Ed Lillard Movies
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen concocted this stylish screwball comedic amalgam of Frank Capra and Howard Hawks. Tim Robbins stars as Norville Barnes, a dull-wit from Muncie, Indiana who wrangles a job with the big Hudsucker Industries. He has a singular idea for a new children's toy that he wants to present to corporate executive Sidney J. Mussberger (Paul Newman). As he makes his way up to Mussberger's office, the company president Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning) is on his way down -- through the window of the forty-fourth floor boardroom! Hudsucker's death sets off a panic that Mussberger sees as an opportunity for taking over the company -- by installing a total incompetent in Hudsucker's place and devaluing the stock. When Barnes stumbles into Mussberger's office, Mussberger sees his pigeon and appoints Barnes as the new company president. The only problem is that the new product Barnes proposes for the company, the Hula Hoop, turns out to be a tremendous success, and Mussberger has difficulty manipulating his new corporate president. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, (more)
A blend of screwball farce and whodunit murder mystery, this madcap period piece was the brainchild of executive producer George Lucas. In 1939, Penny Henderson (Mary Stuart Masterson) is the harried general secretary and de facto manager of a new fourth radio network, WBN. On the night that the Chicago station goes live on the air, a mysterious voice interrupts, and a series of murders soon follows, each one described by the same sonorous phantom. While Penny and her staff desperately try to keep WBN's roster of shows afloat during the unfolding crisis, her estranged husband Roger (Brian Benben), a staff writer, becomes the chief suspect. Roger is forced to dodge a detective, Lieutenant Cross (Michael Lerner), find the real killer, win Penny back, and perform last-minute script rewrites for an unhappy sponsor. As the backstage hysteria reaches a fever pitch, the show goes on with real-life radio-era pros such as George Burns and Rosemary Clooney. Although never explicitly pointed out in the film, Radioland Murders (1994) was a pseudo-prequel to an earlier Lucas feature -- Roger and Penny are the future parents of Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) from American Graffiti (1973). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Benben, Mary Stuart Masterson, (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
- 1992
If Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) could show up every so often in 2-hour TV movies, so too could good old Matlock (Andy Griffith). The Vacation finds the rustic attorney at a resort hotel, in the company of his pretty daughter Leanne (Brynn Thayer). Say, didja ever notice how, whenever someone like Matlock or Jessica Fletcher goes on vacation, someone in the vicinity always gets killed? This time it's the hotel manager, a man with several skeletons in an abundance of closets. The Vacation first aired November 5, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Dudley Moore stars as Emory Lesson, an advertising genius whose finds himself committed to an insane asylum in Tony Bill's Crazy People. Emory becomes tired with creating phony ad campaigns and decides to create his own campaigns that tell the brutal truth. Since sex sells, Emory designs an explicit ad campaign consisting of unadorned sexuality. The campaign is so offensive that his colleagues have Emory put in a mental institution. At first Emory resists, but under the tutelage of a concerned psychiatrist, Dr. Liz Baylor (Mercedes Ruehl) and the tender love of Kathy (Daryl Hannah) a beautiful patient, Emory begins to like it in the mental home. Befriending the cute and lovable patients in the mental ward, Emory discovers that the crazy people are natural-born advertising geniuses and Emory utilizes their genius for a new ad campaign. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dudley Moore, Daryl Hannah, (more)
British director Mike Hodges brought an extra measure of integrity to this made-for-TV thriller. Rosanna Arquette stars as Martha Travis, a psychic who travels the rural American South with her alcoholic father, Walter (Jason Robards), plying her mystical trade for credulous yokels. In reality, Martha is a con woman whose only gift is the ability to defraud those who seek messages from dead loved ones. However, one night the bogus medium intercepts mental images of a murdered man whose wife is in the audience -- and indignantly proclaims that her husband is still very much alive. Within hours, however, Martha's vision becomes reality. Martha has suddenly developed the ability to see murders before they happen, but her newfound ability to prognosticate puts a professional contract killer on her trail. In the meantime, Martha becomes lovers with Gary Wallace (Tom Hulce), a small-town reporter who's intrigued enough by Martha to write a story about her, although he's skeptical about her supernatural talents. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosanna Arquette, Jason Robards, Jr., (more)
