based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel, Steven Spielberg's 1975 shark saga set the standard for the New Hollywood popcorn blockbuster while frightening millions of moviegoers out of the water. One early summer night on fictional Atlantic resort Amity Island, Chrissie decides to take a moonlight skinny dip while her friends party on the beach. Yanked suddenly below the ocean surface, she never returns. When pieces of her wash ashore, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) suspects the worst, but Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), mindful of the lucrative tourist trade and the approaching July 4th holiday, refuses to put the island on a business-killing shark alert. After the shark dines on a few more victims, the Mayor orders the local fishermen to catch the culprit. Satisfied with the shark they find, the greedy Mayor reopens the beaches, despite the warning from visiting ichthyologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) that the attacks were probably caused by a far more formidable Great White. One more fatality later, Brody and Hooper join forces with flinty old salt Quint (Robert Shaw), the only local fisherman willing to take on a Great White--especially since the price is right. The three ride off on Quint's boat "The Orca," soon coming face to teeth with the enemy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, (more)
