Roy Hytower Movies
In this darkly comic film noir from writer/director David Atkins, Steve Martin revisits dentistry -- an occupation he'd explored 15 years prior, in the camp musical Little Shop of Horrors. Novocaine casts Martin as a much more mild-mannered D.D.S., Dr. Frank Sangster. Engaged to a prim and delicate hygienist, Jean (Laura Dern), Sangster leads a placid, upper-middle class existence, save for the occasional visit from his deadbeat artist brother Harlan (Elias Koteas). But Sangster finds his life turned inside out from the moment the alluring Susan (Helena Bonham Carter) plops down in his reclining vinyl chair: Complaining about her molars, she's really more interested in the refrigerator of narcotics the good dentist keeps on hand for his patients in pain. Once they manage to get Sangster's guard down, Susan and her brother (Scott Caan) rob him blind -- and worse yet, frame him for the theft. When a dead body turns up in Sangster's sleek suburban home, he finds that clearing his name will be a difficult proposition indeed. Novocaine marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Atkins, who first made his mark with the script for Emir Kusturica's oddball cult favorite Arizona Dream (1993). ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter, (more)
In this family drama, a white Southerner discovers that his family history isn't what he thought it was -- with the fact that he's half-black only one of his many surprises. Earl Pilcher, Jr. (Robert Duvall) runs a gas station in Arkansas; he's a typical middle-aged Southern man who likes his pickup truck and loves his momma. Shortly after his mother's death, he receives some very unexpected news; she wasn't really his mother after all. It seems that years ago, Earl Sr. (James N. Harrell) raped the family's African-American maid, Willie Mae, who nine months later died while giving birth to Earl Jr. To avoid further scandal, Mrs. Pilcher simply raised Earl Jr. as her own. While the family has kept the matter a secret all these years, Earl Jr. has a half-brother living in Chicago, and it was his mother's wish that the two should some day meet and become friends. Earl travels to Chicago and tracks down Ray Murdock (James Earl Jones), a veteran police officer and Willie Mae's other son. Earl Jr. quickly learns that Ray has little interest in getting to know him better; he knows all the facts behind the matter, and he's always blamed Earl for the death of his mother. However, Earl Jr. isn't used to life in a big city up north, and after he's mugged and carjacked, Ray grudgingly takes in his half-brother, letting him stay in the home he shares with his son Virgil (Michael Beach) and Aunt T. (Irma P. Hall), who raised Ray as a boy. A Family Thing was written by Billy Bob Thornton shortly before his breakthrough as writer, director, and star of Sling Blade. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Duvall, James Earl Jones, (more)
John Goodman is cast as the Sultan of Swat, whose excesses -- especially drinking -- and private demons can (in this context) be excused in view of his genuine love of baseball. The facts never get in the way of a good story for screenwriter John Fusco; we're even offered the umpteenth rehash of "Little Johnny", the largely fanciful tale of the invalid boy who promises to get well if Babe hits him a homer (as in Pride of the Yankees, the cured Johnny makes return a appearance as grownup). The most amusing fabrication is the casting of narrow James Cromwell as the Babe's orphanage mentor Brother Mathias, who in real life weighed 300 pounds. Many of the characters are composites, notably Bruce Boxleitner's Jumpin' Joe Dugan. At least Ruth's two wives--Trini Alvarado as Helen, who suffers Babe's many peccadilloes and dies under strange circumstances, and Kelly McGillis as Claire, who keeps Babe on a very short leash-are depicted with a modicum of accuracy. The baseball sequences are well handled (though there could have been less slo-mo) while Elmer Bernstein's charmingly old-fashioned musical score is right in tune with the film's approach to its subject. The Babe is rated PG; had this been the whole truth and nothing but, and R rating would probably have been in order. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Goodman, Kelly McGillis, (more)
- 1988
- PG13
Evil spirits follow a young girl from the suburbs to the city in the second follow-up to the blockbuster horror film Poltergeist. Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O'Rourke) is now 12 years old and living with Patricia and Bruce Gardner (Nancy Allen and Tom Skerritt), her aunt and uncle, in a high-rise apartment building in downtown Chicago. Carol Anne attends a school for gifted children, where the staff psychologist Dr. Seaton (Richard Fine) attributes her past troubles with noisy ghosts to mass delusions and hypnotic suggestions. However, Carol Anne isn't so sure that the explanation is that simple, especially since she still sees threatening apparitions in the mirrors of her apartment. Particularly troubling is the ghost of the wicked Reverend Kane (Nathan Davis), who is eager for Carol Anne to join him and his followers in the unknown world on the other side of the light. Sadly, Heather O'Rourke died due to surgical complications resulting from an intestinal blockage several months before Poltergeist III was released. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Skerritt, Nancy Allen, (more)
