James LeGros Movies
Thanks in large part to the independent film movement of the late '80s, the boyishly handsome James LeGros went from being an underrated bit player in Hollywood schlock to a well-respected character actor. A Minnesota native, LeGros found steady work when he migrated to Los Angeles after college in the early '80s, popping up as a guest star in such TV series as Knight Rider, and in Danny DeVito's directorial debut, the made-for-cable satire The Ratings Game (a.k.a. The Mogul). Sci-fi made up the bulk of LeGros' early feature-film roles, including the dreadful post-apocalyptic teen flop Solarbabies (1986) and the thriller sequel Phantasm II (1988).It was director Gus Van Sant who afforded LeGros the opportunity to show his skills with a meaty supporting role in 1989's much-acclaimed Drugstore Cowboy. As part of a quartet of drifters stealing their way across the Pacific Northwest, the actor held his own against the iconic Matt Dillon as well as newcomer Heather Graham. More challenging parts followed in the early '90s, including the psychological drama The Rapture (1991), Cameron Crowe's ensemble romantic comedy Singles (1992), and a pair of firearm-obsessed indies, Guncrazy and My New Gun (also 1992). Pairing with director Todd Haynes for his 1995 sophomore feature Safe, LeGros garnered more acclaim as a confidante/romantic interest for the mysteriously ailing character played by Julianne Moore. That same year, he hilariously sent up a narcissistic Hollywood actor -- not-so-secretly based on Brad Pitt -- in director Tom DiCillo's satire on the perils of indie filmmaking, Living in Oblivion.
As the millennium drew to a close, LeGros would re-team with Moore in the ensemble dramedy The Myth of Fingerprints (1997), playing an eccentric New England townie who has a crush on Moore's icy, cosmopolitan yuppie. With the film, LeGros began a long-standing collaboration with the film's writer-director -- and Moore's real-life beau -- Bart Freundlich, who would go on to cast LeGros in his subsequent films, including the road movie World Traveler (2001), the family film Catch That Kid (2003), and the screwball relationship comedy Trust the Man (2006).
In the intervening years, LeGros made a successful return to the medium that gave him his first break: television. He was exposed to perhaps his widest audience to date in 1998 on the venerable medical drama ER, and then on the popular series Ally McBeal, in 2000 and 2001. A starring role on Showtime's gritty, controversial terrorist drama Sleeper Cell followed in 2005. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell, and Drew Barrymore are the stars of this Western whose main gimmick is making heroes into heroines. They all start out as prostitutes, as Cody (Stowe) shoots a drunken colonel who attempts to molest Anita (Masterson). She is about to be lynched for defending her friend when the other "bad girls" ride in and rescue her, pursued by detectives. The rest of the film follows their adventures as they get caught up in hostage situations, bank robberies, shootouts, and romantic interludes with handsome young cowboys with never a hair out of place or an unsightly smudge of Western dust. Amazingly, all four former prostitutes are able to ride, shoot, rope, and fight as well. Bad Girls is not likely to be thought of as a realistic view of how women lived in the Old West. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, (more)
- 1994
- R
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Jennifer Jason Leigh offers an acclaimed performance as humorist Dorothy Parker, who together with such 1920s luminaries as Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and George S. Kaufman, was a charter member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table. The story is related in flashback form, as Mrs. Parker, in Hollywood to cowrite the 1937 feature A Star is Born with her second husband Alan Campbell (Peter Gallagher), recalls her glory days as an Algonquinite. A great deal of attention is afforded Parker's vituperative bon mots, her alcoholism, her self-destructiveness, her suicide attempts, and her affairs with such literary contemporaries as Charles MacArthur (an uncharacteristically unsympathetic Matthew Broderick) and Robert E. Sherwood (Nick Cassavetes). The one person Parker truly seems to care about is humorist Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott), who prefers to keep their friendship platonic. Director Alan Rudolph attempts to convey the ambience of the 1920s by having dozens of that decade's luminaries appear in fleeting cameos, from Will Rogers (Keith Carradine) to Harpo Marx. Also featured in Mrs. Parker are Tom McGowan as the waspish Alexander Woollcott and Andrew McCarthy as Dorothy's near-invisible first husband, Eddie Parker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, Matthew Broderick, (more)
- 1993
- R
After his work day ends, airline luggage-handler York Daley (Bill Pullman) has 90 minutes to run home, pick up his lover Nancy (Julie Brown), and return to the airport to catch an eight o' clock flight to Rio de Janeiro. A collection of colorful characters and bizarre mishaps guarantee that York's simple plan goes quickly and horribly wrong. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Pullman, Julie Brown, (more)
Not so much a remake of Joseph H. Lewis's 1949 film noir classic as a variation on its themes, Guncrazy stars Drew Barrymore as Anita, a teenage girl who was born in a trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks and has been fighting a losing battle with respectability ever since. Anita was abused sexually by her mother's boyfriend (played by onetime Warhol "superstar" Joe Dallesandro), is the subject of lewd advances by the school bullies, and is looked on as a slut and a loser by her peers. When Anita has to find a pen pal for a class assignment, she ends up corresponding with a prisoner named Howard (James LeGros), who's serving time for manslaughter. Howard is one of the first people to address Anita with tenderness and respect, so when he gets parole, Howard moves in with her. Howard's obsessive love of guns, however, once again leads to violence, and the couple hits the road hoping to escape their fates. The debut film from director Tamra Davis, Guncrazy was originally shown on cable television, but received enough critical acclaim to merit a later theatrical release. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Drew Barrymore, James LeGros, (more)
Stacy Cochran's debut film is a black comedy about a yuppie couple (Diane Lane and Stephen Collins) whose lives are turned upside down by the purchase of a .38 revolver. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Diane Lane, James LeGros, (more)
Marc Rocco's gritty drama Where the Day Takes You stars Dermot Mulroney as King, a street-smart hustler who acts as a father figure to a motley collection of young runaways. Among the people in his sphere are the young self-destructive drug addict Greg (Sean Astin), self-hating gay prostitute Little J (Balthazar Getty), and newcomer Heather (Lara Flynn Boyle). The film is structured as a series of flashbacks triggered by King's conversations with a prison psychologist (Laura San Giacomo). Included in the impressive cast are such soon-to-be-famous names as Will Smith and Ricki Lake, and the already established Kyle MacLachlan, Christian Slater, and Alyssa Milano. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Astin, Lara Flynn Boyle, (more)
Set amidst the burgeoning Seattle alternative music scene of the early '90s, Singles follows a group of twentysomethings as they try to find love and try to come to terms with their passage into adulthood. Arranged as an episodic comedy, the film follows a group of friends who live in the same apartment building and hang out at the same coffee shop. The central couple is Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) and Linda Powell (Kyra Sedgwick), a pair who meet at an Alice In Chains concert and eventually fall in love. Singles follows the tumultuous relationship between Steve and Linda and their friendship with Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda), who is trying to win the affection of grunge-rocker Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon). The film also has a number of cameos, including actors Eric Stoltz, Tom Skerritt, Peter Horton, director Tim Burton and the film's author/director, Cameron Crowe. From the musical side of the fence, Singles features appearances by Sub Pop executive Bruce Pavitt, musicians Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Pat DiNizio (Smithereens), Tad (Tad), and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, and Stone Gossard, who play Dillon's backing band, Citizen Dick. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, (more)
An audacious film about faith, The Rapture is a contemporary fantasy that keeps its feet unnervingly planted in reality even as reality starts to collapse. Mimi Rogers, in a strikingly accomplished performance, stars as Sharon, a telephone operator who spends her off-hours engaging in casual group sex to blot out her boredom. By chance, she becomes aware of a small Christian sect whose members believe that they have found a child with the gift of prophecy who has seen the upcoming end times. Slowly but steadily, Sharon finds herself drawn to this group, and one night she abruptly turns a corner, renounces her old life, and embraces fundamentalism with passion. She marries one of her former lovers, Randy (David Duchovny), who takes up Sharon's evangelical fervor to atone for his past as a hired killer, and they have a daughter. All seems peaceful until Randy is unexpectedly murdered, and Sharon takes her child to the desert to await the rapture that will bring the chosen to heaven. The film neither supports nor scoffs at Sharon's views, and the superb performances add immeasurably to a film that presents the unbelievable (and unthinkable) at face value, making it seem oddly plausible in the process. Michael Tolkin has also written and/or directed such films as The Player (1992), directed by Robert Altman, and The New Age (1994), both of which also skewer contemporary American society as shallow, materialistic, and desperate for something authentic to believe in. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny, (more)
Kathryn Bigelow's fourth action film follows FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) as he goes undercover to infiltrate a cache of Southern California surfers suspected of robbing banks. Utah, a former football player, is assigned to Los Angeles. There, four bank robbers, who wear rubber masks and call themselves "Ex-Presidents," have executed a series of successful robberies which embarrassingly have the FBI stumped. Utah, and his partner Pappas (Gary Busey) suspect that the robbers are surfers and hatch a plan for catching them. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, (more)
- 1990
Billy Zane stars in this direct-to-video gem as a spectacularly unsuccessful car thief. Hoping to reform by leaving LA, Zane must scare up $400 worth of exit money. He decides to pull off one last job, stealing a TV from William Bastiani. An ill-tempered criminal, Bastiani stabs Zane, who then runs off blindly into a cemetary ("Blood" and "Concrete": get it?) Weaving around the tombstones, Zane makes the acquaintance of would-be suicide Jennifer Beals. Love blooms, but it might be too late for both of them: Bastiani is found murdered, and Zane is suspect number one-forcing him to hide out from both the cops and the mob. Luxuriating in its tawdriness and cheapness, Blood & Concrete: A Love Story actually has an offbeat charm all its own. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Billy Zane, Jennifer Beals, (more)
- 1990
- R
Mickey (D.B. Sweeney) is a reformed thief who works construction. He's saved up his money to move out of his small town and get away his criminal past. Before he leaves town, he proposes to Claudi (Bridget Fonda), a friend he's secretly loved for ages. Claudi has a reputation in town and she's also eager to escape. Their plans are spoiled by Dobbs (Cary Elwes), a mutual friend and gang leader who Mickey used to run with. After a botched robbery that ends in murder, Dobbs and his crew are pursued by a Vietnamese gang led by Tron (Craig Ng). But Dobbs still tries to disrupt his friends' wedding plans by telling Mickey that Claudi is a whore. Then, at Mickey's going away/bachelor party, Dobbs hires a couple of strippers (one played by former porn star Ginger Lynn) to entice Dobbs. Things get more complicated when Tron and company crash the party and shoot up the place, shooting Dobbs and killing several members of his gang. Mickey, Dobbs, Claudi, and Big Steve (Chris Penn) hit the road, heading to L.A. to evade the other gang. Along the way, secrets are revealed that change all of their lives, and they find that escaping the past is not so easy. The film was written and directed by Lee Drysdale, who would later write the script for Sweet Nothing. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bridget Fonda, D.B. Sweeney, (more)
The operative word in Drugstore Cowboy is "drug". Matt Dillon plays the leader of a group of dopeheads who wander around the country robbing pharmacies to feed their habits. Dillon's chums include doltish James Le Gros and teen-age junkie Heather Graham; also along for the ride is Dillon's wife Kelly Lynch. Their nemesis is cop James Remar, whom Dillon takes perverse delight in humiliating. When one of the young addicts dies of an overdose, it promps Dillon to try to go straight, a task complicated by wife Lynch's determination to stay high and by the corrupting presence of an ex-priest, played by Naked Lunch author William Burroughs. Drugstore Cowboy was director Gus Van Sant's breakthrough picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, (more)
The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight. His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone's best work and Cruise's best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter's book, won for Best Director. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, (more)
- 1989
In this drama, a young man dreams of being a Hollywood screenwriter and so heads for Tinseltown where he encounters many twists and turns on the road to success.. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The "Tall Man" and his strange little Killer Sphere return for a second round in this sequel to the 1979 cult favorite. Mike Pearson (James LeGros) is still plagued by memories of the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), an evil mortician who has risen from the grave and bleeds embalming fluid -- and tried to kill him as a boy. Mike has been a patient in a mental institution for the last decade, insisting that the Tall Man is real; he still appears in his dreams ten years after their first encounter. When Mike changes his tune and says that the undead undertaker was merely a hallucination, he is finally released. However, Mike and his best friend, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), are actually out to find the Tall Man and put an end to his habits of grave-robbing and draining people's bodies with his flying brain-juicer. As they search for the Tall Man, Mike encounters Liz (Paula Irvine), a woman who has also appeared in his dreams, and she claims that she too has been pursued by the Tall Man. Phantasm II was followed by a third installment in 1994, and a fourth in 1998. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James LeGros, Reggie Bannister, (more)
Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are among the impoverished residents of a slum tenement threatened with demolition by evil land developers. Only a miracle can save Cronyn, Tandy, and their friends -- and that miracle manifests itself in the form of a "family" of extraterrestrial flying saucers, who need the electricity provided by the tenement to survive. The grateful humanized spaceships repay their earthbound hosts by doing battle with the villains' henchmen. When the building is engulfed in flames, all seems lost, but the aliens have a few more tricks up their metallic sleeves. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, (more)
In Kathryn Bigelow's tale of vampires in the American Southwest, the creatures of the night aren't elegant, cloaked aristocrats. They're a gun-toting gang that dresses and acts like a motorcycle gang. Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a restless young man from a small farm town, meets an alluring drifter named Mae (Jenny Wright). She reveals herself to be a vampire, who "turns" Caleb into one of her kind rather than kill him. But the rest of her "family" is slow to accept the newcomer. The ancient leader, Jesse (Lance Henriksen), and his psychotic henchman Severen (Bill Paxton) lay down the law; Caleb has to carry his own weight or die. However, he can't bring himself to kill. He manages to win the gang's approval when he rescues them from certain death in a daytime gunfight during a spectacular motel shoot-out in which every bullet hole lets in a deadly ray of sunlight. When the vampires threaten Caleb's real family, he's forced to choose between life and death. The film avoids the complex vampire mythology of such films as Interview with the Vampire. Instead, it emphasizes the intense, seductive bond that forms between Caleb and the violent but tightly knit gang. Bigelow would later utilize this powerful dramatic device in her 1991 film Point Break. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, (more)
A CIA agent recruits a meek family man for a secret mission involving interstellar communication and copious violence in this tongue-in-cheek buddy flick from the writer/producer of The Golden Child. Insurance salesman Bob Wilson (John Ritter) is the kind of guy who stands by while suburban punks steal his kid's bike. Nick Pirandello (James Belushi) is the exact opposite -- a brash, womanizing alpha male revered within the CIA for his many successful secret missions. When a fellow agent who looks exactly like Bob gets killed just days before he's due to head up a very delicate mission, Nick recruits the reluctant Bob to help out. As Bob gets drawn deeper into a world of Russian hit men, transsexual beauties, and secret-agent hijinks, he slowly gains the self-confidence that's always escaped him. Meanwhile, he's constantly at the mercy of Nick's tongue-in-cheek humor, so he's a little skeptical when Nick reveals that the big meeting is with a group of aliens who want to share their advanced technology with humans. As it turns out, there may be something to Nick's outrageous story -- if only Bob can survive long enough to find out. The lone directorial credit for screenwriter/producer Dennis Feldman, Real Men features Barney Miller vet Barbara Barrie in a supporting role as Nick's placid, accommodating mother. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Belushi, John Ritter, (more)
Rita Rizzoli (Whoopi Goldberg) is a crusading narcotics cop assigned to track down the source of some killer crack cocaine in this pretentious and preachy anti-drug crime drama. Rita poses as a prostitute and is soon hot after two small-time hoods (Brad Dourif and Mike Jolly) who murder their way up the drug-dealing ladder in hopes of becoming kingpins. Cheech Marin and Catherine Blore provide interesting cameos in this feature that co-stars Ruben Blades and Sam Elliott. Contains stereotypical characters and gratuitous violence. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Whoopi Goldberg, Sam Elliott, (more)
- 1986
- PG13
A futuristic dystopia is the setting for this tale about good versus evil and a magical space-sphere out to reestablish a civilized society. An orphanage in a bleak and deserted landscape imprisons a large group of youngsters who have divided into good and bad groups. One day, while competing at roller-skate ball, the teams come across a bowling-ball-sized sphere named Bodhi (a Sanskrit word equivalent to "enlightened compassion"). Bodhi communicates with the good kids, but the bad ones cannot understand the sphere's electronic burbles. The nasty Darstar (Adrian Pasdar) steals Bodhi and heads out into the forbidden world beyond the orphanage. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Jordan, Jami Gertz, (more)
- 1984
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, (more)
