Gretchen Becker Movies

Further cementing 2003 as the year of Ron Shelton cop movies, the director continued his vacation from the sports genre with Hollywood Homicide, a police comedy that comes right on the heels of Shelton's Dark Blue, a decidedly grittier cop thriller. The film stars Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett as LAPD homicide detectives Joe Gavilan and K.C. Calden, two cops with bigger dreams. Gavilan moonlights as a real estate agent, while Calden teaches yoga and yearns for a career on the big screen. When an entire hip-hop group is murdered on-stage, Gavilan and Calden are called in to handle the case. As their investigation progresses, they begin to suspect that the rappers were offed for attempting to get out of their recording contract with label head Sartain (Isaiah Washington). Along with Bruce Greenwood and Keith David, the supporting cast boasts a plethora of real-life musicians, including Dr. Dre, Gladys Knight, Dwight Yoakam, Master P, and Ronald DeVoe of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

In this western, which combines Old West authenticity with a modern outlook and neo-feminist perspective, Sarah O'Rourke (Linda Fiorentino) is a tough-minded woman who made the mistake of marrying a violent, abusive man. Sarah decides that she can take no more and kills her husband. It's Sarah's poor fortune that her late spouse's father is Marshall Bill Speakes (Sam Elliott), a bitter, no-nonsense lawman who will see to it that Sarah pays for her crime with her life. Sarah is being transported by stagecoach to another town; riding with Sarah and Speakes is Jack Cooper (Craig Sheffer), who is carrying $2,500 with him. En route, bandits attempt to hold up the stage; in the confusion, Sarah escapes with the money. Jack gives chase to get the money back, and while he catches up with her, they soon find they're both being pursued by Speakes, who is not about to let the niceties of the law prevent him from taking his revenge. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In Maniac Cop (1988), we were introduced to a disfigured psycho law enforcement officer. It wasn't enough that this revenge-driven fiend killed and mutilated his victims: he also kept their pelts and scalps as trophies. The part was play by Robert D'Zar in the first two Maniac Cop flicks; D'Zar is back for Badge of Silence: Maniac Cop 3, in which he continues his reign of terror, as the good cops endeavor to put an end to his activities. By way of a plot, a hush-hush conspiracy is thrown into the proceedings. The slash-and-gashfest was written by Larry (It's Alive!) Cohen, while the musical score was by no less than Jerry Goldsmith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Successful character actor Barry Primus spent seven years trying to get financing for his feature debut as a writer-director, Mistress. In the film, a once-promising writer-director, Marvin Landisman (Robert Wuhl), who now directs instructional videos, is sitting home one night, watching his own print of Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion, when he gets a strange phone call. A producer, Jack Roth (Martin Landau), formerly a bigwig at Universal, tells Marvin he was cleaning out his office when he came across Marvin's old script, "The Darkness and the Light." Jack claims he can get financing to make the film, and agrees to Marvin's stipulation that he be attached to direct. They "take a meeting" at a low-rent diner, and Jack brings along a gung-ho novice screenwriter, Stuart (Jace Alexander), to help Marvin polish the script. They meet with three potential backers, played by Eli Wallach, Danny Aiello, and Robert DeNiro, each one more meddlesome than the last, and each with a girlfriend (played by Tuesday Knight, Jean Smart, and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively) whom they demand be cast in the film. At first, Marvin adamantly resists changing his serious, downbeat, and very personal script, about an painter who commits suicide, rather than betray his ideals. But eventually, Marvin gets caught up in the momentum of actually getting his dream project made, and starts compromising. He agrees to cast the three women; he agrees to make the script funnier and sexier; he even agrees to change the painter to a photographer to please his backers. Laurie Metcalf plays Marvin's long-suffering wife, and Christopher Walken has a cameo as a tortured actor. Mistress was the first film produced by DeNiro's independent production company, Tribeca Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Val Kilmer delivers what was considered one of 1991's best performances as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory bio-pic of the seminal 1960s rock group The Doors. Stone cuts a jagged swath through Morrison's life, starting with a childhood memory where Morrison sees an elderly Indian dying by the roadside. It picks up with Morrison's arrival in California and his assimilation into the Venice Beach culture, followed by his film school days at UCLA; his introduction to his girlfriend Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan); his first encounters with Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan); and the origin of The Doors -- made up of Manzarek, Robby Kreiger (Frank Whaley), and John Densmore (Kevin Dillon). As the fame of The Doors grows, Morrison's obsession with death increases. The band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and no-shows at concerts. Morrison, meanwhile, sinks deeper into a drug-induced haze, having mystical sexual encounters with Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), an older rock journalist involved with sadomasochism and witchcraft. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This anthology of three horror tales is accompanied by the voice of James Earl Jones--offscreen--as the "Voice of Retribution." Included is "Heroine Overdose," "Pandora" and "Veteran's Day," all of which begin with a postal allusion. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide