Jeff Severson Movies
Small-town banker Robin Williams has never been able to live down the fact that he dropped an important pass during a crucial high-school football game. Likewise tainted for life is the team's star quarterback Kurt Russell, now a garage owner. Fed up with living his life under a cloud, Williams hits upon a brilliant idea: he will stage a rematch-13 years after the fact--with the members of the rival team. Trouble beckons when Williams' father-in-law announces that he's rooting for the opposition. Williams is determined to win, and in pursuit of that goal he pushes his former teammates to hitherto untapped brilliance. Directed by Roger Spottiswood, The Best of Times was written by Ron Shelton, future writer/director of such delightful sports films as Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump and Tin Cup; it was Shelton, in fact, who directed most of Best of Times' climactic football game. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Kurt Russell, (more)
- 1985
Not long after he lost that "chicken run" to James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), actor Corey Allen switched professional gears to become a prolific film and TV director. Allen was responsible for putting television perennials James Brolin and Lisa Hartman through their paces in Beverly Hills Cowgirl Blues. Brolin plays a Beverly Hills cop who teams up with a luscious female private eye from Texas (Hartman, of course). While Brolin prefers peace and quiet, Hartman insists upon rooting out the murderer of a debutante-turned-hooker. Since both stars were gainfully employed on other TV series when Beverly Hills Cowgirl Blues first aired on October 5, 1985, we hesitate to suggest that this film was the pilot for a potential series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
Season Six of Laverne & Shirley begins--belatedly, due to a Hollywood writers' strike--as the titular heroines (played by Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams), along with fellow employees Lenny (Michael McKean) and Squiggy (David L. Lander), are fired en masse when Shotz Brewery replaces them with machines. Figuring that it's time for a radical change in their lives, the girls and the guys bid farewell to Milwaukee and head to California, where Laverne's dad Frank (Phil Foster) and stepmom Edna (Betty Garrett) have already relocated. This pivotal episode is highlighted by an extended dream sequence in which Laverne imagines herself married to a lifeguard, played by former pro football player and future Hunter star Fred Dryer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
