Steven Brown Movies
- 1994
The murder of a taxi dancer and her pimp provide the motivation for this crime melodrama, a remake of Emilio Fernandez's famed Salon Mexico. Set in the '30s, the crime occured in a popular Mexico City dance hall with the bodies being discovered in the dressing room of the dancer, Mercedes. Beside her lay her sleazy lover Paco. Police inspector Castellon is set on the case and begins questioning every one who knew the couple including Paco's other girl friend Almendrita, Mercedes' daughter Laura, her closest friend La Jaibita and the policeman who wanted to marry the dancer. He even talks to composer Aaron Copland who has been frequenting the hall while writing his Salon Mexico Suite. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- María Rojo, Blanca Guerra, (more)
What does a biographer do when the truth about his subject is far less pleasant than the legend? That is the moral dilemma at the heart of Cobb, which explores the lives of both baseball's premier hitter, Ty Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones), and the sportswriter assigned to set his story down, Al Stump (Robert Wuhl). Stump arrives at the Tahoe home of the dying Cobb to write the official life story of the first man inducted into the Baseball Hall Of Fame. He finds a drunken, misanthropic, bitter racist who abuses his biographer as well as everyone else. Stump must either candycoat his subject's life or present an accurate picture of a disgusting man who happened to become an American sports hero. The movie's biting focus on Cobb, ferociously performed by Jones, is not matched by its weaker representation of Stump, an imbalance which ultimately weakens the film's overall effect. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Wuhl, (more)
Poltergeist-purger Zelda Rubinstein toplines this interesting, twisty psycho-thriller from Spain, which makes clever (though repetitive) use of its movie-within-a-movie premise. As the star of the horror film "The Mommy," Rubinstein plays a mother who hypnotizes her son (Michael Lerner) into seeking more victims to supply her growing collection of human eyeballs. "The Mommy" seems also to exert a weird hypnotic effect on the audience watching it, particularly one impressionable fellow who mirrors Lerner's actions by stalking fellow movie patrons... just as the onscreen murderer is entering a movie theater to do the same thing. If this sounds confusing, that's probably because it is. The interesting premise wears thin about halfway through, with the relentless attempts at viewer disorientation becoming more tiresome than frightening. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zelda Rubinstein, Michael Lerner, (more)
