Chuck Shamata Movies
- 1986
Based on the story of Antoinette Giancana, Susan Lucci plays a mobster's daughter who is trying to learn the truth of her father's shady dealings in this made-for-TV movie. Tony Curtis plays the boss, Sam Giancana. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- PG
This sci-fi offering from director Peter Hunt boasts an unsympathetic cast of three aliens who have escaped from their spacecraft docked on the moon. Robyn (Sydney Penny) is the female alien watching over young Tavy (Rosie Marcel) and the three-armed, three-eyed baby Kirbi who feeds on gasoline and hot coals. Dirt (Ricky Paull Goldin) is a friendly soul who adopts the three aliens, but he runs into trouble after the captain of the spaceship lands nearby and starts looking for the trio. More complications set in when a senator arrives at Dirt's father's ranch and a local cop starts to suspect the alien captain of murderous intentions toward the politician. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sydney Penny, Ricky Paull Goldin, (more)
- 1986
Produced for the HBO Cable service, Act of Vengeance reenacts the 1969 murder of United Mine Workers leader Jock Yablonski. Yablonski (Charles Bronson) virtually writes his own death warrant when, after a "safe" mine collapses and 80 miners are killed, he rebels against the incumbent UMW boss Tony Boyle (Wilford Brimley) to campaign for presidency of the union. Boyle gets the word out that one less Yablonski in the world would be preferable. Yablonski is depicted as being fully aware of the danger he faces in challenging Boyle--and is supported in his decision by his courageous wife (Ellen Burstyn). Based on the book by Trevor Armbrister, Act of Vengeance premiered on April 20, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
- R
The early ups and later downs in the life of Joshua Shapiro (James Woods) more or less describe the trajectory of this semi-autobiographical film, adapted from the book by Mordecai Richler. Joshua is a Jewish Canadian writer who has returned from living in England for nearly three decades, only to see the major components of his life disintegrate around him. Flashbacks tell the tale of Joshua's childhood -- raised by a father who is an ex-boxer with a creative approach to earning a living (illegally) and a mother who earns her living as a stripper. Leaving this background and his coming-of-age behind him, Joshua flies off to England and gains a reputation as a writer, marrying a politically leftist but socially elite wife. On his return to Canada at the end of the '70s, everything around him collapses. His best friend dies, his brother-in-law kills himself, there is a smear campaign against him, and someone is out to blackmail him. Things only get worse, in fact, before they level off. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Woods, Gabrielle Lazure, (more)
- 1985
In Like Flynn is Remington Steele cross-pollinated with Romancing the Stone. The title "character," Jason Flynn, is a fictional James Bond-like adventurer created by reclusive author Daryl E. Raymond. Raymond's bestselling books are seemingly the sole source of income for the publishing firm where Jenny Seagrove works as editor and researcher. What nobody knows is that Daryl E. Raymond doesn't really exist--in fact, "he" is none other than the plucky Ms. Seagrove. In this busted pilot film, "Raymond" (that is, Seagrove) is dispatched halfway across the world on a delicate rescue assignment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Adapted from Mary-Lou Weisman's book Intensive Care, this made-for-television movie stars Liza Minnelli (in her first TV appearance) as a woman who must remain strong and contend with her son's muscular dystrophy and all the problems within the family that accompany the illness. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liza Minnelli, Jeffrey DeMunn, (more)
- 1984
Released in the US in 1989, Unfinished Business was actually completed in 1985. Directed by Don Owen, the film is a sequel to Owen's 1964 docudrama Nobody Waved Goodbye. In the earlier film, Peter Kastner played a disenfranchised young man who descended into petty thievery, while Julie Biggs co-starred as the woman in his life. Unfinished Business details what has happened to that couple in the intervening twenty years, utilizing the same actors. Now divorced, Kastner and Biggs must deal with their troublesome 17-year-old daughter Isabelle Mejias, who apparently has inherited all the negative traits of both her parents. This Canadian Unfinished Business should not be confused with the like-vintage Australian film of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Mejias, Peter Spence, (more)
- 1983
One of television's most beloved commedians and one of Hollywood's greatest love goddesses appear together for the first time in this made-for-cable comedy drama. Mary Catherine Castelli (Carol Burnett) is a fifty-year-old real estage agent whose husband left her for a younger woman; since then she's been making up for lost time with short term relationships with a number of men, some of whom happen to be married. Deborah Shapiro (Elizabeth Taylor) is also middle-aged and freshly divorced, through she is still coming to terms with being single again and has had little luck finding a new beau. Mary and Deborah meet literally by accident when they get into a fender-bender outside Mary's office, but the two soon strike up a friendship after Deborah asks Mary to help her sell her house. Together, Mary and Deborah help each other deal with their new lives as single women, the difficulty of getting back into the dating pool, and the mildly terrifying onset of middle age and menopause. Based on a novel by Shelly List (who produced this film), Between Friends was produced for the permium cable network HBO. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
The title character, a nasty landlord (Elliott Gould), is killed in a car accident and descends into hell. There he meets the Devil (Bill Cosby), who promises him his life back if he can find three people willing to sell their souls in three months. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elliott Gould, Bill Cosby, (more)
The title of this David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film refers to a group of people who have telekinetic powers that allow them to read minds and give them the ability to make other people's heads explode. The children of a group of women who took an experimental tranquilizer during their pregnancies, the scanners are now adults and have become outcasts from society. But Darryl (Michael Ironside) decides to create an army of scanners to take over the world. The only person who can stop him is his brother Cameron (Stephen Lack), who wants to forget that he was ever a scanner. Winner of the International Fantasy Film Award at the 1983 Fantasporto Film Festival, Scanners was followed by a pair of sequels, neither of which involved Cronenberg. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, (more)
- 1980
- R
This is a fast-paced, standard crime story with Sgt. Boyd (Richard Crenna) as a lone cop out to clean up the neighborhood. Kurtz (Paul Williams) is a wild gangster who manages a ring of prostitutes, and right now he has problems. Someone is shooting his hookers. A few of the undercover cops get killed as they try to infiltrate the hooker trade, so Sgt. Boyd is more or less alone in bringing in the sniper and giving Kurtz his due. While he is focusing on those tasks, prostitute Monica (Linda Sorenson) is focusing on him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Crenna, Paul Williams, (more)
- 1979
- PG
Despite the promise of his early career, the life of former world-class runner Michael Andropolis has been a crashing failure. The icing on his life's bitter cake was his divorce from the woman he still loves. Wanting to win back both his wife and his self-respect, Andropolis decides to start running again in hopes of making it to the Olympic marathon team. This sports-melodrama chronicles the 34-year old's heroic struggle. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Douglas, Susan Anspach, (more)
- 1978
After years of an oppressive dictatorship, a group of army officers in a tiny, vaguely delineated European country organize a coup. Colonel Narriman (David Hemmings) has bravely taken chances which could have resulted in his death, and he expects, once the coup is successful, to become the next leader of his country. Quietly biding his time, Colonel Zeller (Peter O'Toole) has played along with the revolutionaries but doesn't like their methods. In the end, he puts a monkey-wrench into their whole operation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, David Hemmings, (more)
- 1978
In this crime drama, set in 1975 and based on a true story from Toronto, Canada, the different ways in which a prominent realtor may have had his wife brutally murdered are presented. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elke Sommer, Donald Pilon, (more)
- 1976
- R
William Fruet directed this tense Canadian rape-revenge thriller which attempted to capitalize on the success of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left (1972). The film concerns a vacationing couple, Harry and Diane (Chuck Shamata and Brenda Vaccaro), who are terrorized in a remote house on a picturesque lake. Don Stroud leads the quartet of vicious psychos who break in and attack the pair, and when Harry is revealed to be a bit of a wimp, Diane takes matters of revenge into her own hands. Vaccaro and Stroud give much better performances than the material requires, and although Fruet's film is hardly as excoriating as its predecessor, it is altogether more polished. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brenda Vaccaro, Don Stroud, (more)
- 1976
Sanford and Son regular Whitman Mayo guest stars as John Rich, a ghetto father whose son is "on the junk." Witnessing the murder of the dope pusher who hooked his son, John takes credit for the killing, thereby becoming a neighborhood hero. He also becomes the next target of the pusher's real killers, obliging undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) to come to the rescue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Edward Grover, (more)
- 1973
Get Back is a "loser" film: not a film that is itself a loser, but one about losers. Michael Parks and Chuck Shantana play a couple of over-aged surfers who sit around wondering why life has passed them by. With nothing else to occupy their time, the duo stages a holdup. The two have a falling out over leading lady Bonnie Bedelia, who is frankly too good for either of them. Though the protagonists seem doomed from the start, they still manage to evoke audience empathy. Filmed in Canada, Get Back's U.S. distribution was limited to festival showings and TV exposure. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
