Allan Nicholls Movies
- 1976
- R
Alan Rudolph's first feature Welcome to L.A. displays his characteristic mood of romantic despair utilizing a La Ronde-like circle of sexual adventures and failed affairs centered around song-writer Carroll Barber (Keith Carradine) which spread out through the city. Barber is an aloof womanizer who cannot commit or love and is used by Rudolph to illustrate the loneliness inherent in big-city life. The film, featuring a haunting score by Richard Baskin, is a bit too ambitious for the beginning director. However, he gets good performances from Sally Kellerman as a lonely real estate agent, Geraldine Chaplin, as a Valley housewife addicted to taxi rides and Lauren Hutton as the mistress of a wealthy man. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keith Carradine, Sally Kellerman, (more)
Following 24 characters through 5 days in the country music capital, Robert Altman's 1975 epic presents a complexly textured portrayal (and critique) of American obsessions with celebrity and power. Among the various stars, aspirants, hangers-on, observers, and media folk are politically ambitious country icon Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) and his fragile star protegée Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley); Tom (Keith Carradine), a self-absorbed rock star who woos lonely married gospel singer Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin); Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles), a talentless waitress painfully humiliated at her first singing gig; Albuquerque (Barbara Harris), a runaway wife with dreams of stardom; nightclub owner Lady Pearl (Barbara Baxley), who reminisces about "those Kennedy boys"; single-minded groupie L.A. Joan (Shelley Duvall); vapid BBC commentator Opal (Geraldine Chaplin); and campaign guru John Triplette (Michael Murphy), who is trying to organize a concert rally for the unseen but always heard populist presidential candidate-cum-demagogue Hal Phillip Walker. Everything comes to a head during a climactic concert at Nashville's replica of the Parthenon temple, as the entertainment-hungry audience is momentarily woken out of its stupor by unexpected violence, only to be lulled into a restorative sing-along to "It Don't Worry Me." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Gibson, Barbara Baxley, (more)
- 1971
- R
One of a number of films that dealt with addiction following the explosion of recreational drug use in the 1960s, Jennifer on My Mind opens as footloose twentysomething Marcus (Michael Brandon) is wandering through Europe. In Venice, he meets a beautiful young woman named Jenny (Tippy Walker); they fall in love, start travelling together, and smoke an awful lot of marijuana. When Jenny decides to return to the United States and heads back to New York, Marcus tags along, but before long (as usually happens in films of this sort), Jenny moves from pot to harder drugs, and Marcus has to deal with the fact the woman he loves has become a heroin addict. Written by Erich Segal, who had earlier gained fame for Love Story, Jennifer on My Mind also features a prescient supporting performance by Robert DeNiro, who plays a taxi driver. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Brandon, Tippy Walker, (more)
