Jim Mapp Movies

If a comedy is to be made from the plight of the homeless, who have to scrape through their days returning deposit bottles and cleaning car windshields to get their daily bread as the rich get richer and more heartless, it may as well be Mel Brooks' Life Stinks. The trademark Brooks humor dominates this fable about a ruthless billionaire, Goddard Bolt (Mel Brooks), who wants to obliterate a poor section of Los Angeles and build a high-tech commercial center in its place. His only problem is that he owns only half the land needed for the construction, the other half belonging to equally ruthless billionaire Vance Craswell (Jeffrey Tambor), who has his own ideas for the land. The two try to buy each other out until, finally, a deal is struck: Craswell bets that Bolt cannot survive a month on the streets as a homeless man. If Bolt makes it, he gets the property. If he doesn't, Craswell gets it. Bolt agrees and, as a poor man, he begins to feel the pain of being uprooted and alone, even meeting a friendly homeless woman, Molly (Lesley Ann Warren) with whom he forms an attachment. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

This exploitation film finds the aging stripper Harlow (Sandahl Bergman) taking on young protégé Joni (Kim Evenson) to peel off her clothes in the strip club called Kandyland. Bruce Baum adds much-needed comedy relief as the club comic Mad Dog. The film is an excuse to show attractive females in various stages of undress. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The Double Con is an alternate title for the blaxploitationer Trick Baby. Jan Leighton and Byron Sander star as a pair of African American con artists. One of the slicksters can pass for white, enabling the two to pull off any number of clever race-related scams. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi