David Proval Movies

"You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets; you do it at home. The rest is bulls--t, and you know it." Returning to the autobiographical milieu of his 1968 debut Who's That Knocking at My Door? for his third feature, Martin Scorsese examined the daily struggles of a wannabe hood to keep his morals straight on the streets of Little Italy. Driven equally by his wish to become a respectable gangster like his uncle (Cesare Danova) and his desire to live his life like St. Francis, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) takes on his energetically unhinged friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) as his own personal penance, intervening to get Johnny Boy to pay off a debt to the local loan shark Michael (Richard Romanus). Despite his promises to his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson) that they will move out of Little Italy once he strengthens his position in his uncle's world, Charlie's involvement with Johnny Boy further ensnares him in the neighborhood. When Johnny Boy decides to mouth off to Michael rather than pay him, Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Teresa try to flee Michael's murderous anger (and an assassin played by Scorsese), forcing Charlie to realize that the rules of the streets do not mesh with absolution. Whereas fellow "film school generation" director Francis Ford Coppola transformed the Hollywood gangster movie into metaphorical epics about the Mafia and capitalism in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Scorsese revised the genre in the opposite direction, focusing on the gritty minutiae of daily life and drawing from personal memory. Combining documentary-style realism (even though most of the film was shot in L.A.); kinetic editing and camera movement; and expressionistic lighting, angles, and film speed, Scorsese presents an intimate picture of the trivial incidents and latent violence of Charlie's and Johnny Boy's world, naturalistically unfolding their experiences rather than simply explaining what motivates them. They lead a claustrophobic, petty existence that Scorsese and screenwriter Mardik Martin witnessed growing up in Little Italy, complete with a soundtrack of hit songs like "Be My Baby" and "Jumping Jack Flash" that had poured out of neighborhood radios. Mean Streets opened at the New York Film Festival to excellent notices and played strongly in New York but failed to duplicate that level of business elsewhere. Even so, Mean Streets established Scorsese and De Niro as formidable young talents and marked the beginning of a long-running and fertile collaboration that continued in such films as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), and Goodfellas (1990). Scorsese's exceptional grasp of the texture of day-to-day life, the rhythm and cadences of street talk, and cinema's visual and aural possibilities makes Mean Streets one of the pivotal films of the 1970s, as well as of Scorsese's career, and an influence on such future filmmakers as Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, among many others. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Given the title Foster and Laurie and the added fact that the protagonists are two cops, one might deduce that this TV movie was the pilot for a potential series. Not this time: The two leading characters are killed almost before the opening credits fade! In flashback, the film traces the law-enforcement careers of African American Gregory Foster (Dorian Harewood) and Italian American Rocco Laurie (Perry King). Friends as well as partners, Foster and Laurie endeavor to improve community relations in their crime-ridden Lower East Side precinct--which results in their being murdered by three militant extremists, who hope to intimidate the rest of the force (at the time the film was made, this motivation for the crime was still pure speculation). The killings have the opposite effect, as the rest of department rallies against its enemies, inspired by the memory of their fallen comrades. Foster and Laurie was based on the book by Al Silverman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this animated futuristic tale, a pair of twins must fight for domination of what is left of the world, the good man using the powers of magic in an attempt to save the Earth, and the evil twin taking advantage of the horrors of technology that again threaten to destroy everything. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Director/animator Ralph Bakshi turns his attention to 1950s Brooklyn in Hey Good Lookin', which looks at greasers hanging out (and making out) on street corners, hot girls, and gang rumbles, all set in a decaying urban landscape. The main action concerns Vinnie (voice of Richard Romanus), the leader of an Italian gang called The Stompers, who values, in equal measure, the perfection of his hairstyle and scoring with girls. His bosom buddy, Crazy (David Proval), more than lives up to his moniker, and his impulsiveness leads to many conflicts, including fights with other gangs -- a real problem because Vinnie is nowhere near as tough as he pretends to be. Things become even more complicated when he finds himself falling hard for Rozzie (Tina Bowman), whose father keeps her on a pretty short leash. Things come to a head in a deadly shoot-out, which may have serious consequences for the three main characters. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

This three-hour TV movie stars Sophia Loren as New Yorker Marianna Miraldo. Hurt and angered by her son's cocaine addiction, Marianna discovers that a close friend also has ties with the drug scene. After several of her imprisoned friend's associates try to contact him through her, the DEA persuades Marianna to aid them in an undercover operation headed by cop Bobby Jay (Billy Dee Williams). Despite the "don't get involved" admonitions of her husband (Hector Elizondo), Marianna agrees to cooperate with the DEA, if only for the sake of her son. This fact-based film, which first aired September 24, 1986, concludes with the feds closing in on a $3.5 billion cocaine ring. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this complicated crime drama, Roland Dalton (Peter Weller) is an attorney who must defend a drug dealer who claims he killed in self defense. His worthy opponent is his former flame Susan Cantrell (Patricia Charbonneau), now an effective career-minded prosecuting attorney. Richie Marks (Sam Elliott) is the detective who anticipates that legal prosecution will finally close the book on this case. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

UHF is the film debut of comedy-rock satirist Weird Al Yankovic, who also co-wrote the screenplay. George Newman (Yankovic) and his friend, Bob (David Bowe from The Cable Guy), are fired from their jobs at Burger World. So George decides to take over channel 62, a failing local TV station that his Uncle Harvey (Stanley Brock) won in a poker game. George turns it around into an overnight success after letting the janitor, Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards from Seinfeld), host a kid's show. George then fills the broadcast day with bizarre programming, bringing the ratings up and saving the station. Soon, rival station CEO R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy) of channel 8 threatens to sabotage the successful station and George must come up with a way to save it. Only loosely constructed around this story line, UHF is mostly a series of TV, movie, and music parodies strung together and played for cheap laughs. UHF also stars Victoria Jackson, Emo Philips, and Fran Drescher. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

An uneven but entertaining blend of graphic horror and black comedy from John Landis, very much in the mode of the director's successful An American Werewolf in London. French actress Anne Parillaud -- star of Luc Besson's acclaimed thriller La Femme Nikita -- plays Marie, a lithe and lovely vampire with a conscience who will not take "innocent blood" and maintains a low profile by dining exclusively on criminals and lowlifes. She finds a virtual smorgasbord in Pittsburgh's criminal underworld, arriving in the thick of a bloody mob war sparked by ruthless kingpin Sal Macelli (Robert Loggia). After preying on one of Macelli's hoods (Chazz Palminteri), Marie fumbles her attack on the boss himself and he manages to escape, eventually transforming into a vampire himself. Macelli soon comes to appreciate his new superhuman condition and hatches a diabolical scheme to control the syndicates by turning his underlings into vampires -- including his beleaguered lawyer, Emmanuel Bergman (Don Rickles). Marie, faced with a new and powerful undead enemy, is forced to take matters into her own claws. To this end she enlists the reluctant aid (and eventual affection) of undercover cop Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia), whose cover has just been leaked to the press, making him a target for Macelli and his growing army of blood drinkers. Landis has crafted a dark and brooding film, pumped up with bouts of extreme gore and gangland violence -- but where American Werewolf's occasional comic touches helped to ground the story and give the "straight" horror scenes more punch, most attempts at humor here seem jarring and out of place. The film's highlights come from numerous horror in-jokes, including cameos from Sam Raimi, Clive Barker, Dario Argento and Linnea Quigley; Rickles' explosive death scene ranks among the weirdest in cinema history. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In 1946, a banker named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of a double murder, even though he stubbornly proclaims his innocence. He's sentenced to a life term at the Shawshank State Prison in Maine, where another lifer, Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), picks him as the new recruit most likely to crack under the pressure. The ugly realities of prison life are quickly introduced to Andy: a corrupt warden (Bob Gunton), sadistic guards led by Capt. Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown), and inmates who are little better than animals, willing to use rape or beatings to insure their dominance. But Andy does not crack: he has the hope of the truly innocent, which (together with his smarts) allow him to prevail behind bars. He uses his banking skills to win favor with the warden and the guards, doing the books for Norton's illegal business schemes and keeping an eye on the investments of most of the prison staff. In exchange, he is able to improve the prison library and bring some dignity and respect back to many of the inmates, including Red. Based on a story by Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption was the directorial debut of screenwriter Frank Darabont. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Brady Bunch Movie pays tribute to the 1970s TV show while poking gentle fun at it. The Brady family, led by father Mike (Gary Cole), still live in their suburban, split-level home and are still throwbacks to the era that spawned them. Eternally perky wife Carol (Shelley Long) is the perfect homemaker, while the kids' behavior is as wholesome as their loud, time-warp pastel clothes. Meanwhile, the greedy, selfish modern era swirls dangerously around them, embodied in next-door neighbor and real estate agent Ditmeyer (Michael McKean), who wants to buy the Bradys' property and turn the neighborhood into a giant mall. But no amount of money or prodding can persuade the Bradys to give up their home. Director Betty Thomas contrasts the overlit sitcom look of the Brady house interiors (faithfully recreated from the series) with real locations and natural grit for the modern L.A. scenes. The result is a satire that deftly spoofs the idea of staying true to old-fashioned values without ever passing judgment on those values. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Someone is trying to get to West Coast gangster Frank DaVinci in this exploitational actioner. They are doing a good job too. So far, masked murderers have killed his bride and most of his henchmen. One of those gang members killed was the lover of the voluptuous Colette who decides to hide out until things settle down. Three months pass and finally Colette is able to get in touch with Frank in Las Vegas. She tells him that she is a CIA agent and that she and he are being stalked by a renegade agent, her former boss, Jameson. He wants her because he believes that she holds a CD-ROM that contains very incriminating information about his drug-smuggling activities in Vietnam. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The first superhero ever, created by Lee Falk in 1936, gets another shot at movie stardom 60 years after achieving fame in comics and serials. Billy Zane stars as Kit Walker, who discovers that he's the 21st in a line of purple-clad African superheroes known as "The Phantom" or, to superstitious Bengalla Island natives, "the Ghost Who Walks." When he's not fighting the evil Singh Brotherhood with his faithful wolf Devil and white horse Hero, the Phantom lives in the hidden Skull Cave. Kit discovers that Xander Drax (Treat Williams), a slimy industrialist, is plotting to take over the world by uniting the three long lost magical Skulls of Touganda. So he travels to New York, where he finds allies in crusading newspaper publisher Dave (Bill Smitrovich) and his niece, Diana (Kristy Swanson), who's also Kit's ex-girlfriend. Kit and Diana tackle Drax's forces, including the conflicted Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), in a quest for the Skulls that brings both sides back to Bengalla for a showdown. The Phantom's mixture of elaborate stunts with liberal doses of tongue-in-cheek humor was characteristic of screenwriter Jeffrey Boam, whose previous films included Innerspace (1987) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A tightly-knit foursome of lifelong friends and unrepentant gamblers wage more than money in a winner-takes-all tale of epic proportions from director Mars Callahan. David Zigman (Jason Priestly) always manages to come through and beat the house at the last minute, but when he and his three pals risk it all in the name of one priceless thrill, they may have finally gone too far. Now, as each man pulls his hand close to his chest for one final go at the gold, these friends will finally find out what's thicker these four friends will finally find out where their love, loyalty, and honor truly lies. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide