Steve W. James Movies

This satirical look at the ambivalent relationship between Hollywood power brokers and African-American performers marked the writing, producing, and directing debut of Robert Townsend. The filmmaker also stars as Bobby Taylor, a struggling actor looking for his big break despite his family's and co-workers' reservations about his chosen career path. While working a day job flipping burgers, Bobby heads out to insulting cattle calls where white casting agents pass judgement on whether he seems "black enough." Meanwhile, he imagines himself playing Sam Spade, Rambo, and other movie heroes rather than the stereotypical roles actually available to him. When Bobby actually does win one such pimp-daddy part, however, he is forced to choose between accepting work that opens doors, but ultimately demeans him and returning to obscurity with his principles intact. Hollywood Shuffle's enormous supporting cast includes a wealth of black actors, from then-unknowns such as Damon Wayans to veterans such as 227 star Helen Martin. Self-financed and filmed on scraps of hand-me-down celluloid, the film helped establish actor Townsend as a director of note and also kick-started the career of co-screenwriter and co-star Keenen Ivory Wayans, who would cast Townsend in his own directorial debut the following year. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

In this somewhat autobiographical film, director and writer Arthur Bressan brings the issue of child abuse into focus by means of a young film student (Richard Ryder) making a documentary on Thomas Carroll (Raphael Sbarge), lying in a hospital bed because he was beaten and burned by his parents. At first the student cannot break through the teenager's wall of silence, but then Thomas finds out that the student filmmaker is gay just as he is, and the wall crumbles. Statistics promote an awareness of the issue of abuse (200,000 reported beatings and 65,000 reported sexual assaults in 1982), but Bressan lightens up his serious subject by inserting discreet humor at several points throughout. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this fairly frightening slasher-horror film, sweet young Amy Jensen (Caitlin O'Heaney) and her friends decide to all get married together. Unfortunately, all the guys go on vacation, leaving the women at the mercy of a psychotic killer (Tom Rolfing) who goes after brides with a big knife. Amy must seek help from an obsessed cop (Lewis Arlt) and her nerdy friend (Don Scardino) who works at a morgue. The familiar supporting cast includes Tom Hanks in his big-screen debut, and '80s standbys Russell Todd, Paul Gleason, and Dana Barron. This one has some scary moments despite the clichéd plot and the obligatory severed head in a fishbowl, especially a stalking scene in a tailor's shop and the tense morgue chase at the end. The most memorable sequence, involving a murder at a movie theater, was later restaged almost shot-by-shot in Scream 2 (1997). ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide