Ellen Barkin Movies

Laurence Fishburne and Ellen Barkin star in this complex tale of former C.I.A. agents who now specialize in freelance espionage. As the film opens, Nelson Crowe (Fishburne) is being interviewed for a position with the Grimes Organization, which focuses on industrial espionage. He is hired by Margaret Wells (Barkin), who then takes Crowe to her boss, Grimes (Frank Langella). Grimes and Wells visit a man named Walter Curl (Spalding Gray) to tell him that they can bribe a state judge so that Curl's company doesn't have to pay a $25 million fine for the toxic poisoning of some children. The judge himself (David Ogden Stiers) is deep in gambling debts. Meanwhile, Wells aligns herself with Crowe and tries to convince him that the two of them could do away with Grimes and take over his entire organization. The plot thickens from there, with several surprises. The first-time original screenplay was by famous crime writer Ross Thomas, and the film's elegant cinematography by Jack N. Green captures the coldness of the characters and their surroundings. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV film was originally titled simply Clinton & Nadine when it made its debut on May 28, 1988. Andy Garcia plays Clinton, who is eager to find his brother's murderer. To do so, he enlists the aid of Nadine (Ellen Barkin), a high-priced call girl. Clinton and Nadine get sucked into a plot to smuggle guns to the Contra forces in Nicaragua. The credited screenwriter for the film, Willard Walpole, was actually Robert Foster, who wasn't happy with the film and insisted his real name be removed from the credits. Clinton & Nadine was produced for the HBO cable service. The film is unrated, but contains heavy doses of violence and sexual suggestiveness. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sidney Lumet directed this film version of E.L. Doctorow's novel The Book of Daniel (scripted by Doctorow) that deals in a thinly veiled (although dispassionate way) with the Rosenberg spy case of the 1950s, as seen through the eyes of their children. The Rosenbergs are the Isaacsons here, and the first image of the film is a close-up of their son Daniel's (Timothy Hutton) eyes as he recites a dictionary definition of the word "electrocution." Daniel becomes a detective as he seeks out friends and relations of his parents -- Paul (Mandy Patinkin) and Rochelle (Lindsay Crouse) -- to discover some meaning from his parents' conviction as Russian spies and their execution in the electric chair during the communist paranoia of the 1950s. Daniel is prompted to investigate the past by the near-suicide of his hysterical sister Susan (Amanda Plummer). The film weaves back and forth in time, recalling the period from the 1930s to the 1950s. In a strangely uninvolving way, Lumet's film takes no point of view, the only emotion derived from the almost continuous sounds of Paul Robeson's singing on the soundtrack. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Barry Levinson's autobiographical first feature fondly remembers his Baltimore youth. It's late 1959, and six guys in their early twenties are stumbling into adulthood, alternating responsibility with carefree time at their local diner. The story centers on the return from college of Billy (Tim Daly) to serve as best man at the wedding of his pal Eddie (Steve Guttenberg). Billy is consumed by a confusing relationship with a close female friend, while Eddie still lives at home, preparing a football trivia test for his fiancée and vowing to cancel the wedding if she fails. Other characters woven into the narrative include Boogie (Mickey Rourke), a womanizer with a gambling problem, and Shrevie (Daniel Stern), a music addict with a troubled marriage. Diner became known for its bittersweet comic screenplay and its remarkable cast, which also included Paul Reiser, Kevin Bacon, and Ellen Barkin. In order to capture the loose, laid-back dialogue of the diner scenes, Levinson directed them last, so that the actors would be more comfortable with each other. Diner was the first part of Levinson's "Baltimore Trilogy," followed by Tin Men (1987) and Avalon (1990). ~ Norm Schrager, All Movie Guide

So how far would you go to win a beauty pageant? That's the burning question of Drop Dead Gorgeous, in which the citizens of Mount Rose, Minnesota gear up for the year's biggest event, the Sarah Rose Miss Teen Princess America Pageant, in which Becky Leeman (Denise Richards) and Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst) are the contestants to beat. Becky's mother Gladys (Kirstie Alley), a former beauty queen herself, has instilled in her daughter a drive to succeed at any cost. And Gladys will do anything to help Becky's chances of success. Amber's mother Annette (Ellen Barkin) is devoted to her daughter but drinks, smokes, and swears like a sailor. And while Amber is ambitious and a skilled beautician (a talent that she uses in her part-time job at the local mortuary), her view of the pageant is pragmatic: while boys can get sports scholarships, this pageant may be her only ticket out of town. However, Amber and the other contestants may have underestimated just how badly Becky wants to win -- or just how good she is with a gun. Drop Dead Gorgeous was directed by Michael Patrick Jann, a founding member of the sketch comedy group The State (who had their own series on MTV), and written by Lorna Williams, a veteran of the beauty pageant circuit who claims that nearly everything in the film is based on an actual incident. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute is a compilation film of three feminist yet disheartening stories of failed relationships. The first story features Virginia (Ellen Barkin) whose deadbeat husband has just left her and their three children. As a result, she is forced to go on welfare. She begins an affair with a now-married old flame, and struggles to keep sanity and humor alive against high odds. In the next vignette, Faith (Lynn Milgrim) visits her still-hip, literary parents in their retirement home to let them know that she and her husband have separated -- and she gets some shocking news in return from her father. In the last story, a social worker and a cabbie (Kevin Bacon) start an affair on a feeble pretext for mutual attraction, and when the social worker gets pregnant, her one-sided decisions on the matter have unexpected effects. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, The Fisher King) directed this colorful, stylized, pseudo-psychedelic $21-million adaptation of the 1971 Hunter S. Thompson classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream, about stoned sportswriter Raoul Duke, Thompson's alter ego, on a wild drug-crazed road trip, a paranoid plummet into the belly of the beast, with his pal, lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta. Originally serialized in Rolling Stone (November 1971), the book catapulted Thompson headfirst toward the Kerouac-Mailer-Capote pantheon and jump-started the entire movement of "gonzo journalism." Carrying a suitcase of drugs, Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp with shaved pate) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) drive a red convertible across the Mojave from L.A. to Vegas, where Duke has an assignment to cover the Mint 400 desert motorcycle race. As the drugs kick in, Duke ventures into voiceover, filling in the blank spots and narrative gaps. "This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs," says Duke, but even so, they consume vast quantities, eventually escalating to ether. Duke notes that with ether "you can actually watch yourself behaving this terrible way, but you can't control it." The two trash their hotel room, and Gonzo goes back to L.A. Thinking the hotel room holocaust will lead to an arrest, Duke begins a drive back to L.A., but after an odd encounter with a highway patrolman (Gary Busey) and a telephone conversation with Gonzo, he returns to Vegas to cover the District Attorney Convention on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in the glitzy Flamingo Hotel. This time the drugged-out duo trash their Flamingo room. The crazed carnival atmosphere segues into a carney casino, Bazooko's Circus, where a barker (Penn Jillette) spiels amid aerialists, clowns, and a rotating carousel bar. Gonzo worries over runaway teen Lucy (Christina Ricci), who paints portraits of Barbra Streisand. Soon the hallucinations begin: Duke sees Gonzo transmogrify into a demon with breasts on its back, and an acid vision of a Vegas bar features large legit lounge lizards (courtesy of monster makeup man Rob Bottin). Flashbacks depicting Duke's intro to the drug scene jump back to love-Haight relationships in San Francisco's Summer of Love. Cameos and guest stars include Mark Harmon, Cameron Diaz, Flea, Lyle Lovett, Harry Dean Stanton, Ellen Barkin, Tobey Maguire, and Hunter S. Thompson himself. The film features a Geffen Records soundtrack mixing rock of the period with Vegas lounge tunes. Over the years, various script adaptations came and went as did numerous talents; people connected with past efforts to film Thompson's book include Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and writer-director Alex Cox. Shown in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Harry (Paul Newman), a middle-aged hardhat, has trouble communicating with his teenaged son Howard (Robby Benson). While Harry wants Howard to find a bread-and-butter job, the sensitive boy would rather pursue a writing career. Howard tries his best to please his dad, but ultimately realizes that he must march to his own beat if he's to find lasting happiness. The best scenes in this by-the-numbers domestic drama are those between Howard and his pregnant girlfriend (Ellen Barkin). Adapted from The Lost King, a novel by Don Capite, Harry and Son represents one of the rare occasions that star Paul Newman directed himself (at least officially!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Small-time crook Mickey Rourke is mockingly named Johnny Handsome because of his grotesquely deformed face. While in stir on a robbery rap, Rourke is knifed by convicts in the employ of his former partner--and now bitter enemy--Lance Henriksen. While in the prison hospital, Rourke is cared for by a kindly doctor (Forrest Whitaker), who believes that the key to Rourke's rehabilitation might be a literal change of face. Undergoing plastic surgery, Rourke emerges as virtually unrecognizable to everyone but the audience. Paroled, Rourke seems to be willing to follow a straight and narrow path. Seems to be. Only Morgan Freeman, playing a hard-bitten law officer, sees through Rourke's "new leaf." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Amanda Seyfried talks an older lovelorn woman (Vanessa Redgrave) into seeking out an old forgotten pen pal in this Summit Entertainment romantic comedy. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

A group of mobsters fight for control in this satirical comedy-drama. Vic (Richard Dreyfuss) is a not-especially-stable crime boss who -- following a spell in a mental hospital after being diagnosed with schizophrenia -- is sent home and is ready to resume his place as supreme leader of the mob. Mickey Holliday (Jeff Goldblum), Vic's enforcer and right hand man, is trying to get everything squared away for Vic's return, which may complicate his personal life, since he's been having an affair with Vic's girlfriend Grace (Diane Lane), as well as her sister Rita (Ellen Barkin). While Vic has been away, a number of other gangsters have been squabbling over who will take control of his territories, including Jake Parker (Kyle MacLachlan), Jules Flamingo (Gregory Hines), and Jacky Johnson (Burt Reynolds). However, it's the seriously eccentric Ben London (Gabriel Byrne) who turns out to be Mickey's and Vic's most potent rival as the various gangsters shoot it out over who gets what piece of the pie. Inspired in part by the "Rat Pack" crime flicks of the 1960s -- such as Ocean's Eleven and Robin and the Seven Hoods -- Mad Dog Time (also released under the title Trigger Happy) was written and directed by former actor Larry Bishop, son of Rat Packer Joey Bishop, who pops up in a small role. Larry's co-star from Wild in the Streets, Christopher Jones, appears in a supporting role as a gunman; it was his first film appearance since Ryan's Daughter in 1970. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Actor Jack Nicholson, writer Carole Eastman, and director Bob Rafelson re-team 22 years after their classic Five Easy Pieces, for this romantic comedy. Nicholson plays Harry Bliss, a small potatoes security expert unhappily married to a Japanese woman (he sarcastically calls her Iwo Jima during therapy sessions). Harry's life is coming apart at the seams -- not only is his marriage on the rocks, but the IRS and assorted creditors are nipping at his heels. Then opera singer Joan Spruance (Ellen Barkin) contacts him. It seems she wants Harry's help in obtaining an attack dog for her apartment, since an unknown person has been burglarizing her home and attacking her with an ax. Needless to say, Harry and Joan fall in love. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide