Don Stroud Movies
The son of entertainer Clarence Stroud, Don Stroud made his first film appearance in the 1967 Diabolique clone Games (1967). Handsome and solidly built, Stroud has prospered in meaty second-lead and character roles. Most frequently cast as a short-fused detective, Stroud was seen on television as Sgt. Mike Varrick on Kate Loves a Mystery (1979), as Captain Pat Chambers on Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1984-87) and as Captain Lussen on the 1989 syndicated revival of Dragnet. Don Stroud has remained active into the 1990s, frequently in such instant-videocassette fare as Carnosaur 2 (1995). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The title character of this Alex de la Iglesia film made her first appearance in David Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990) and was originally played by Isabella Rossellini. Rosie Perez takes over the role in this blend of black comedy, graphic sex and violence, voodoo, and weirdness. Perdita Durango is pure trash, a fact she establishes at the film's beginning. Her adventures begin when she hooks up with Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem), a sleek, black-clad, sexually adventurous practitioner of Santeria who routinely kills, robs banks, and steals corpses from graves for his cannibalistic blood-soaked rituals. Santos (Don Stroud) is a pedophile and a crime boss. He hires Romeo to steal a truck filled with human fetuses that are slated to be used for cosmetic experiments. Romeo accepts but feels he must make a human sacrifice before he goes. This bothers Perdita not a bit and she even picks out a pair of blonde teens for the ritual killing. The two crooks kidnap the kids, ritually feather them, sexually abuse them, and are preparing to kill them when Romeo's cheated partner shows up with policemen. The crooks and their prey manage to escape, but the scheme to commandeer the truck gets botched and an ensuing shootout between Santos' men and DEA agents goes wrong. Santos loses many men and swears revenge upon Romeo and Perdita, who continue on their journey with their two doomed victims. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, (more)
Based on the true saga of the Stouffer brothers, this movie is an unusual combination of comedy film and nature documentary. In the 1960s in rural Arkansas, Marty Stouffer (Jamey Sheridan) grooms his three sons to take over the family auto parts business. But the sons are more interested in animals, photography, racing cars and trucks, and impressing girls. Marty, Jr. (Scott Bairstow) and Mark (Devon Sawa) fight frequently with their stern father over his work demands and their yen for adventure. Finally, their mother Agnes (Frances Fisher) intercedes, and the patriarch agrees to let the two boys take a cross-country trip to film a nature documentary. The youngest son, Marshall (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), stows away in his brothers' van and joins them on their travels. They head west, encountering a variety of animals and surviving many dangerous scrapes. The brothers' wacky exploits contribute to a new kind of participatory nature cinematography. In real life, the Stouffer film was shown on national television in 1977, and all three brothers became documentarians and served as advisers on this film biography. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Devon Sawa, (more)
- 1997
- R
In this adventure fantasy, a terrifying creature protects a treasure-filled ship. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joanna Pacula, James Brolin, (more)
- 1996
- R
Philippe Mora, the genre filmmaker whose marsupial-themed Howling III and alien-abduction hit Communion solidified his reputation as a director of clunky, substandard fantasy, returned with this space-set remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. True to form, it's a clunky mess, with Harold Pruett as a young prospector named Ben (complete with a lovable canine sidekick), who teams up with gambler Armand Crile (Rutger Hauer) and a shifty engineer named Horton (Brion James) to look for Au79, a valuable ore also called "Precious." Mora throws in everything but the kitchen sink with sabotage, explosions, crazed hijackings, and a few tacky aliens in an obligatory cantina scene. He also includes a lame CGI monster and some campy humor (as if Don Stroud as a long-haired Asian robot wasn't campy enough). Brion James steals the show as the cynical Horton, and even gets to sing, while Mora makes a cameo appearance as a scummy merchant. Despite its outer-space setting, the science fiction elements pretty much fall by the wayside once the cast leaves the moon and gets to Asteroid 18, which may as well be Bronson Canyon in an old B-Western. While it is true that most science fiction movies are basically frontier Westerns at heart anyway, this one forces the issue in such a way that one can only wonder why Mora didn't just do a straight ripoff of Sierra Madre rather than adding the unnecessary spaceships. Probably because low-budget sci-fi rents and low-budget Westerns don't. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen, (more)
- 1996
Delenn is kidnapped by renegade mebers of the Nightwatch. Her captors threaten to kill Delenn unless the Minbari forces leave immediately. It is up to Sheridan and Garibaldi to devise a ruse that will enable them to rescue their comrade without depleting their defenses. This episode is highlighted by a B5 ceremony honoring the recent war dead, and by a surprise "cosmetic change" at the end of the story. First seen in America during the week of April 8, 1996, "Ceremonies of Light and Dark" was written by J. Michael Straczynski. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, (more)
With perhaps a slight nod towards Harry and the Hendersons, this family-oriented drama centers on a vacationing clan who run across a baby bigfoot and its mother. Realizing the near-mythical creatures are in great danger from the ruthless owner of a logging company who has sent hunters out to shoot them, the family does all it can to protect their furry new friends. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Furst, Matt McCoy, (more)
- 1995
- R
Young lovers accused of robbing stores and killing their owners flee across the West. Their ordeal begins after Keli (Amy Locane) has a fight with her mother and takes off. Seeing Rafe (Kevin Dillon) thumbing a ride, and not realizing that he has just robbed a gas station, she decides to pick him up. Something clicks between them and after a bottle of wine and a bout of lovemaking they become a couple. The only dark moment comes when Keli discovers a gun underneath Rafe's pillow. She soon learns that he is indeed a robber, but that he has only been stealing drug money from crooked merchants. When the news announces that he is also wanted for killing the storekeepers, the couple realize that they are in big trouble and take off. They are pursued by two FBI men, both of whom have sinister ulterior motives for catching Rafe and Keli before any other law-enforcement personnel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Dillon, Amy Locane, (more)
The dinosaurs are back, and they're getting hungrier by the minute in this sequel to the terror tale Carnosaur. There's been a call for help from a secret underground military facility deep in the Nevada desert, so a rescue team led by Maj. McQuade (Cliff De Young) and trouble-shooter Reed (John Savage) is sent out to investigate. When they arrive, the facility's staff are all dead -- the only living person they can find is a lost, disoriented teenager named Jesse (Ryan Thomas Johnson) who is wandering through the flats. As they investigate, McQuade and Reed make two terrifying discoveries. A cache of high-grade plutonium has been stored there, but the containment is faulty, and a cloud of deadly radiation is slowly but surely being released. To make matters worse, the Army had found a number of dinosaur eggs during a dig and had stashed them at the Nevada facility...and the radiation has caused them to hatch, with a pack of hungry velociraptors patrolling the area as a result. Carnosaur 2 also stars Don Stroud, Rick Dean, and Arabella Holzbog. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Savage, Cliff De Young, (more)
- 1995
- R
In 1934, J. Edgar Hoover and the boys made headlines for mowing down John Dillinger in a hail of bullets outside Chicago's Biograph theater. But in fact, according to this Jon Purdy gangster thriller, the Feds iced Dillinger's brother. Fast-forward five years, when mobster kingpin Al Capone (F. Murray Abraham) gives the real Dillinger (Martin Sheen) an offer he can't refuse: rob millions from a secluded vault or watch his wife and child get whacked. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Garibaldi tries to interfere when an old friend prepares to participate in the "Mutai", a deadly nonhuman Martial Arts combat. Elsewhere, Ivanova comes to grips with her father's death with the help of Rabbi Koslov (Theodore Bikel). Fans of Harlan Ellison will enjoy the fleeting in-joke involving Ivanova's reading preferences, while boxing devotees should take note of the name of the character played by guest star Greg McKinney. Originally telecast on May 25, 1994, TKO was written by Lawrence G. DiTillio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael O'Hare, Claudia Christian, (more)
- 1993
Two men, a fisherman and banker, have both died of carbon monoxide poisoning while sailing in the waters around Cabot Cove. At first this seems to be merely a coincidence--but then the fisherman's daughter gains access to her father's logbooks and charts. Suddenly, a link develops between the two men, forged by an illegal sale of surplus defense-corporation components--and Jessica (Angela Lansbury) begins to take interest in the situation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1993
Sully (Joe Lando) is beaten up by a band of scurrilous buffalo hunters, hired to clear the land on behalf of the incoming railroad. Though paralyzed, Sully vows to wreak vengeance against his attackers and to stem their slaughter of the local bison herds. Meanwhile, a slick con artist, posing as a railroad advance man, is busily swindling the citizens of Colorado Springs out of their hard-earned property. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Lando, Chad Allen, (more)
- 1993
- PG13
This bargain-basement budgeted sci-fi horror movie pays a kind of tribute to 1930s sci-fi serials such as "King of the Rocket Men." It is set just after the Frog Wars of the preceding film Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988). Following that terrible battle, the Froggie mutants were placed on the special Frogtown Mutant Reservation. The story begins as the leader of Frogtown, Zar abducts Professor Tanzer and forces him to perfect a terrible serum that will turn the Earth's remaining population into croaking, fly-eating amphibians. Zar then sends out an android version of Commander Toady (a character who died in the first film) to bring in some subjects to test. Toady's first catch is the muscle-bound Rocket Ranger Jones who is injected by the lovely Nurse Cloris. To save Jones from a terrible fate, fellow rocketeers send out the courageous Ranger Sam Hell to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
- R
A Thai "snuff film" ring is the target of an American undercover detective in search of the men who killed his brother. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1991
- R
In this violent actioner, renegade cop John Bloodstone is put on suspension after he used a blow torch to stop bank robbers. Believing that the volatile Bloodstone is too dangerous and snoopy to keep around, a group of corrupt politicians and crooked G-men engineer a little "accident" for him. It begins when his superiors call him in and assign him to transport notorious crime lord Marrietta Copella to a new prison. It is en route that they are supposed to die. Unfortunately, for the crooks, the two figure out the scheme and begin working together to survive and stop them for good. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Heavener, Tony Curtis, (more)
- 1991
A mysterious priest proves himself a master of martial arts in this LA-set chop-socky adventure. As the story begins, he is a gentle fellow who attempts to fight the bad-guys with peace and love. When that fails, he resorts to stronger methods and nunchakus whirl, feet and fists fly, and criminals hit the ground. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
One of the key American independent films of the 1990s, Richard Linklater's feature debut is an audacious look at the twentysomething culture in the college town of Austin, Texas. Set over the course of a 24-hour period, the film is a collection of short, unconnected glimpses into the dropout subculture, touching base with a variety of musicians, students, street people and general eccentrics. While there's no real plot to speak of, Linklater's eye for nuance and gift for dialogue are superb, and the portrait he paints is so uncannily accurate that the term "slacker" was almost immediately co-opted as a media buzzword, one interchangeable with the similarly-overused "Generation X." Regardless, the film is an evocative reflection of a community and its culture and remains a definitive artifact of its time and place. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Linklater, Mark James, (more)
- 1990
- R
This gangster satire involves a boss (William Hickey) who turns over the reins of his organization to an incompetent son (Eddie Deezen). ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Deezen, Morgan Fairchild, (more)
- 1990
- R
Miles O'Keeffe stars as a victim of harassment from a drug lord. After he is framed for smuggling and his sister is killed, he decides to seek revenge. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miles O'Keeffe, Don Stroud, (more)
In this futuristic actioner set in the year 2020, guns have become so illegal that even cops cannot use them to stop criminals. But officer James Tucker is a maverick and carries with him an enormous homemade revolver, which he uses to blow away bad-guys and psychotic criminals. His newest assignment is to find the evil Steelmore, who uses drugs to turn his followers into nearly invincible and super-intelligent supermen. He obtains the drug through the pharmaceutical company he blackmails by regularly killing the lovers, wives and associates of high-ranking company executives. The trouble for Tucker really begins when higher-ups take away his gun. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Heavener, Erik Estrada, (more)
- 1989
- R
In this comedy, defense lawyer Vic Scalia (Andrew Stevens) teams up with the criminals he defends in order to pull off a lucrative robbery. However, Scalia's accomplices are less-than-honorable as they backstab and steal from each other on the way to deliver the loot. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1989
When private detective Mike Hammer (Stacy Keach) is blamed for a Las Vegas murder, he sets out to prove his innocence and meets a lovely woman along the way. ~ All Movie Guide
Timothy Dalton is better in Licence to Kill than in his first James Bond endeavor (The Living Daylights), but he still seems uncomfortable on the right side of the law. This time around, Bond is working on his own rather than on behalf of the British Secret Service. His American friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison), an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, has been seriously injured by drug dealer Robert Davi, and 007 is out for blood. There is precious little time for the usual Bondian quippery and directorial campiness, resulting in a marked increase in bloodletting (including the "implosion" of secondary villain Anthony Zerbe). A climactic highway chase involving an oil tanker and a helicopter is stretched slightly beyond its value, but is still one of the best action setpieces in any Bond film. Licence to Kill was a refreshingly serious change of pace for the series, albeit one that tended to lessen Bond's box-office value. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, (more)
