Gerritt Graham Movies

It's a slow night at the local single's bar, so three guys end up sitting around sharing their widely-differing viewpoints on finding romance. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Alex Cox directed this hallucinatory bio-pic starring Ed Harris as 19th-century American adventurer William Walker, who abandoned a series of careers in law, politics, journalism, and medicine to become a soldier of fortune and eventually a Nicaraguan dictator. When his deaf wife (Marlee Matlin) dies of cholera (but not before she utilizes sign language to tell Walker "To Hell with Manifest Destiny"), Walker is backed by multi-millionaire banker Cornelius Vanderbilt (Peter Boyle) to lead a band of mercenaries to Nicaragua in 1855 to make the country safe for Vanderbilt's steamships. When Walker subdues the Nicaraguan opposition, he sets himself up as president and rules the country with unfeeling repression. Finally the Nicaraguans rise up against him, figuring out that "the mad gringo is ripping us off." ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The hokey TerrorVision is more an unintentional model of how horror films were made in the early '50s than a trend-setting story about the TV monster who ate them all. When Stanley (Gerrit Graham) goes outside to adjust his family's satellite dish, a living, organic alien monster-cum-garbage-disposal is zapped into the TV sets in Stanley's household. The monster pops out of the sets once in awhile to grab a quick snack of anyone within reach. Hopefully, the young boy in the family -- the only one close to normal in the house -- might have a solution to their problem. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This high-tech spin on the slasher genre pits a group of sex-obsessed teens spending the night in a shopping mall against the mall's marauding robotic security guards -- whose programming turns homicidal after a bolt of lightning scrambles their control circuits. Director Jim Wynorski cut his exploitation teeth working for Roger Corman's legendary "B"-movie factory New World Pictures in the '70s and '80s, and this film's comic early scenes contain homages to that outfit's heyday -- with humorous cameos from Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov (reprising their characters Paul and Mary Bland from Bartel's Eating Raoul) and the ubiquitous Dick Miller. The majority of the film, however, is essentially a teens-in-jeopardy story, with the lethal bots unleashing their amped-up arsenal and bringing the victims to nasty ends amid buckets of gore -- such as the unforgettable moment when one woman's head is targeted by one of the droids and blown up like an overripe melon. (The shot is repeated during the end credits.) ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

In this rather routine adaptation of the French hit, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, Richard (Tom Hanks) is a bicycling violinist who is innocently drawn into a nasty struggle for control of the CIA. Cooper (Dabney Coleman) is the unscrupulous current head honcho of the notorious U.S. agency, Ross (Charles Durning) is his nemesis, and Maddy (Lori Singer) works for Cooper. After Richard the violinist is forced into the picture, Maddy fights off an attraction to the rather dull man, and complications introduce enough gadgetry to fill a James Bond movie, almost. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Made for cable television, The Ratings Game was directed by Danny DeVito, who co-starred in the film with his wife Rhea Perlman. DeVito plays the owner of a New Jersey trucking firm who yearns for a televison career. He offers several TV-series ideas to a receptive network programming head. On the verge of being fired, the network exec decides to have his revenge on his ex-bosses by selecting the very worst of DeVito's concepts. The "born to fail" series becomes a hit, and soon DeVito is the hottest programmer in the industry! More truthful than many of us are willing to admit, The Ratings Game premiered with astonishingly little fanfare over The Movie Channel cable service on December 15, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When a young, single, neurotic New Yorker finds the perfect woman, he tries desperately to get her to fall for him. Young director Jonathan Kaufer has been compared to Woody Allen with this, his first feature. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

This painfully dull Alien parody pits an inept spaceship crew against a mutating, one-eyed walking manure pile that grows out of an organic lump they obtained on a remote planet. When the token mad scientist (Patrick Macnee, whose hammy performance provides one of the film's few real laughs) determines that the creature's lethal attacks on the crew are only a self-protective fear reaction, he casts aside what few ethics he might have had to keep the crew from frying it. Since the entire crew (led by Leslie Nielsen) are blithering idiots, they fail to realize the creature's true intentions until Macnee hooks it up to a voice synthesizer, through which it performs the lovely soft-shoe number "I Want to Eat Your Face" (providing the film's other real laugh). Those expecting Airplane!-style antics from Nielsen will be sadly disappointed by his deadpan performance. Written and directed by Bruce Kimmel, who previously worked with co-star Cindy Williams in The First Nudie Musical. Enough said. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Brian De Palma directed this treatise concerning an egotistical film professor as a film-making project for his film-production master class at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Kirk Douglas plays Doctor Tuttle, known as "The Maestro," who is the leader of a frenetic film-production cult entitled Star Therapy. The Maestro exhorts his disciples to "put your name above the title in real life." To prove his adage, he has his own life continuously filmed, with himself as the director and the star. The Maestro singles out one hapless student, Denis Byrd (Keith Gordon) for being totally ineffectual and "an extra in his own life." In response, Denis tries to put his name above the title by filming himself sleeping and eating and pursuing his older brother's girlfriend. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Carmine (Eddie Mekka) has his heart set on purchasing the Marjorie Ward Dance Studio and making it his own. All he needs is the money--and this is where Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) come in. Hoping to secure financing, the girls try to entice potential backers by putting on their own dance display--complete with a hilarious hula routine! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Adapted from a lesser-known novel from SF/Horror author Dean R. Koontz, this claustrophobic thriller presents a computerized nemesis incorporating the murderous elements of 2001's HAL with the world-domination goal of the title villain in Colossus: The Forbin Project. Brilliant cybernetics expert Dr. Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) develops a revolutionary new supercomputer dubbed Proteus IV (voice of Robert Vaughn, uncredited) which is capable of almost human self-awareness and capacity for intellectual growth. Unfortunately for Alex and his wife Susan (Julie Christie), Proteus is also imbued with a very human desire to grow beyond the limitations of his own knowledge -- as well as to escape the isolation of the laboratory -- and taps into the home terminals of the Harris' high-tech dream house, in which he makes Susan a virtual prisoner. As she is put through a tortuous series of physical and mental tests, the Proteus mainframe takes severe steps to prevent any interference -- even resorting to the murder of Harris' assistant (Gerrit Graham). Susan's confusion eventually turns to dread when she begins to realize Proteus' true intentions... to evolve beyond mere circuitry and assume a human form by impregnating her with his "seed." Despite the lurid premise, this is probably the most conventional effort from controversial director Donald Cammell (Performance, Wild Side), and the film's theme of the computer's ominously pervasive role in human affairs -- in this case forcing its way into our bodies as well as our lives -- seems oddly prescient today. Christie's convincing performance makes the most of a role which has her shouting at the walls and ceiling for two-thirds of the movie. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

A botched robbery provides the basis of this romantic comedy. The caper was performed by three unemployed Vietnam vets desperate for cash. Unfortunately, two of them are captured during the getaway. The third vet continues to flee and stuffs the loot in a convenient mailbox. A dishonest barkeeper and a crazed artist witness this and try to get the money for themselves. The barman needs it to pay back some Mafiosi. The artists find herself attracted to the veteran and so decides to help him get it back from the bartender. The two succeed and then board an ocean liner, where they bump into the president of the bank the veteran robbed. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi