Robert Miano Movies

A couple of wealthy young California sisters decide to hit a few birds with one stone when they, with the help of some homeless folks, hold a talent show/bikini contest. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Long before she was in Friends, Courteney Cox had to deal with a few enemies in Blue Desert. A rape victim, Cox is given the runaround by the New York police. Fed up with city life, she heads for the wide open spaces of Arizona. Not long afterward, she is propositioned by lowlife Craig Sheffer. She reports this to sympathetic local cop D.B. Sweeney, who replies matter-of-factly that this is not the first time that Sheffer has been accused of a sexual offense. To her amazement, Cox is later visited by Sheffer, who agitatedly warns her not to trust the supposedly sweet-natured Sweeney. Someone is lying about something-and Cox plain doesn't know who to believe. When she finally finds out, it's nearly too late. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It probably takes an intimate acquaintance with East Germany's famously awful car, a smoky, noisy two-cylinder lawnmower on wheels, the Trabant 601, to fully appreciate the jokes in this extremely popular, celebrity-filled comedy. In the story, Gunther (German television star Thomas Gotttschalk) is an East German inventor who has journeyed with his homely car to an inventor's convention in Hollywood: he has figured out a way to get his Trabbi to run on turnip juice and zoom like a sports car. When his odd car is stolen, he tries to get it back, but L.A. and it's culture are alien to him and he is very much a fish out of water, despite the friendly advice he receives from Billy Dee Williams as a knowledgeable parking-lot attendant. Look for cameos by Milton Berle and Dom DeLuise, among others. This Trabbi film is a sequel to the enormously popular comedy Go, Trabi, Go. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A police detective must rescue his ex-wife from a kidnapper who is hiding out in an uncompleted skyscraper in this action film also titled The Concrete War. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Ray Sharkey plays Detective Vince Capra of the LAPD whose job it is to discover the identity of a serial killer who has been murdering rich single ladies when the rain falls. He's saddled with an FBI agent who's supposed to assist him in solving the crime, but tends to get in his way. There are several twisting turnabouts to this film that keep the viewer guessing who the killer is, and when they find out who the killer is, the next question is: Who will be the next victim? ~ All Movie Guide

A Vietnam War veteran (John Schneider) renounces the military for a priest's habit, but after his wife and daughter are killed by terrorists in Rome (and the government does nothing), the hero returns to violent means. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Director Abel Ferrara liberally employs his blackjack intensity in this lunatic gang romance that comes across as a cross between Mean Streets and West Side Story. The New York City street gangs of Chinatown and Little Italy are rattling their sabers and they become drawn when a Chinese restaurant opens up on the Italian side of Canal Street. In the middle of all this tension and violence, beautiful Chinese teenager Tyan-Hwa (Sari Chang) falls in love with Tony (Richard Panebianco), a pizza delivery boy. Of course, continuing with in the West Side Story vein, the parents of the two lovebirds are against the match. Not only that, but the Mafia and the Chinese mob conspire to separate the lovers in order to maintain an uncertain peace in the community. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

To keep Hunter (Fred Dryer) alive long enough to testify against mob boss Max Crane (Wolf Muster), Captain Devane (Charles Hallahan) orders the detective to go on a fishing trip at a remote sporting lodge. Almost immediately upon arrival, Hunter meets and falls in love with a girl named Nicki (Lydia Cornell). Meanwhile back in LA, McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) gets word that a paid assassin has been dispatched to "off" Hunter--and just guess whom that assassin turns out to be! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Figuring that he'll never get a pardon from the mercurial Stockwell (Robert Vaughn), Face (Dirk Benedict) plans to escape during the A-Team's next mission. But things don't quite go as expected when Face falls in love with Sally Vogel (Valerie Wildman), a journalist whose pose as the girlfriend of mobster Tommy Tedesco (Richard Romanus) has placed her in dire peril. Throughout the episode, Face continues seeking a means of escape only to return to help out Sally and his fellow A-Teamers--a pattern he follows all the way to the climax in Atlantic City. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This attempt at parodying a world of hookers, child pornographers, and drug cartels never quite gets off the ground. Though these topics are not inherently amusing, director Penelope Spheeris takes the plot of Hardcore as a springboard and develops a few parallel stories that are meant to be funny. Pauline Stanton (Trish Van DeVere) is desperately hoping to rescue her daughter Lori (Robin Wright) who is working for the evil Walsh (Frank Gorshin) as a call-girl. As some policemen work on trying to get the goods on Walsh and send him up for white slave trading, another policewoman is involved in trying to bring down a child pornographer in her neighborhood. Yet another cop, detective Romero (H.B. Haggerty) is after a New York mob boss. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

To paraphrase 1930s wit Wilson Mizner, Fear City is like a trip through a sewer in a glass-bottom boat. In exploitation-flick fashion, the film exposes the seedy "nether world" of contemporary Manhattan. Unsavory Matt (Tom Berenger) and Nick (Jack Scalia) run a topless bar/booking agency, in direct competition with equally scuzzy Goldstein (Jan Murray). It's hard to imagine anyone lower than these low-lives until we're apprised of a serial killer who dutifully keeps a record of his murders in a diary. The killer's victims are all exotic dancers and hookers, prompting Matt to suspect that Goldstein is behind the crimes, and vice versa. Once they've decided that it's better to unite against a common enemy than to throw volleys at each other, Matt and Goldstein arrange between themselves to insure the safety of the women in their employ. Meanwhile, Matt's ex-girlfriend Loretta (Melanie Griffith), saddened by the murder of her lesbian lover Leila (Rae Dawn Chong), resumes her drug habit, while a dispirited Matt begins harking back to his own sordid past. The one redeeming aspect of Fear City is the ultimate triumph over the odds by Loretta, who by process of elimination emerges as the most likeable character in the bunch. For a film of this nature, Fear City boasts an unexpectedly strong cast, including the aforementioned actors and Billy Dee Williams, Rosanno Brazzi, Joe Santos and Michael V. Gazzo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The B-grade genres of sexploitation, blaxploitation, and jailhouse flicks mixed with this grotesque sex- and violence-filled melodrama. Linda Blair stars as Carol Henderson, a naïve and inexperienced teenager who is sentenced to 18 months in a women's prison after accidentally killing a man. Once she arrives, Carol meets sadistic, perverted Warden Bacman (John Vernon), who keeps a hot tub in his office. She also encounters the two top-dog prisoners, Ericka (Sybil Danning) and Duchess (Tamara Dobson), who are at war with each other, the leaders of factions in the facility's simmering racial tensions. Then there are the drug-dealing lesbian rapists and the prostitutes, who answer to the warden's snugly-outfitted assistant, Captain Taylor (Stella Stevens). In the meantime, Taylor's lover is secretly carrying on an affair with Ericka. It's a cauldron of fear and rage, but when the prison's corrupt management goes too far, race considerations are set aside as black and white convicts band together. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Robert Mulligan directed this Americanized re-make of the successful Brazilian comedy Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. Sally Field stars as Kay Villano, a lonely widow of three years who can't forget the memory of her dead husband, Jolly (James Caan). Jolly was a selfish and unfaithful Broadway choreographer who still managed to win Kay over with his charm. But Kay has fallen in love again with Rupert Baines (Jeff Bridges), a stuffy professor of Egyptology. As her wedding day approaches, Kay receives a visit from Jolly's ghost, who taunts and harasses her, clearly upset that Kay is marrying someone so dull. Kay goes ahead with the marriage and Jolly refuses to disappear, resulting in a bizarre menage-a-tois. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide