Augusta Dabney Movies
- 1998
After a drunken driver kills three people in the same accident, Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) deliver the perpetrator to the D.A.'s office. Still grieving over the death of his former partner, Claire Kincaid, in a similar DUI accident, McCoy (Sam Waterston) intends to charge the driver with first-degree murder, a determination which results in conflict between McCoy and his current partner Ross (Carey Lowell). The ensuing trial degenerates into a media circus, helped not at all by the ruthless behavior of a politically ambitious judge. Cliff Gorman makes his first Law & Order appearance as Judge Gary Feldman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Director Ron Howard's drama follows a beleaguered reporter during a hectic 24 hours at a New York City tabloid. Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, a metro editor for the struggling New York Sun. Hackett is being wooed by the Sentinel, a more upscale paper, but he's addicted to the adrenaline-stimulating, breakneck pace of the Sun's newsroom, much to the consternation of his pregnant wife Martha (Marisa Tomei. Hackett is currently pursuing a story of two minority youths who have been arrested for the murders of two men. He learns that the police think that the killings may be a mob hit. In the court of public opinion, however, the innocent suspects are being judged as guilty, and the police may bow to the pressure. As Hackett and his staff desperately work all the story's angles to find the truth, several other dramas unfold. Top editor Bernie (Robert Duvall) learns that he has prostate cancer, and tough publisher Alicia (Glenn Close) wonders if her lack of popularity is due to her cost-cutting, her personality, or the fact that she's a woman. In their only collaboration, screenwriter David Koepp co-wrote the script with his brother Stephen Koepp, a senior editor at Time magazine. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, (more)
- 1993
The Portrait, based upon the off-Broadway play by Tina Howe, is a made-for-cable film in which Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall play Gardner and Fanny Church, aging parents of artist Mags (Cecelia Peck). As the film opens, Mags unexpectedly drops in on her parents, hoping that she can complete a portrait she has been working on for her one-woman show. As Gardner and Fanny are the subjects of the portrait, their cooperation is essential, but they pointedly refuse to help their daughter out. Even more surprisingly, it turns out that Mags has arrived as they are in the midst of moving out -- not only out of the family home in which Mags grew up, but out of the entire collegiate community where Gardner has for years been a respected figure. Her parents largely push aside Mags' attempts to find out why they are taking this drastic action, but it soon becomes clear that it involves Gardner, who seems to be entering the first stages of senility. Along the way, Mags discovers a great deal about her parents -- and herself. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Cynical Philadelphia lawyer-turned-p.i. Jamey Sheridan aims his investigatory skills at an international smuggling ring. Sheridan wants to know who's supplying the weapons that are leaving the country, and who's supplying the drugs that are rolling in. The deeper he digs, the dirtier it gets; Sheridan unearths unholy alliances among idealistic freedom fighters, Central American drug lords, and corrupt American officials. Shannon's Deal was written by John Sayles, directed by Lewis (Jewel of the Nile) Teague, and scored by musical wizard Wynton Marsalis. Those concerned about Jamey Sheridan's wellbeing in this film should be advised that there was no way he'd turn up dead: Shannon's Deal was the pilot for an unsold TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this complicated crime drama, Roland Dalton (Peter Weller) is an attorney who must defend a drug dealer who claims he killed in self defense. His worthy opponent is his former flame Susan Cantrell (Patricia Charbonneau), now an effective career-minded prosecuting attorney. Richie Marks (Sam Elliott) is the detective who anticipates that legal prosecution will finally close the book on this case. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Weller, Sam Elliott, (more)
- 1988
- R
First-timer Daniel Irom wrote and directed Bum Rap, which represents something of a variation on Fielder Cook's superior Seize the Day (1986). The picture concentrates on taxi driver and striving actor Paul Colson (Craig Wasson of Four Friends and Go Tell the Spartans), whose life goes through the floor. He's informed by the girl he's been pining for (Frances Fisher) that she wants to remain platonic friends (only) and by a physician that he has an exceptionally rare illness which will give him about seventy-two more hours to live. He subsequently lives out that age-old epicurean adage by patching things up with his folks, reconnecting with poker buddies, and spending a great deal of time with a well-meaning hooker.
(Blanche Baker). The late Al Lewis (AKA Grandpa Munster) has a bit part as a lunatic neighbor. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Wasson, Blanche Baker, (more)
In this family drama from director Sidney Lumet, Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play Arthur and Annie Pope, a pair of '60s radicals who have eluded the FBI for 16 years after bombing a napalm laboratory as a Vietnam War protest. This lifestyle involves continually moving their base of operations and establishing new identities, which is especially hard on their children, 18-year-old Danny (River Phoenix) and 10-year-old Harry (Jonas Abry), who can never amass a group of friends or an academic record. This last problem comes to the fore when they arrive in a New Jersey town where the high school music teacher (Ed Crowley) takes an interest in Danny's piano playing, encouraging him to apply early admission to Juilliard. Danny yearns to follow this dream, but knows that separating from his parents would be a permanent break -- the aging hippies rarely even see their own parents, and can never inform anyone where they've moved. Arthur can't stand the idea of breaking up the family unit, which has provided the support that's allowed him to tolerate life on the move, but Annie sees her own sacrificed dreams in her son's prodigious musical talents, and begins pressuring Arthur to grant the boy his independence. Complicating factors, Danny has fallen in love with the daughter of his music teacher (Martha Plimpton), but can't allow himself to get too close to her, because he may have to leave again at any moment. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, (more)
- 1986
- PG13
This small-town romance may be trying to ride the coattails of the Big Chill that also featured Kevin Kline. Kline plays Henry here, and when the film opens he and his love Gussie Sawyer (Sissy Spacek, wife of director Jack Fisk), are sitting together planning the future they will have. She will be a flight attendant and he will get a college degree. Yet when they part, so does their destiny. By a quirk of fate, Gussie starts taking photos for an in-flight magazine and ends up an ace photographer while Henry has stayed in their small town to run the newspaper after his dad died. When Gussie comes back for a vacation 15 years later the two old sweethearts find that the embers that burned so low over the last many years are heating up again. No one in the town is unaware of what is going on, and Gussie is in for a lecture from her dad while Henry hears it like it is from his wife. But will that change the course of their relationship? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sissy Spacek, Kevin Kline, (more)
- 1983
Documentary filmmaker Claudio Masenza, cinematic chronicler of the lives of Marlon Brando and James Dean, turns his attentions to the tragic film idol Montgomery Clift. Masenza offers a cursory synopsis of Clift's stage work (including The Skin of Our Teeth), then launches into a paean of the actor's film career, beginning with The Search (1947) and ending with The Defector (1966). It comes as no surprise that the film dwells upon Clift's erratic behavior, his quicksilver temperament, his sexual ambiguity, and his near-fatal 1957 auto accident. At 2 hours, the film leaves few stones unturned, though repetition is the order of the day during some stretches. Still, Montgomery Clift is a valuable primer for anyone unfamiliar with this compellingly unique performer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin McCarthy, Augusta Dabney, (more)
- 1981
- PG
Based on a novel by William Judson, Cold River is a study of the New York Adirondack region and the citizens dwelling therein. Richard Jaeckel is the only "name" actor in the cast, unless you count Robert Earl Jones, father of the better-known James Earl Jones. The villains are those old reliable Evil Land Developers who wish to despoil the terrain. Cold River was a family-oriented "four waller", designed for city-by-city distribution for a quick turnover. In this respect, it succeeded; aesthetically, it's little more than a glorified home movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Suzanne Weber, Pat Petersen, (more)
- 1980
Jason Robards stars as the ailing, 62-year-old President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in F.D.R.: The Last Year. Though visibly frail and weary, Roosevelt runs for a precedent-setting fourth term. He also oversees plans for the D-Day Invasion and engages in tempestuous summit meetings with his wartime allies Stalin (Nehemiah Persoff) and Churchill (Wensley Pithey). Eileen Heckart co-stars as Eleanor Roosevelt, while Kim Hunter plays his "great and good friend," artist Lucy Rutherfurd, who is at his side when he suffers his fatal cerebral hemorrhage in April of 1945. The 3-hour, made-for-TV F.D.R.: The Last Year was first telecast May 15, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
- PG
Alan Arkin directed and starred in this anarchic comedy. Benny Fikus (Vincent Gardenia) is the owner of a department store that's on its last legs, with his nebbishy son Russell (Rob Reiner) serving as his second-in-command. Benny's bother Ezra (Arkin) used to work with him at the store, but he quit to coach basketball in the midst of a long losing streak. Ezra's wife Marion (Anjanette Comer) desperately wants a child, and Ezra needs a new star player, so he thinks he's helping both of them when he adopts a black teenager (Byron Stewart) who shoots mean hoop. Benny, looking for a way out of the store's irrevocable financial slump, wants to burn the place down for the insurance money, but rather than hire an arsonist, he tries to convince his brother-in-law, Zabbar (Sid Caesar), that the store is actually a Nazi stronghold so Zabbar that will do the deed on his own. The supporting cast also includes Sally K. Marr, whose son was controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Rob Reiner, (more)
- 1972
- PG
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In Elaine May's second directorial outing, Charles Grodin stars as Lenny, a slick salesman who, while honeymooning with his new bride, Lila (Jeannie Berlin, May's daughter), begins to have second thoughts about his marriage. Once Lenny spots the gorgeous Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), he is lost forever. Legally divesting himself of poor Lila, he follows Kelly to her upper-middle-class home, where he runs into the formidable opposition of her father (Eddie Albert), who states bluntly that he'd rather be dragged from a horse by his tongue than allow Lenny to become his son-in-law. The picture received critical kudos for Neil Simon's adroit screenplay, May's knowing direction, and Grodin's on-target performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, (more)
It is not uncommon for actors to double and triple in roles while appearing in the "omnibus" plays of Neil Simon. Plaza Suite was the first film version of a Simon play to carry over the multiple-role device to the screen. Walter Matthau appears in all three one-act playlets comprising Plaza Suite, with a different leading lady in each. First we see Matthau as the husband of Maureen Stapleton, nostalgically returning to the same hotel suite where they'd spent their honeymoon 24 years earlier. Times have changed, however, and the twosome spend more timing sniping at one another than pitching woo. The second vignette casts Matthau as an effusive movie producer (lavish toupee and all) who hopes to seduce his old sweetheart Barbara Harris. The third and best sequence finds Matthau and Lee Grant playing the parents of a bride who steadfastly refuses to leave her locked room to attend her own wedding. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton, (more)
- 1959
In the one-and-onlyOne Step Beyond episode to feature a "monster" (albeit very briefly, and with a documented real-life incident backing up the decision), the Parish family goes to great lengths to hide the fact that their son is apparently a half-human, half-fish mutant. Out of love for her unfortunate son, Margaret Parish (Augusta Dabney) turns to an unorthodox doctor-hypnotist named Edward Brown (David Lewis). Believe it or not, this is a "Christmas Show", replete with a near-miraculous finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1957
That Night! was the film version of a TV drama by Robert Wallace and Burton J. Rowles titled The Long Way Home. John Beal plays a hard-working ad man who suffers a mild heart attack. Despite the admonitions of his doctor, Beal refuses to cut down on his work load, feeling that by doing so he would be depriving his wife (Augusta Dabney) and children of their lavish lifestyle. A second attack is more serious, landing Beal in intensive care. As he recovers, Beal and his wife reassess their values and sort out just what is truly important in their lives. That Night was produced by Himan Brown, the man who created radio's Lights Out and directed by John Newland, best known for his hosting chores on TV's One Step Beyond. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Beal, Augusta Dabney, (more)
