Ronee Blakley Movies
During the early '70s, country & western artist Ronee Blakley was a favorite singer/songwriter of Bob Dylan and had a fairly successful singing career. In film, she penned a few songs for Welcome Home Soldier (1972). She made a stellar acting debut in 1975 playing Barbara Jean, a tragic, frail singer (alleged to be loosely patterned after Loretta Lynn) who is nearly destroyed by fame in Robert Altman's Nashville. Blakley is said to have written much of the part herself and was so convincing in the role that it won her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She has continued to pursue a career in film, but has since been relegated to leading and supporting roles in low-budget and independent features ranging from Walter Hill's The Driver (1978) and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) to Someone to Love (1987). In 1985, Blakley directed and starred in the docudrama I Played It for You. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi- 1989
When a wealthy homosexual man (Wlad Cembrowicz) turns up missing, his sister (Debra Sandlund) convinces her ex-husband (Sam Behrens) to investigate the legion of suspects. ~ John Bush, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sam Behrens, Shari Belafonte, (more)
Orson Welles made his final screen appearance as, appropriately enough, Orson Welles (or "Danny's Friend") in Henry Jaglom's "emotional vérité" comedy Someone to Love. The film begins as filmmaker Danny (Henry Jaglom) prepares to spend the night at his girlfriend Helen (Andrea Marcovicci)'s apartment. Helen has just adjusted to sleeping alone after the breakup of her previous relationship and tells Danny that if he stays with her, she won't be able to go to sleep. Fascinated by the explanation, Danny sends out telegrams to a bunch of his Hollywood friends to meet on Valentine's Day at a Santa Monica theater, the Mayfair, that is about to be torn down to make way for a shopping mall. Danny figures that he will throw a party for his lonely celebrity friends. He also reasons that he could introduce his brother, real estate developer Mickey (Michael Emil, Jaglom's real-life brother), to some romantic companions. The party would also be a handy way to get some film footage. The day of the party, Danny's friends arrive --a famous movie star (Sally Kellerman); a pop singer named Blue (Stephen Bishop); a jazz pianist (David Frishberg); a sophisticated continental woman named Yelena (Oja Kodar); and, bringing up the rear and ensconced in the back of the theater, Danny's Friend (Orson Welles). With his camera crew in tow, Danny takes to filming his guests as they answer questions about love and loneliness. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Orson Welles, Henry Jaglom, (more)
- 1987
- R
A trio of high-school students are helped by a wealthy counselor at the request of the principal in this forgettable comedy. Johnny (Eric Douglas), Joseph (Marlon Jackson), and Susan (Susan Scott) all benefit from the help of the concerned counselor Michael Drake (Richard Horian). ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eric Douglas, Marlon Jackson, (more)
- 1987
A divorced dad and son attempt to build on their newly resurrected relationship by heading back to pop's hometown in up-state Maine. When he gets there, he finds that all the townspeople have turned into 300-year-old vampires. Some say that director Larry Cohen intended the vampire community to be a parody of old-blooded Republicans who so often rule in small-town America. ~ Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Moriarty, Andrew Duggan, (more)
- 1985
Singer/actress Ronee Blakely, best remembered for her portrayal of an emotionally tattered country-western star in Nashville, was responsible for this bizarre, hallucinatory vanity production. I Played it for You concentrates on Blakely's stormy 6-year marriage to filmmaker Wim Wenders, who appears as himself and reportedly advised his ex-wife on production techniques. No effort is made to explain what attracted Blakely to Wenders (nor why she refers to him as "Howard") but plenty of time is given over to the reasons for their breakup. Shot in a variety of film gauges (including 8 millimeter), the film looks more like a home movie than a documentary. Fourteen songs are performed in the course of I Played it for You, which briefly surfaced at a theater in Venice, California before retreating into obscurity. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ronee Blakley
A decade of wisecracking sequels have not diminished the power of this striking horror film from the director of Scream. Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter (Heather Langenkamp) traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. The teenaged leads are sympathetic and intelligent, unlike the dumb victims presented in most films of the period, and they are ably backed up by veterans like John Saxon and Ronee Blakley. Director Wes Craven creates moments of real dread by examining the line between nightmares and reality, as well as the "sins of the parents" theme, and although the film is quite gory, it never resorts to cheap bloodletting for its effect. A unique and disturbing experience, this film is highly recommended for horror buffs. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, (more)
- 1984
Having never forgiven his wife Evelyn (Ronee Blakley) for deserting him and their daughter Sarah (Michele Greene) to pursue a career as a country & western singer, embittered single dad Tim Higgins (Jerry Hardin) has convinced Sarah that Evelyn is dead -- and he is violently opposed to Sarah's own aspirations of singing stardom. It is up to angels Jonathan (Michael Landon) and Mark (Victor French) to reunite Tim and Sarah with Evelyn, who is now an alcoholic singing in cheap dives under the stage name of Patsy Maynard. In the process of helping the Higgins family, the angels also come to the aid of long-suffering Trudy, who works as a cook in the honky-tonk where Patsy is currently performing. ~ Rovi
- 1981
In this film, a group of frustrated feminists form a football team for their factory in an effort to foil male chauvinists. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Lightning Over Water is a penetrating documentary of the last days of cult film director Nicholas Ray. The film was lovingly assembled by Wim Wenders, whose idolatry of Ray is obvious in virtually every frame of his own work. Dying slowly of cancer, Ray reflects on a lifetime of accomplishments, failures and compromises, with plenty of screen time given over to his reminiscences of Joan Crawford, James Dean and others who appeared in his films. Most of the film was lensed in Ray's modest New York City loft, a sharp and poignant contrast to the comparative luxury of his Hollywood years. Lightning Over Water has also been released as Nick's Film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nicholas Ray, Wim Wenders, (more)
- 1980
James Coburn is "The Baltimore Bullet", a legendary pool player who's seen better days. Coburn "adopts" aspiring pool champ Bruce Boxleitner, teaching him practically everything he knows. As we know it must, the plot requires Coburn and Boxleitner to face each other in the climactic winner-take-all match. As much fun as Baltimore Bullet is, the film can't help but be dwarfed by the 1986 Hustler sequel The Color of Money. Ronee Blakely proves an appealing heroine, while several real-life pool greats (Willie Mosconi, Irving Crane, Steve Mizerak etc.) show up in cameo roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Coburn, Omar Sharif, (more)
Walter Hill's stripped down neo-noir features a protagonist who makes the laconic boxer of the director's similar Hard Times (1974) seem logorrheic by comparison. The film's tone is set in the opening scene as the Driver (Ryan O'Neal) gloms a V-8 sedan and proceeds to whip through claustrophobic parking garages, narrow alleyways, and sundry other high-risk macadam, as he demonstrates why he's known as the best getaway driver in the business to some potential clients, before giving his vehicle a proper burial. Such plot as there is in this highly abstract film concerns the Driver's cat and mouse game with the Detective (Bruce Dern), an employee of the constabulary of an unnamed city, intent on his arrest. A mysterious and beautiful woman, the Player (Isabelle Adjani), soon appears on the Driver's radar, a perfect match for his taciturnity. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, (more)
- 1978
- R
Bob Dylan made this concert film that chronicles a 1975/1976 performance of his Rolling Thunder Revue. In between songs he, his wife Sara Dylan, along with Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, and other counterculture figures perform philosophically based improvisational pieces. During the skits, Dylan plays the ambiguous Renaldo, while Ronnie Hawkins and Ronee Blakely play Dylan and his wife. Songs include "Isis, I Want You," "It Ain't Me Babe," "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," "Hurricane," "Romance in Durango," "One Too Many Mornings," "One More Cup of Coffee," "Sara," "Patty's Gone to Laredo," "Just Like a Woman," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowland," "When I Paint My Masterpiece," (Bob Dylan), "Chestnut Mare" (Roger McGuinn), "Diamonds and Rust" (Joan Baez), "Suzanne" (Leonard Cohen), "Need a New Sun Rising" (Ronee Blakely), "Salt Pork West Virginia" (Jack Elliott), "Kaddish" (Allen Ginsberg), "Cucurrucucu Paloma" (Tomas Mendez), and "Time of the Preacher" (Willie Nelson). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bob Dylan, Sara Dylan, (more)
- 1978
Originally made for television, this western concerns three unjustly convicted female prisoners. While being transported to prison, their guards die of water poisoning and a former contract killer helps them survive. ~ John Bush, Rovi
- 1977
- PG
Based on the book by Cleo Dawson, this film follows the struggle of a female settler as she becomes involved in a political conflict during the Spanish-American War. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi
- 1977
- PG
Larry Cohen's pseudo-biography of J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) was virtually howled off the screens upon its release in 1977. Today, with the cross-dressing Hoover so much a matter of historical record that even Oliver Stone didn't bother to make too much of a point of it in Nixon, the Cohen film plays more like a dramatic re-enactment rather than the puerile paranoid fantasy it appeared to be at the time. Unfortunately, Cohen's method is part exploitation and part historical tableau. On the one hand, Cohen dramatizes historical moments in Hoover's momentous life story -- the shooting of John Dillinger in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater, his first arrest -- with a deadening solemnity (even abandoning the backlot facsimiles to shoot on the actual historical locations). On the other hand, Cohen relishes his scenes of Hoover's homosexuality and his propensity for sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey, replaying tapes of the amorous liaisons of high government officials -- the decadently homosexual Hoover built his political power base by getting all the dirt he could on the government's movers and shakers -- particularly their sexual liaisons -- and blackmailing them for their support when he could not get it in any other way. A true schizophrenic masterwork in its time, the film is now muted by a reality more incredible than Cohen ever imagined in his wildest dreams. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Broderick Crawford, José Ferrer, (more)
- 1977
Did some clumsy oaf in the film lab misspell the title Mannikin? No, the misspelling was a deliberate device of author Robert (Psycho) Bloch, calculated to unsettle the audience from the start. Ronee Blakely of Nashville fame and Keir Dullea star in this terrifying mood piece. She's a singer, he's a mysterious stranger; her dreams of success on her own terms are corrupted when she's possessed by a demonic spirit. Mannikin runs a scant 28 minutes, making full and frightening use of every one of those minutes ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Henry Gibson, Barbara Baxley, (more)
- 1972
- R
This anti-war drama centers on four Vietnam veterans who are driving cross country to California. By the time they hit New Mexico, they are down to $69. They started out with over $9,000 between them. To get some quick cash, they rob a gas station. The irate owner begins shooting at them and they in turn show him that they are carrying a veritable ammunitions dump in their trunk. Donning their Green Beret uniforms, they get revenge upon the town and then begin waiting for the authorities to show up so they can have a showdown with them too. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1971
- R
Based on a novel by William Inge, this drama follows the attempts of two doctors to help a 35-year-old educator deal with a brutal rape. The incident is complicated by the fact that she was a virgin when it happened and that her attacker was a man she had been trying to help. The racial implications of the story may be offensive to many audience members. The film is also known as The Sin, The Shaming, and Secret Yearnings (on video). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anne Heywood, Donald Pleasence, (more)
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