Dakin Matthews Movies
The directorial debut of Glenn Gordon Caron, the creator of the television series Moonlighting (1985-89), this intense, gritty drama was received as one of the best-ever cinematic treatments of substance abuse. Michael Keaton stars as Daryl Poynter, a hustling, successful Philadelphia real estate agent who has become addicted to cocaine. He's already got problems, including nearly a $100,000 embezzled from his employer and lost on the stock market, when he wakes up one morning with a young woman dead in his bed from a coke overdose. His company is asking questions about the missing funds, and the dead girl's father is plastering his neighborhood with posters accusing Daryl of being a murderer, so he decides to hide out in an anonymous drug treatment program. There, however, Daryl runs into tough-minded counselor and former addict Craig (Morgan Freeman), who has heard all of Daryl's lies and tricks before. Daryl also finds romance with an abused fellow addict, Charlie Standers (Kathy Baker), and understanding with his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor (M. Emmet Walsh). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Keaton, Kathy Baker, (more)
Chevy Chase stars as Andy Farmer, a sportswriter who moves with his schoolteacher wife Elizabeth (Madolyn Smith) to the country in order to write a novel in relative seclusion. Of course, seclusion is the last thing the Farmers find in the small, eccentric town, where disaster awaits them at every turn. The veteran production staff features the likes of composer Elmer Bernstein, cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, production designer Henry Bumstead, and director George Roy Hill (The Sting, The World According to Garp). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Madolyn Smith, (more)
High-priced hooker Barbra Streisand has been arrested for the murder of one of her clients. The attorney engaged by Streisand's parents hope to cop an insanity plea so that she can avoid a trial and manslaughter conviction. But she refuses this, citing a proviso in New York law that may result in her spending the rest of her life in an institution. Against all odds, struggling lawyer Richard Dreyfuss tries to prove that Streisand is not crazy and capable of standing trial. Dreyfuss certainly has his work cut out for him: from what we've seen in the film thus far, the violently impulsive Streisand is not only "nuts," but certifiably so. Though she has plenty of opportunity in Nuts to give out with her usual bravura Streisandisms, Streisand (who also produced the film and wrote the songs) is surprisingly restrained through most of the proceedings. And then there's that extended-monologue climax. Nuts was adapted by Tom Topor, Darryl Ponicsan and Alvin Sargent from Topor's stage play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, (more)
Dr. Jack Hammond (Dudley Moore) is a noted heart surgeon whose personality is switched with his teenage son Chris (Kirk Cameron) in this uninspired comedy. The ingestion of a brain transference serum is the catalyst for the comic catastrophe and the confusion that follows. Sean Astin and Patrick O'Neal co-star with Margaret Colin and Catherine Hicks. A decent idea for a comedy that has since been done better in Brian Gilbert's 1988 comedy Vice Versa starring Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dudley Moore, Kirk Cameron, (more)
- 1966
No sooner has Sophia (Lesley Ann Warren) moved in with her daughter Susan (Teri Hatcher) than she sets to work stage-managing her daughter's love life -- and, by extension, hopes to reactivate her own. Bree (Marcia Cross) has no idea what her son, Andrew (Shawn Pyfrom), has in store for her; the only one who does know is bound by a vow of silence. Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) unwittingly drives Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) back into the arms of her stud-muffin lover, John (Jesse Metcalfe). And in a moment of near-fatal weakness, Lynette (Felicity Huffman) thinks kindly of the monumentally unkind Mrs. McClusky (Kathryn Joosten). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
