James Tolkan Movies

Successful playwright Al Pacino can't get any work done as long as he is pestered by his wacko wife Tuesday Weld. Making things worse are the couple's obstreperous children, many of them products of her previous marriages. Just as Pacino is completing his latest work, his wife walks out on him. That's the good news: the bad news is that he's saddled with a bunch of snot-nosed kids. Still and all, Pacino finds time to inaugurate an affair with his play's leading lady, played by Dyan Cannon, while attempting to juggle the stresses of opening night with the needs of the demanding, often obnoxious children. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Things have barely settled from the excitement and resolve of the original Back to the Future, when in pops that crazy inventor Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) with news that in order to prevent a series of events that could ruin the McFly name for posterity, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox ) and his girlfriend are whisked into the future to the year 2015, where Marty must tangle with a teen rogue named Griff, who's obviously the descendant of Biff, the first Future film's bully. Marty foils Griff and his group when he jumps on an air-foil skateboard that flies him through town at rakish speeds with the loser bullies beaten again. Marty gets a money-making brainstorm before hopping in the time-traveling DeLorean, and he purchases a sports almanac. He figures that back in 1985 he'll be able to place sure-fire bets using the published sports scores of the games that are yet to happen. Unfortunately for Marty, Dr. Brown disapproves of his betting scheme -- he feels too much messing with time is very dangerous -- and he tosses the almanac. A hidden Biff overhears the discussion about the almanac, sees it get tossed out, and grabs it. Thus begins a time-traveling swirl to make the head spin. Biff swipes the DeLorean, heads back to 1955, and with the help of the unerring almanac, bets his way to power. The now-altered "Biff world" has turned into a nightmarish scene with Biff the mogul, residing in a Vegas-styled pleasure palace and running everything. It's all our hero Marty can do to pull the pieces together this time, as he must jump between three generations of intertwined time travel. The end of Back to the Future, Part 2 introduces its sequel as the zany professor has already time-dashed away to the Wild West of the late 1800s and invites Marty into a new adventure. ~ All Movie Guide

A woman lives in fear as she hides from her abusive husband in this made-for-television thriller. Susan Dey stars as Joanna Matthews, a woman who lives under an assumed name in order to hide from her husband Bradley Matthews (Richard Dean Anderson). A well-liked cop, Matthews has a dark side that only Joanna knows about, and she must fight to expose his true ways in order to survive. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

The boiling point is mighty low in this tepid action programmer. Wesley Snipes plays Jimmy Mercer, a Treasury agent whose sting operation goes bad. Engineered by Ronnie (Viggo Mortensen), a dull-witted but sadistic ex-con, the operation not only fails, but one of Jimmy's colleagues is killed by Ronnie in the process. As punishment, Jimmy is exiled to Newark, where he is given seven days to find the man responsible for the death of the officer. Meanwhile, slimy con-man Red (Dennis Hopper) has Ronnie deceived into thinking that Mercer is a big-time crook with influential connections. Red does this to enlist Ronnie's aid to participate in a third-rate crime spree. When Ronnie and Red begin their two-man crime wave, Jimmy is in relentless pursuit behind them. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

It probably takes an intimate acquaintance with East Germany's famously awful car, a smoky, noisy two-cylinder lawnmower on wheels, the Trabant 601, to fully appreciate the jokes in this extremely popular, celebrity-filled comedy. In the story, Gunther (German television star Thomas Gotttschalk) is an East German inventor who has journeyed with his homely car to an inventor's convention in Hollywood: he has figured out a way to get his Trabbi to run on turnip juice and zoom like a sports car. When his odd car is stolen, he tries to get it back, but L.A. and it's culture are alien to him and he is very much a fish out of water, despite the friendly advice he receives from Billy Dee Williams as a knowledgeable parking-lot attendant. Look for cameos by Milton Berle and Dom DeLuise, among others. This Trabbi film is a sequel to the enormously popular comedy Go, Trabi, Go. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Peter Maris action begins at New Mexico State Penitentiary, where a spew of toxic gas from the crash of a tanker truck leads to the evacuation of the prison by the warden (George Kennedy). In the ensuing confusion, anti-social cons Kuttner (Lee De Broux) and Patch (James Tolkan) kidnap prison psychologist Maria Slayton (Kim Delaney) and hit the road with a bus full of prisoners. The group first heads for Mexico but decides instead to take over the town of Sonora and hold its citizens as hostages. The National Guard sends in a state police lieutenant (Yaphet Kotto) and his tough-as-nails Lieutenant Colonel Johnson (Jan-Michael Vincent) to handle the situation. But the National Guard's ineffectual methods leave the situation more volatile than it was before. It is left to two citizens of Sonora -- sheriff Ike Slayton (Brad Davis) and his army pal Bill (Ken Foree) -- to take matters into their own hands and save the town from the kill-crazy prisoners. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The tragic court case that forever altered the course of American jurisprudence is dramatized for the screen in this courtroom docudrama starring Timothy Hutton, David Straithairn, Leelee Sobieski, Anthomy Mack and Bill Sage. The year is 1931, and nine black hobos have been accused of raping two white women on an Alabama freight train. The accused, who all range in age from twelve to twenty-three, are quickly sentenced to death in the electric chair by an all-white jury fueled by racism and vengeance. But as news of the convictions spreads, something remarkable happens: the plight of the so-called Scottsboro Boys inadvertently ends up fueling the fires of socialism across the globe and the case is quickly appealed to the United States Supreme Court. As each of the nine defendants prepare for their retrials in a Decatur, Alabama courtroom, self-assured New York defense attorney Samuel Liebowitz (Hutton) accepts the formidable task of representing the accused in the trial that will hold an entire nation spellbound. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Historical overview of the events and personalities involved in the creation of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast as a two-hour episode of ABC's Wonderful World of Disney anthology, Little Spies gets under way when a bunch of kids lose their adopted dog to the mean owner of a puppy kennel. Enter Jimmy the Hermit (Mickey Rooney), a reclusive WW2 hero who takes a shine to the youngsters. Harking back to his wartime experiences, Jimmy organizes the neighborhood kids into a "commando raid" of the kennel to rescue the pooch. The main characters are direct from the standard Disney stereotype manual, right down to the nerdish kid with glasses and the funny fat one. Little Spies first aired on October 5, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alan Rudolph directed this offbeat, boy-meets-girl romance in which boy dies, dead boy meets dead girl, dead boy loses dead girl, and dead boy tries to find dead girl again. The tale begins is a small Pennsylvania town, where Mike Shea (Timothy Hutton) dreams of escaping small town life and moving to California with his girlfriend Brenda (Mare Winningham). But Brenda leaves him with his motor running and Mike takes off alone. On the way, he rescues a woman and her children from an icy river but perishes himself. He finds himself in Heaven, where he is greeted by Aunt Lisa (Maureen Stapleton), who explains the rules and regulations. Once in the ethereal realm, Mike falls in love with a heavenly lass with flaxen locks named Annie (Kelly McGillis). But their love is torn asunder because Annie has not yet earned her wings on Earth; she must leave on a tour of duty and put in time inhabiting a human body. Mike is beside himself in despair, but the heavenly powers, in the form of Emmett (Debra Winger), chain-smoking and sporting an orange crewcut like a ghostly Laurie Anderson, offer him a deal. Mike can return to Earth, but only on the stipulation that neither he nor Annie will remember each other. They then have thirty years in which to find one another again. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A Vietnam War veteran (John Schneider) renounces the military for a priest's habit, but after his wife and daughter are killed by terrorists in Rome (and the government does nothing), the hero returns to violent means. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this charming comedy that lives up to its title, Judge Reinhold stars as Joe Gower, a librarian's assistant posing as a police officer and trying to win the heart of a beautiful police officer, Rachel Wareham (Meg Tilly). A complex chain of events is put in place when Joe agrees to help out a good friend who's a policeman by taking his place at an audition for the cop's annual benefit show. Once at the auditions, Joe falls for Rachel, who will be dancing in the benefit. Joe starts hanging out with the choreographer in order to spend more time with Rachel. Unfortunately, this gets him into his borrowed police uniform more than he would like, and soon he's carrying out the duties of a beat cop while wearing his disguise. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide