Lou Walker Movies
A high school football coach finds himself fighting for stakes much higher than the State Championship in this drama based on actual events. In 1971, a court order forces three high schools in Alexandria, Virginia (two white, one African-American), to integrate their student bodies and faculties for the first time. As a result, Coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton), longtime head coach of the T.C. Williams High School football team, is asked to step down, and Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) is appointed to replace him as the school's first black faculty member. The new coach is hardly welcomed with open arms, either by the school's staff or the students, and the newly integrated team is full of players (both black and white) who have little trust or respect for one another. But Boone is determined to put a winning team on the field -- it's how he approaches the game, and his future depends on it. Against long odds, Boone helps his team overcome distrust and misunderstanding of their coach (and each other) as they become a gridiron force to be reckoned with. Remember the Titans also features Nicole Ari Parker, Kate Bosworth, and Jerry Brandt, and was produced by action-film kingpin Jerry Bruckheimer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Denzel Washington, Will Patton, (more)
A daughter haunted by the memory of a morbid love affair suspects that the man who once seduced her has returned to kill her after eighteen-years after being convicted and imprisoned for murdering her mother. Mother and daughter have both had a torrid love affair with the same man, and in the end the mother paid for the transgression with her life. Though the diabolical seducer was quickly convicted and sent to prison, nearly twenty-years have passed and now the woman who was once a frightened young girl begins to suspect that the man who killer her mother has returned to claim her life as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
In this drama, based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham, Mitch McDeer (Tom Cruise) is a young man from a poor Southern family who has struggled through Harvard Law School to graduate fifth in his class. Mitch is entertaining offers from major firms in New York and Chicago, but when Memphis-based Bendini, Lambert, & Locke offer him a 20 percent higher salary than the best offer he's received, in addition to an enticing variety of perks and fringe benefits, he decides to sign on and remain in the South. Mitch's wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), warns him that the deal sounds almost too good to be true, but it's not until after several weeks of working with Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) that Mitch discovers that the vast majority of BL&L's business is tied to organized crime, with crime boss Joey Morolto (Paul Sorvino) using the firm to launder Mafia money. FBI agents Wayne Tarrance (Ed Harris) and F. Denton Voyles (Steven Hill) try to blackmail Mitch into helping them make a case against the firm, while BL&L's "security director" William Devasher (Wilford Brimley) is blackmailing him to do as he's told after Mitch foolishly allows himself to be seduced by a prostitute hired by the firm. The Firm was adapted for the screen by acclaimed playwright David Rabe and features performances by Hal Holbrook, Holly Hunter, and Gary Busey. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, (more)
When sweet Northern college kid Bill (Ralph Macchio) and his buddy Stan (Mitchell Whitfield) are picked up and thrown into the slammer in a hick Southern town, at first it looks like no big deal. Then they are informed that they are accused of murder. Penniless and without a single friend in the area, Bill decides to call his goofy cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci), who has somehow recently become a lawyer. Full of family feeling and bravado, Vinny, who has never tried a criminal case in his short life as a lawyer, rides south to defend his trusting relative. He's an expert motormouth and street-level logician from the wilder reaches of metropolitan New York, complete with a thick accent and the attitude to go with it. Otherwise, he's much less well qualified than your average public defender. When he arrives on the scene with his equally brassy girlfriend Lisa (Marisa Tomei), Bill is fairly sure he's going to be sentenced to death. His buddy Stan is even less confident of his legal representative, if that's possible, and the first thing Vinny has to do is to regain the consent of his clients to represent them. The local judge doesn't seem any too sympathetic to Vinny's verbal shenanigans either, and even the most optimistic supporter of the boys would begin to have doubts at this point -- and Vinny's no exception. With the insistent moral encouragement of his girlfriend, Vinny somehow accomplishes the impossible and wins grudging (if very irritated) respect from all concerned, for once studying as if his life depended on it. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, (more)
John Hughes strip-mines familiar terrain -- in this case his own past successes -- in this comedy that Hughes produced and scripted, directed by Bryan Gordon. Frank Whaley stars as Jim Dodge, a 21-year-old con-man who goes from job to job but likes to put on a facade of success. As Career Opportunities begins, he has just been fired from another job and has been hired by the local Target store manager (played by an un-credited John Candy) as the night cleanup boy. After the manager locks Jim in the store overnight, he goes on a binge -- playing with the skates, eating candy, watching television, and blasting the stereos. But then Jim discovers that he is not the only person in the store. Also there is rich girl Josie McClellan (Jennifer Connelly) who is spending the night in the store to get her father worried about her. Although Jim knew Josie in high school, when Josie wouldn't even give him the time of day, here they click like two castanets and they romp around the store aisles to a pounding rock score. But just at the moment when Jim and Josie plan to run away together with the $52,000 Josie holds in her purse, two low-rent comic thieves -- Nestor Pyle (Dermot Mulroney) and Gil Kinney (Kieran Mulroney) -- break into the store and Jim and Josie decide to stick it out, saving the store from the bumbling crooks. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Whaley, Jennifer Connelly, (more)
Made for television, Murder in Mississippi covers the same historical ground that was fictionalized in the theatrical film Mississippi Burning (89). The film recounts the murders by the Ku Klux Klan of three civil rights workers in 1964. Rather than detail the subsequent FBI investigation, the plotline follows the life of one of the white murder victims, Mickey Schwerner (Tom Hulce), who gave up a comfortable lifestyle in the North to struggle alongside African-American freedom fighters in the South. Jennifer Grey portrays Schwerner's wife, while Josh Charles and Blair Underwood portray the other two martyred activists, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney. Filmed in Georgia, Murder in Mississippi was produced by David L. Wolper of Roots fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hulce, Blair Underwood, (more)

- 1990
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Based on Doug Magee's novel Slow Coming Dark, the made-for-cable Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture is about a photojournalist (Roy Scheider) who is hired by a man (Arliss Howard) convicted of killing a policeman to photograph his execution. As the execution grows nearer, the photographer uncovers evidence that suggests the convicted man is actually innocent, and he tries to save him before it's too late. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
Set in the early 1900s in a small Southern town, this made-for-cable television romance centers on the "scandalous" love affair that blossoms between a free-thinking, strong-willed Northern widow and the much older owner of a local general store. The plot is based on a novel by Olive Ann Burns. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Mississippi Burning is an all-names-changed dramatization of the Ku Klux Klan's murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. Investigating the mysterious disappearances of the three activists are FBI agents Gene Hackman (older, wiser) and Willem Dafoe (younger, idealistic). A Southerner himself, Hackman charms and cajoles his way through the tight-lipped residents of a dusty Mississippi town while Dafoe acts upon the evidence gleaned by his partner. Hackman solves the case by exerting his influence upon beauty-parlor worker Frances McDormand, who wishes to exact revenge for the beatings inflicted upon her by her Klan-connected husband Brad Dourif. Many critics took the film to task for its implication that the Civil Rights movement might never have gained momentum without its white participants; nor were the critics happy that the FBI was shown to utilize tactics as brutal as the Klan's. The title Mississippi Burning is certainly appropriate: nearly half the film is taken up with scenes of smoke and flame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, (more)
Hiding Out, a surprisingly entertaining and engaging action comedy, directed by Bob Giraldi, takes the implausible idea that an adult man could enroll in high school and pass as a student and makes it real. Andrew (Jon Cryer) is a stockbroker hunted by a professional killer. He flees to stay with his sister and her teenage son Patrick (Keith Coogan). Andrew shaves off his beard, cuts his hair, and enrolls in Patrick's high school, pretending to be 17 years old. Cryer does a great job of convincingly playing both ages, and Coogan shines as the teenage son. Director Giraldi has great visual style and gives the film an energy that makes it both enjoyable and believable. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jon Cryer, Keith Coogan, (more)
The "pals" of the title, played by Don Ameche and George C. Scott, are Army chums living a sedentary retirement. Occasionally the twosome becomes a threesome when Scott's mother Sylvia Sidney shows up. All three are resigned to living out their lives on fixed incomes in a Georgia trailer park-and then, Ameche and Scott discover a large sum of money in an abandoned car. Well, "large" is putting it mildly: they find nearly four million bucks. They also find a heap of trouble when mobster James Greene, who'd stashed the cash in the first place, starts nosing around. The made-for-TV Pals was originally telecast February 28, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
When a small-time businessman (Richard Pryor) needs a loan, he goes to a loan shark and ends up in jail on false pretenses. After feigning madness to get out, he is tossed into the mental ward of a hospital. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Pryor, Rachel Ticotin, (more)
This lively made-for-television comedy is set at a summer camp and chronicles the romantic misadventures of the staff. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Never released theatrically, this deflated actioner features the late Vince Edwards as Frank Lane, a drug boss hiding behind a dummy contracting business. Lane has come up with a scheme to secretly ship narcotics by using a touring country-music band as the unknowing transporters. He has two goons who help him out, but they are up against the wily Charles Dale (Richard Jaeckel and undercover Kelly (Julie Hill), the DEA agents out to bring down Lane's operation. Several chase scenes and country music songs later, Dale and Lane arrive at a climactic face-off. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Jaeckel, Tony Dale, (more)
Natalie Wood made her last screen appearance in Brainstorm; in fact, she died before the film was completed, necessitating extensive rewrites. Wood's character is secondary to the one played by Christopher Walken. A research scientist, Walken has been experimenting with a revolutionary brain-reading device. This wondrous machine is able to read a person's thought processes and translate these to videotape. When Walken wants to study the brainwaves of his late partner Louise Fletcher, he finds himself seriously at odds with his superiors-not to mention several ominous-looking government types, headed by Cliff Robertson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, (more)
In this weakly limned melodrama, Marvin (John Cassavetes) is a homeless man who stops the 11-year-old Tige (Gibran Brown) from killing himself one night, and after a bumpy start, the two become as close as a father and son. Tige's real father left him long ago, his mother has just died, and Tige is seriously ill himself. Marvin takes this in and then hunts down Tige's father (Billy Dee Williams), who is married and the father of three other children. After some initial reluctance, the father finally accepts Tige into his household, but the boy's life does not necessarily get any better from there. With a plot that is transparently melodramatic and characters barely etched on the surface, the intention to manipulate viewers with "tragic" scenes is uncomfortably apparent. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cassavetes, Billy Dee Williams, (more)
Tim Conway as woeful boxer Bags and Don Knotts as his dim-witted sidekick Shake are out to save a gym and do the impossible in this predictable, cliched comedy from director Michael Preece. The setting is the 1930s and Bags is trying to make it as a boxer. Gangster Mike (Robin Clarke) decides to take advantage of the two losers, so he sets Bags up for a big championship match against a bruiser appropriately nicknamed the Butcher (Michael LaGuardia). At stake is more than the one-sided match, the dull duo's friend "Pop" Morgan (David Wayne) has bet all he has on Bags -- he needs money to save his gym from the clutches of the gangster. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Conway, Don Knotts, (more)
With an unbilled Waylon Jennings providing verbal and musical punctuation throughout, the premiere episode of The Dukes of Hazzard chronicles the latest adventures of cousins Luke and Bo Duke (Tom Wopat, John Schneider), a pair of hot-roddin' Good Ole Boys living in Hazzard County ("East of the Mississippi and South of the Ohio") with their sensible Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) and their curvaceous female cousin Daisy (Catherine Bach). With their moonshine-running activities "officially" thwarted by the terms of their probation, Luke and Bo have to get their kicks flummoxing and outrunning the local corrupt authorities, rotund county boss Jefferson Davis Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and Hogg's brother-in-law, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (James Best, here playing his role along more embittered and less buffoonish lines than he would in future episodes). On this occasion, the Dukes thwart Roscoe's latest crooked enterprise, namely smuggling slot machines across the border, by hijacking the machines and giving the money therein to local orphanages and charities. Naturally, Roscoe tries to arrest the boys, only to find that he'll make a public fool of himself--and probably be voted out of office--if he takes any action at all! Ernie W. Brown, here cast as Dobro Dullyn, would later return in the semiregular role of L.B. Davenport. This is the first of five episodes filmed on location in Covington, Georgia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide


























