Jed Mills Movies
The inner-workings of a corrupt Las Vegas casino are exposed in Martin Scorsese's story of crime and punishment. The film chronicles the lives and times of three characters: "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a bookmaking wizard; Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), a Mafia underboss and longtime best friend to Ace; and Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone, in a role she was born to play), a leggy ex-prostitute with a fondness for jewelry and a penchant for playing the field. Ace plays by the rules (albeit Vegas rules, which, as he reminds the audience in voiceover, would make him a criminal in any other state), while Nicky and Ginger lie, cheat, and steal their respective ways to the top. The film's first hour and a half details their rise to power, while the second half follows their downfall as the FBI, corrupt government officials, and angry mob bosses pick apart their Camelot piece by piece. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, (more)
Saturday Night Live star Dana Carvey had his first leading role on the big screen in this comedy. Eddie (Carvey) and Lou (Todd Graff) are a pair of small-time con artists deep in debt to Pinkie (Mike Bacarella), a loan shark. During a lean period, Eddie and Lou resort to breaking and entering to make some money, but as they're clearing out a house, they overhear the answering machine announce that the owner is away on business for a few weeks -- and the housesitter won't be able to stop by. Eddie and Lou settle in and enjoy their good fortune, which just gets better when Milt (Robert Loggia) pays a visit. Milt assumes that Eddie is the housesitter, who is a close friend of his son. Eddie is soon introduced to Milt's beautiful daughter, Annie (Julia Campbell), and Milt decides that Eddie is executive material at his successful manufacturing firm. Soon Eddie starts to wonder if he should go on lying to the people he's come to like -- and there's the little matter of the 60,000 dollars that Eddie and Lou swiped from Pinkie's car. Opportunity Knocks also features Milo O'Shea and James Tolkan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Carvey, Robert Loggia, (more)
- 1989
Marion Ross guest stars as Mrs. Daley, who barges into the courtroom with a grenade in her hand, demanding that the staff help her free her husband from prison. Harry (Harry Anderson) would love to oblige, but the fact of the matter is that Mrs. Daley has no husband: she is a hopeless TV soap opera addict who has confused fiction with reality! Making the situation even dicier is the presence of a cable TV show crew which has chosen this evening to film a "typical" session in Judge Harry's court. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Richard Benjamin's directorial debut is an engaging slice of nostalgia, purportedly based on an incident in life of Mel Brooks. Mark Linn-Baker stars as Benjy Stone, junior writer on the popular 1950s TV comedy/variety series The King Kaiser Show. Kaiser (Joseph Bologna)'s guest star this week is Hollywood matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type, right down to his indiscriminate womanizing and fondness for mass quantities of booze. Stone is assigned to keep the actor out of trouble during rehearsals and deliver him sober to the performance. Becoming fast friends, Stone and Swann alternate baby-sitting responsibilities: Swann takes the young writer to the Stork Club and on an early-morning jaunt through Central Park with a "borrowed" police horse, while Stone takes Swann to his home in the Bronx, where the star is fawned over by Benji's mom (Lainie Kazan) and asked embarrassing questions about his love life by Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). Despite a few anxious moments, all goes well until Swann, panicking at the discovery that King Kaiser's show will be telecast live and not on film, walks out just before airtime. Shamed by Benjy into honoring his committment, Swann makes a spectacular, timber-smashing entrance, saving the show and rescuing Kaiser from being rubbed out by a gangster (Cameron Mitchell) whom the comedian has offended. Though it fluctuates between wistful realism and the manic exaggeration of a TV comedy sketch, My Favorite Year holds together quite well, delivering a plentitude of solid laughs. Jessica Harper, usually the star of bizarro films like Inserts and Suspiria, is quite appealing as Benjy Stone's girlfriend; that lady dancing with O'Toole at the Stork Club is 1930s film star Gloria Stuart, later an Oscar nominee for Titanic; the King Kaiser Show wardrobe mistress is played by Selma Diamond, a real-life comedy writer for Sid Caesar. My Favorite Year was converted into an unsuccessful Broadway musical in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, (more)
- 1980
- R
- 1980
- PG
Ever wonder what happens to your car when you give it to a parking lot attendant? Find out in this zany slapstick comedy set in an exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. There the attendants gleefully smash and bash the expensive cars of patrons while trying to get them parked. The story really perks up when an enamored and fabulously wealthy sheik joins the attendants in hopes of attracting a certain beautiful woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1975
- R
No, Oliver Stone did not invent the Cinema of Paranoia. In 1975, for example, long before Stone first yelled "Cue the conspirators!", we were offered No Place to Hide. A group of idealistic, pure-hearted hippie activists are targeted by the evil, demonic FBI. The insidious law-enforcement minions plant a spy in the midst of the angelic flower children; this dirty rat fink goads Our Heroes (and Heroines) into committing a murderous act of radicalism that will result in life sentences for all the beautiful people. No Place to Hide is as bad as it sounds, but you'll watch anyway just to see a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone in the role of "Jerry." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
