Owen Orr Movies
- 1984
Aimed primarily at American football fans, this dramatized biography of Paul Bryant, a celebrated football coach nicknamed the "Bear," focuses on the man's early career as a player and his later work as a coach in the locker rooms and on the field with his own players -- in Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama. While the Bear's personality is clearly brought forward in Gary Busey's interpretation -- he is alternately caring and verbally abusive, depending on the situation at hand -- the people who must have meant a lot to him in his life outside of football are underwritten here, and a sense of unfolding drama -- outside of his career and the football field -- is missing. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cynthia Leake, Harry Dean Stanton, (more)
Based on true incidents, this movie follows the plight of a young American girl who travels to Japan to start work as a club singer, only to discover that she has been tricked into working as a prostitute for the Yakuza. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Blood Feud was a two-part TV drama, originally presented as an "Operation Prime Time" special. Robert Blake is disturbingly convincing as labor leader Jimmy Hoffa, engaged in a decade-long war of words with attorney (and later attorney general) Robert F. Kennedy. Cotter Smith makes his TV debut as Kennedy, a role he'd repeat on future occasions. Thoroughly compelling when sticking to the facts, the drama falls apart whenever indulging in flight of fanciful speculation (Sample: two of Hoffa's lieutenants watch the live telecast of Lee Harvey Oswald's murder, then celebrate the fact that Oswald will never be able to reveal their complicity in the JFK assassination!) Blood Feud was syndicated to local TV stations beginning April 24, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Cotter Smith, (more)
- 1982
First, a crazed and fighting Malcolm (Peter Jason) is hauled off to an asylum by two men just that much tougher than he is, and then this film jumps ahead several years to Halloween at Malcolm's old home. His wife, Joan (Carrie Snodgress), and her live-in lover, Richard (David Carradine), are about to go out, while son Christopher (Chris Graver) stays home with Linda (Jackelyn Giroux), a soon-to-be unhappy babysitter. When Linda and Christopher are alone, the chubby little devil decides to play endless practical jokes on the poor woman: he "chops" his finger off, he "kills" himself, and commits all sorts of make-believe mayhem until she sits him down and tells him the story of the hapless boy who cried wolf just a bit too often. Meanwhile, dressed as a nurse, the crazy Malcolm has managed to escape from his confinement in the asylum, and as he makes his way through the streets in drag (it is Halloween, who's to notice?) he finally arrives at his former house, lusting for vengeance, just when little Christopher's pranks are reaching their worst. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackelyn Giroux, Peter Jason, (more)
In this made-for-TV movie, two brothers who battled on opposing sides of the Civil War return home at the end of the war to discover that their family has been kidnapped by Confederate forces. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, (more)
- 1981
- PG
Harry Hamlin stars as the self-styled "King of Mulholland Drive," the leader of a group of men who get drunk and then race their cars at high-speed along a perilous Los Angeles roadway. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Hamlin, Joseph Bottoms, (more)
- 1975
- PG
Also released under the titles El Salvejo, 40 Graves for 40 Guns, Savage Red, and Outlaw White, this western takes place in New Mexico when a group of outlaws are attacked by a force led by a man who is half Native American. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Padilla, Richard Rust, (more)
- 1973
- PG
In this western set at the turn-of-the-century, an outlaw finds himself at one of life's crossroads as he must decide whether to go straight or continue a life of crime. After bungling a train robbery he decides he should go straight and settle down. He chooses the town of Dime Box, Texas. There he undertakes a series of simple jobs under the watchful, ever-suspicious eye of the town sheriff. Try as he might, the outlaw cannot resist the lure of robbery. He ends up stealing a local factory's Christmas payroll and taking off into the desert with some renegade Indian pals. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This biker-horror oddity was directed by former editor Michel Levesque (Sweet Sugar). The plot concerns a motorcycle gang, The Devil's Advocates, led by Adam (Stephen Oliver). The bikers are turned on to Satanism by a creepy monk (Severn Darden), leading to lengthy scenes depicting various occult rituals, drug trips, and female nudity. The cycle-riding werewolf only appears in the last few minutes of the film, but cult devotees will be happy in the interim watching such minor celebrities as Billy Gray, the child star of Father Knows Best, who was fresh off a marijuana arrest, and Barry McGuire, singer of the seminal '60s protest song "Eve of Destruction." Stunt coordinator Chuck Bail went on to direct The Gumball Rally (1976) and several blaxploitation films. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1971
With a barrage of cinematic distancing devices at hand (flashbacks and flash-forwards, super-imposed titles, missing frames, projectionist cue-marks placed in the wrong locations in a film reel), Dennis Hopper concocts a hallucinatory acid-trip concerning an American movie company making a western in Peru. In a remote mountain village in Peru, a Hollywood film company wraps up shooting a western and returns to California. Staying behind is a young stunt man, Kansas (Dennis Hopper). In the village, he takes up with the resident whore, Maria (Stella Garcia). At this point, the film flash-forwards to Kansas being crucified by the villagers. Back in the old time frame, the Peruvians decide that they want to make their own movie. Not having the necessary film equipment, but plenty of local raw material, the villagers construct the needed cameras, microphones, and sound recorders out of bamboo, and although the equipment is faked, the villagers substitute real, bloody violence for the make-believe violence of Hollywood. During this eruption of violence in the Peruvian village, the local priest (Tomas Milian) blames Kansas for the carnage. The priest decides that movies are the root of all worldly evil and convinces the villagers to seize Kansas. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Hopper, Stella Garcia, (more)
Meeting largely mixed reviews during its first run in 1971, counterculture icon Peter Fonda's directorial debut was restored and remastered for its 30-year anniversary. The film opens with three drifters greeting the morning by cavorting in a sun-dabbled mountain river. Harry Collings (Fonda) catches a fish and gives it to Arch Harris (Warren Oates) who grills it over a low fire, while Dan (Robert Pratt) -- the youngest of the three -- bathes in the swift moving current. Later, as they head into Del Norte, a small town in the middle of nowhere, Dan talks breathlessly about going to California while Collings suddenly decides to return home after a seven-year absence. After Dan runs afoul of a group of unsavory characters lead by McVey (Severn Darden), Collings vows vengeance for the lad's death and blows off McVey's feet. Collings and Harris bury Dan and flee from the town riding hundreds of miles to Collings' homestead. His wife Hannah (Verna Bloom) -- now called "Widow Collings" by the local townsfolk -- is none too pleased to see her wayward husband at her doorstep. Taking his wife's anger in stride, he asks only to be allowed to work as a hired hand. Just as Hannah and Collings start to move beyond the years of anger and estrangement, disaster strikes. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, (more)
