Levon Helm Movies

John Heard and Levon Helm play a couple of frizzy-haired leftovers from the sixties. Living by their wits in Spain, Heard and Helm get mixed up in an multimillion-dollar Moroccan drug deal. Their intentions are more honorable than they seem: at stake is the life of a kidnap victim. But as the story develops, the boys discover that they've been set up as fall guys by a smarmy gangster. Eluding the Law, Heard and Helm lay the groundwork for retribution. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loretta Lynn was one of the first female superstars in country music and remains a defining presence within the genre; with her strong, clear, hard-country voice and tough, no-nonsense songs about husbands who cheat and wives who weren't about to be pushed around, Lynn introduced a feminist mindset to Nashville years before the phrase "women's liberation" became common currency. Coal Miner's Daughter is a screen adaptation of Lynn's autobiography, starring Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. One of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family despite grinding poverty in Butcher's Holler, KY, Loretta married Dolittle "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she was only 13 years old. A mother of four by the time she was 20, Lynn began singing the occasional song at local honky-tonks on weekends, and at 25, she cut (at Mooney's suggestion) a demo tape that earned her a deal with an independent record label. Loretta and Mooney's tireless promotion of the record (including a long road trip through the south in which they stopped at every country radio station they could find) paid off -- Loretta's first single, "Honky Tonk Girl," hit the charts and earned her a spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Stardom called and Loretta never looked back, but success brought with it both joy (a long string of hit records and sold-out concerts and a close friendship with Patsy Cline) and sorrow (a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork and a great deal of stress to a marriage that endured -- but just barely). Sissy Spacek won an Academy award for her vivid, thoroughly natural performance as Loretta (she also did her own singing), and Levon Helm (drummer for the legendary rock group the Band) made an impressive screen debut as her father. Ernest Tubb makes a cameo appearance as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two Southern railroad workers drive a train engine to Chicago to protest the closing of the station in Clifford, Arkansas. Will Haney (Wilford Brimley) and his friend Leo Pickett (Levon Helm) steal the engine and hope to confront the company president to prevent the shutdown. The duo gathers encouragement at every hamlet along the way as entire towns come out to lend support for the cause. The company tries to use the rural rubes to their promotional advantage, but Haney and Pickett take a stand and win an audience with aging company figurehead Thomas Clinton (Henderson Forsythe). Clinton takes a liking to the two activists and agrees to let himself be kidnapped back to Clifford. Mary Steenburgen, Kevin Bacon, and Barbara Barrie co-star in this routine but entertaining moral melodrama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Martial arts star Steven Seagal stars in this action drama as Jack Taggart, an undercover agent working for the Environmental Protection Agency. When an EPA representative is murdered in a small Appalachian community, Taggart is sent in -- posing as a handyman working with a Christian relief agency -- to find out what happened. Taggart discovers that Orin Hanner (Kris Kristofferson), a powerful local businessman, has been illegally dumping toxic waste which has been leading to serious health problems among children in the area; it seems that the murdered agent knew too much and was killed to keep him quiet, a scenario the unscrupulous Hanner would be all too willing to repeat. Taggart becomes involved with Sarah Kellogg (Marg Helgenberger), a woman whose father also died under circumstances that trace back to Hanner. Harry Dean Stanton co-stars as Cotton, former member of The Band Levon Helm plays a preacher, and country music stars Travis Tritt and Randy Travis appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A detective tracking a serial killer who preys on young women finds his investigation complicated by a glamorous Hollywood starlet and a ruthless crime kingpin in director Bertrand Tavernier's adaptation of the James Lee Burke novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski, and Tommy Lee Jones collaborate on the screenplay for the film, which stars Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ned Beatty, and Tom Sizemore. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The United States Congress named 2003 the "Year of the Blues" as part of an initiative by several musical education groups to make more Americans aware of the history and heritage of blues music, one of America's most important homegrown art forms. To kick off this celebration of the blues, a special concert was held at New York City's historic Radio City Music Hall, and Lightning in a Bottle documents a memorable evening of music from a star-studded roster of artists. Offering a glimpse at the rehearsals and preparations that went into putting the show together as well as the evening's best performances, Lightning in a Bottle includes appearances by B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Macy Gray, Buddy Guy, Chuck D., Solomon Burke, David Johansen, Jimmie Vaughan and Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Alison Krauss, and many more. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Introduced by shifty SCTV station manager Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty), this first episode of NBC's SCTV: Network 90 is largely a potpourri of sketches culled from the original, syndicated SCTV. Several of these vignettes were herein shown in the United States for the first time, notably "Play It Again, Bob," "The Merv Griffin Show with Arafat, Liberace, and Ferigno," and a round of animal imitations from "Kanadian Korner" (aka "Great White North") emcees Bob and Doug McKenzie (Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas). Newer material features SCTV returnees John Candy and Catherine O'Hara, as well as musical guest stars Levon Helm and The Cates Brothers Band. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A top Marine sniper who previously abandoned the military after a routine mission gave way to tragedy is double-crossed by the government after reluctantly being pressured back into service in Training Day director Antoine Fuqua's adaptation of Stephen Hunter's novel Point of Impact. There was a time when Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) was the best trigger-man in the military, but after growing disillusioned with the system, he disappeared without a trace. After being located at his remote mountain retreat by high-profile government officials following an extensive search, Swagger is coerced back into service in order to stop a determined assassin from taking out the President of the United States. In the process of carrying out his mission, however, Swagger suddenly realizes that he has been betrayed when he becomes the subject of a nationwide manhunt. Now wounded and desperate to reveal the culprits behind the conspiracy before it's too late, Swagger sets into motion a revenge plan that will send shockwaves rippling to some of the most powerful and corrupt leaders in the free world. Danny Glover, Rhona Mitra, and Ned Beatty co-star in this conspiracy-driven action thriller that asks what it truly means to serve one's country. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

After winning an Academy Award for their documentary Down and Out in America (1986), actress-director Lee Grant and her producer-husband Joseph Feury filmed this comedy-drama based on an original script by playwright Monte Merrick. In a small Southern town, the McDermott family has owned and operated a popular chicken restaurant for years. Each of the three McDermott boys, Brian (Tim Quill), Kit (Dermot Mulroney), and Duncan (Sean Astin) expects to inherit part of the business from their father (Jim Haynie). While enjoying liberal amounts of skirt-chasing, marijuana-smoking, and alcohol consumption in their off hours, the McDermotts have big plans for the place, but then dad drops a bombshell -- he's sold the restaurant without consulting his family, leaving each son to struggle with his newfound, unwanted independence. In the meantime, mom (Melinda Dillon) considers reuniting with her old band. Because of the bankruptcy of its producer, Hemdale Film Corporation, Staying Together (1989) was shelved for over a year before its release. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese's documentary of the 1976 final performance of the legendary Sixties rock group The Band is at once a show featuring some of the greatest rock performers of their generation and a bittersweet look back at an era that was just beginning to fade. As Scorsese guides the group through interview segments discussing their 15 years together, these relatively young men sound like battle-weary survivors. But The Band were in splendid form for this show, and their multiple guest stars pulled out all the stops, especially Muddy Waters, whose "Mannish Boy" is so powerful it nearly burns a hole in the screen; Van Morrison, with a rousing performance of "Caravan;" and Bob Dylan, whose "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" displays the brilliant cockiness of his barnstorming days with this band. The all-star camera crew and superb stereo sound mix create what is considered to be of the best-looking and sounding rock films ever (as the opening credit says, play this movie loud!), and two studio-shot sequences with Emmylou Harris and The Staple Singers stand on their own. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Covering some 15 years, The Right Stuff recounts the formation of America's space program, concentrating on the original Mercury astronauts. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American in space; Fred Ward is Gus Grissom, the benighted astronaut for whom nothing works out as planned; and Ed Harris is John Glenn, the straight-arrow "boy scout" of the bunch who was the first American to orbit the earth. The remaining four Mercury boys are Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid). Wolfe's original book related in straightforward fashion the dangers and frustrations facing the astronauts (including Glenn's oft-repeated complaint that it's hard to be confident when you know that the missile you're sitting on has been built by the lowest bidder), the various personal crises involving their families (Glenn's wife Annie, a stutterer, dreads being interviewed on television, while Grissom's wife Betty, angered that her husband is not regarded as a hero because his mission was a failure, bitterly declares "I want my parade!"), and the schism between the squeaky-clean public image of the Mercury pilots and their sometimes raunchy earthbound shenanigans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide