Glenn Withrow Movies

In the conclusion of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single hour-long episode), ALF is mistaken for a Christmas present and delivered to a hospital. In his efforts to escape, he is trapped in an elevator with a woman (Molly Hagan) about to give birth. And to top it off, he saves a disgruntled Santa's helper (Cleavon Little from committing suicide! Not surprisingly, ALF ends up learning the true meaning of Christmas...and hopefully, so do the viewers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Detroit cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) has seemingly smoothed out his differences with his Beverly Hills superior Bogomil (Ronny Cox), but there's trouble ahead for both men, not to mention two other holdovers from the first Cop film, officers Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (John Ashton). The "untouchable" heavy this time out is masterminding a series of violent robberies, committed by leather-freak hoods Dean Stockwell and Brigitte Nielsen. Unaccumstomed to this nastiness, Bogomil entreats street-smart Foley to help find the miscreants. But mean-spirited chief of police Lutz (Allen Garfield) will brook no interference from outsiders-especially the profanely insouciant Mr. Foley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Penelope Spheeris, director of the infamous documentary The Decline of Western Civilization may well have given the world its first punk-rock Western in the form of Dudes, a sort of Suburbia meets High Noon meets Deliverance. Three East Coast punks (Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck, and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) opt to leave behind the filth and gloom of New York City to become modern-day pioneers on the trail to California; that is, until a gang of redneck road warrior-types led by Lee Ving (of the punk band Fear) waylay the trio and kill Flea in a fashion brutal enough to justify the inevitable retribution. After their pleas to the local sheriff fall on deaf ears, Cryer and Roebuck decide instead to follow the law of the West and serve their own brand of justice as what appear to be a bondage-oriented cowboy and a squirrel on steroids. While the plot seems contrived and asinine, the violence often gratuitous, and the characters paper-thin, Spheeris nonetheless manages to create a likeable and highly watchable -- if often silly -- film. Cryer and Roebuck do the best they can with the material, Ving plays an adequately loathsome villain, and Flea lends a glimpse of his acting ability by offering a convincing portrayal of a dead body. Nowhere near being the time capsule that is The Decline of Western Civilization, Dudes still offers some insight into the punk subculture of the '80s. Spheeris later directed the hugely successful Wayne's World as well as The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. ~ Jeremy Beday, Rovi

Victoria Principal plays a deputy District Attorney; that we can believe. James Farentino costars as a judge; this is also believable. Opponents in the courtroom, Principal and Farentino are lovers in bed; okay, we'll buy that. Principal is trying to secure a murder conviction for a pimp/blackmailer; we're still with this. But what Principal doesn't know is that the actual murderer is none other than Judge Farentino. Now you've lost us. Naked Lie was first telecast February 26, 1989, an event deemed worthy of a TV Guide cover; one gets the feeling that Victoria Principal could have gotten a TV Guide cover in 1989 by reading the phone book. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When Claire (Linda Kozlowski) learns her grandmother has been bilked out of $50,000 by the crooked televangelists Ray (Tim Curry) and Darla Porter (Annie Potts), she recruits her redneck boyfriend Jesse (Bill Paxton) to help recover the money. They travel to the Tower of Bethlehem deep in the Arkansas woods to break into the studio and hold the hosts of the show hostage. This timely comedy came in the wake of scandals involving real-life televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and Jimmy "I Have Sinned" Swaggert. Neil Cohen and Joel Cohen wrote the screenplay. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

One of two S.E. Hinton novels Francis Ford Coppola directed in 1983, Rumble Fish is a stylized black-and-white film about the death of gang culture in a rough-and-tumble town full of stunted youths. The central character is the strutting Rusty James (Matt Dillon), a foul-mouthed lunkhead clad in sweaty tank tops, who passes his time at the billiards hall waiting for "something" to happen in his life. That something might be the return of his brother, known only as the Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke), from exile in California. Charismatic and intelligent, the Motorcycle Boy once led numerous wide-eyed followers into battle, into the "rumbles" once commonplace in town. Rusty James wants to take over that role, but lacks the smarts necessary for leadership, nearly getting himself killed in an opening fight. The Motorcycle Boy stops the fight with equal parts efficiency and cool, and Rusty James seems delighted by his brother's return. But it quickly becomes clear that a local cop (William Smith) is still gunning for the Motorcycle Boy, waiting for him to slip up, even though the mysterious youth has developed a weary philosophy of life and a skeptical view of his former power. As the Motorcycle Boy seems more and more distant, lost in deaf and color-blind fugues, Rusty James gets into greater trouble, running afoul of his girlfriend (Diane Lane) and friends (Nicolas Cage, Christopher Penn, Vincent Spano), and seeming on the path to destruction. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

Combining electric song and dance performances with drama (both on and off screen), Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) looks back to the 1920s-1930s peak of the legendary Harlem nightclub where only blacks performed and only whites could sit in the audience. Mixing historical figures with characters loosely based on actual people, Coppola and co-writers William Kennedy and The Godfather's Mario Puzo create a panorama of love, crime, and entertainment centered on the Club. Among them are cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own solos), who escapes psycho gangster "benefactor" Dutch Schultz (James Remar) for a George Raft-type Hollywood career as a gangster film star; Schultz's nubile mistress Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), who loves Dixie against her mercenary instincts; Cotton Club Mob owner Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) and close associate Frenchy Demarge (Fred Gwynne); Vincent (Nicolas Cage), Dixie's no-good Mad Dog Coll-esque brother; Club tap star Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines), who woos ambitious light-skinned Club singer Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee); and cameos by Charles "Honi" Coles and Cab Calloway impersonator Larry Marshall. Complementing the period story, Coppola evokes the style of '30s gangster movies and musicals through an array of old-fashioned devices like montages of headlines, songs and shoot-outs. Conceived by producer Robert Evans as his crowning achievement and directorial debut, Evans had to hand over the troubled production to Coppola, but the budget spiraled out of control as the script was repeatedly re-written throughout the chaotic shoot. By the time it was released, The Cotton Club's epic production story of power struggles, financial bloat, and even a murder overshadowed the "reunion" of The Godfather's creative team. Neither a Heaven's Gate-sized failure nor a wallet-saving hit like Coppola's Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club got some favorable critical notices (although it drew fire for subordinating the African American stories). It did not, however, find a large enough audience to justify its expense and controversy, becoming another mark against 1970s "auteur" cinema in increasingly blockbuster-driven 1980s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Escaping from her childhood life of poverty and abuse on the farm, in the 1930s, Polly Franklin (Pamela Sue Martin) sets her sights on Hollywood as the promised land and leaves home. However, she doesn't get that far - she lands in Chicago instead. Taking the low-paying jobs which are available to her, she quickly finds herself in a situation which is as oppressive as anything she knew at home. Despite her best efforts to keep her head above water, she soon winds up in prison. The best situation in her life comes afterwards, when she becomes a prostitute in a whorehouse run by Anna Sage (Louise Fletcher). However, even this doesn't last, as the police close down the house during a "decency crusade." Back on the streets once again, she meets a wonderful man (Robert Conrad) who claims to be working for the Board of Trade. She tells Anna (who is still her friend) about this new love in her life, and Anna realizes that he must be America's Most Wanted Man, the bank robber John Dillinger. Anna, in danger of being deported, arranges for the police to corner Dillinger and kill him while in Anna and Polly's company. In the ensuing publicity, everyone makes it look as though Polly was Dillinger's betrayer, and her life becomes even more miserable than it was before. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Teen rivalry in a small Southern town sets the stage for this dramatic interpretation of the novel by S.E. Hinton. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Outsiders tells the story of the ongoing conflict between the Greasers and the Socs in rural Oklahoma. C. Thomas Howell stars as Ponyboy, the youngest of three orphaned boys who pal around with the local hoods known as the Greasers. When Ponyboy and his friend (Ralph Macchio) get into a deadly confrontation one night, the two go on the run from the cops, and they grow up quickly and soon realize the insignificance of their petty posturing. Matt Dillon stars as the tough-as-nails leader of their group and Patrick Swayze appears as Ponyboy's oldest brother. A host of other 1980s Brat Pack celebs fill out the cast. Dillon later appeared in another Coppola adaption of a Hinton book, Rumble Fish. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

The Second World War has made quite an impact on Walton's Mountain as the eighth season of The Waltons gets under way. Fired up with patriotic fervor, everyone in the Walton family is involved in the war effort. For example, John Walton (Ralph Waite) is serving on the local draft board, Jason (Jon Walmsley) is an Army corporal, Erin (Mary McDonough) has taken a job at the metals plant owned by J.D. Pickett (Lewis Arquette), and the younger Walton siblings are closely monitoring the activities of the absent John-Boy, now a war correspondent in Europe. The good news in this first episode of a two-part story (originally telecast in a single two-hour slot) is that John's wife Olivia (Michael Learned) has returned from Arizona, where she was being treated for tuberculosis. The bad news is that a certain Calvin Satterfield (George DiCenzo) has threatened to kill John for advising Calvin's AWOL son Tommy (Glenn Withrow) to return to the Army -- advice that turned out to have tragic consequences. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi