Zelda Barron

Warren Beatty directed, co-produced (with Pieter Jan Brugge), co-scripted (with Jeremy Pikser), and stars in this political satire, a comedy-drama about a U.S. senator who decides to start speaking the truth. Despondent California Sen. Jay Bulworth (Beatty), up for re-election, is disillusioned by the usual campaign banalities; his marriage to Constance (Christine Baranski) seems equally hollow. In the midst of a nervous breakdown, Bulworth goes without sleep or food for three days and takes out a $10 million insurance policy on himself while arranging his own assassination. Drinking during a return to Los Angeles, Bulworth is scheduled to speak at an African-American church in South Central L.A. Once there, he tosses aside his prepared speech, startling both the audience and his campaign manager Murphy (Oliver Platt) by improvising truthful remarks instead of the familiar rhetoric. These loose-cannon salvos gain the attention of an attractive young woman, Nina (Halle Berry). Bulworth finds an exhilaration with this new freestyle approach, and after shocking a gathering in Beverly Hills with further fulminations, Bulworth invites Nina and her girlfriends into his limo. During a spaced-out sojourn at one of South Central's more frenzied after-hours clubs, Bulworth gains respect for hiphop culture. Still reeling from insights gained by this nightlife, he arrives the next day for a fund-raising function at the Beverly Wilshire, startling everyone with a diatribe delivered in the intonations of a rap artist. His interest in Nina and his new optimistic outlook on life give Bulworth a sense of elation and a will to live. He phones to call off the hit, but gears have been set in motion. After an assumed hitman turns up during a church appearance, Bulworth flees, and Nina offers him a safe-house hideout at the home of her family, veterans of the Civil Rights movement. Here Bulworth goes through the final steps in his transformation -- making a Kennedy-styled connection with the disenfranchised as he tunes into forgotten memories of the '60s. Outfitted in homeboy clothing, the born again Bulworth heads for a TV station to unleash even more caustic comments on the American political scene. Language and drug use brought this film an R rating. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Olympic gymnastics coach Francine Lake (Lauren Hutton) and her 12 students train on the Island of Crete. The rigors of training preclude most sexual activity with the locals, thus the girls spend their evenings in quiet frustration. Likewise repressed is training-school janitor Ulysses (Svestislav Goncic), a notorious peeping tom. When one of the girls is sexually assaulted, Ulysses is the most likely suspect. It turns out, however, that the film's true antagonist is much closer to the situation than it first appears. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this film, set in a British girls school just before the outbreak of WW II, two young girls build a beautiful friendship despite their disparate backgrounds. Their teachers disapprove of their close relationship and try to discourage it, which suggests to the viewer that they suspect a lesbian affair could evolve, but as was true to the era being portrayed, this was never verbalized. This film gently touches upon the vulnerable days of adolescence. ~ All Movie Guide

Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on screen in a series of unsubtle and prejudicial broad strokes. The film begins in 1915, when Reed (Beatty) makes the acquaintance of married Portland journalist Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). So persuasive is Reed's point of view--and so charismatic is Reed himself-- that Bryant kicks over the traces and joins Reed and his fellow radicals. Among the famous personages depicted herein are Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton), Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) and Max Eastman (Richard Herrmann). The second half of this nearly-200-minute film skims through the years when Reed, now a Russian resident, becomes disillusioned by the harsh realities of Bolshevism. Despite the celebrity line-up of real-life "witnesses" to the events depicted in the film (ranging from novelist Henry Miller to comedian George Jessel!), historians took Reds to task for its oversimplification of events and its laundering of the notoriously promiscuous Louise Bryant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loretta Lynn was one of the first female superstars in country music and remains a defining presence within the genre; with her strong, clear, hard-country voice and tough, no-nonsense songs about husbands who cheat and wives who weren't about to be pushed around, Lynn introduced a feminist mindset to Nashville years before the phrase "women's liberation" became common currency. Coal Miner's Daughter is a screen adaptation of Lynn's autobiography, starring Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. One of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family despite grinding poverty in Butcher's Holler, KY, Loretta married Dolittle "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she was only 13 years old. A mother of four by the time she was 20, Lynn began singing the occasional song at local honky-tonks on weekends, and at 25, she cut (at Mooney's suggestion) a demo tape that earned her a deal with an independent record label. Loretta and Mooney's tireless promotion of the record (including a long road trip through the south in which they stopped at every country radio station they could find) paid off -- Loretta's first single, "Honky Tonk Girl," hit the charts and earned her a spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Stardom called and Loretta never looked back, but success brought with it both joy (a long string of hit records and sold-out concerts and a close friendship with Patsy Cline) and sorrow (a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork and a great deal of stress to a marriage that endured -- but just barely). Sissy Spacek won an Academy award for her vivid, thoroughly natural performance as Loretta (she also did her own singing), and Levon Helm (drummer for the legendary rock group the Band) made an impressive screen debut as her father. Ernest Tubb makes a cameo appearance as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Stardust was the sequel to That'll be the Day, a 1973 film à clef about the rise of a Beatles-like rock group. Real-life rock star David Essex plays singer Jim Maclaine (read: John Lennon), whose sudden rise to fame has enriched him beyond his wildest dreams. His perspective and sense of values skewered by sex, drugs, and booze, Maclaine becomes little more than a singing cipher, outwardly successful but hollow inside. Ironically, Keith Moon of the Who, whose own life paralleled the fictional Maclaine's in many ways, appears in a supporting role. Dave Edmunds, who appears in as Alex, co-wrote the film's pulsating musical score with Lord David Puttnam (the film's producer). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in England during WWII, this drama, also known as Soldiers in Skirts, stars Glenda Jackson as Alice, a bitter woman whose husband is captured and held as a Japanese prisoner of war. When a wandering soldier, Barton (Brian Deacon), comes by her farm, she invites him in for tea. They fall in love. In order to remain in the town with Alice and escape the military police who are looking for deserters, Barton disguises himself as a woman. A sergeant (Oliver Reed), who commands a tank unit, comes to town and makes advances toward Barton, whom he thinks is a woman. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Prince Leo (Marcello Mastroianni) is the exiled ruler from an unnamed country living on the edge of a London ghetto with his harridan mistress Margaret (Billie Whitelaw). While viewing birds through his telescope, he witnesses the struggles of his black neighbors to survive their harsh urban environment. When Salambo (Glenna Forster Jones) is forced into prostitution by Jasper (Keefe West), the prince decides to take action. He rescues the woman after she is raped and makes her his ward and protectorate. When the royal guards invade the neighborhood, Leo and a makeshift troop of residents repel the advance with fireworks and homemade explosives. The film is based on the George Tabori play "The Prince" and deals with class struggles of the poor against the haughty royals. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Vanessa Redgrave stars in this film biography of the free-spirited modern interpretive dancer Isadora Duncan. Trained in classical dance, Duncan shattered the traditional conformities in her art and her personal life. The film begins at the end of her life as she recalls the past while dictating her memoirs to her male secretary. Her uninhibited sexuality and insistence on personal freedom and expression shocked more conservative and narrow-minded patrons and audiences. She brought in elements of classic Greek dance during the height of the jazz age and had children in and out of wedlock. Married to sewing-machine heir Paris Singer (Jason Robards) and the Russian poet Sergei Essenin (Ivan Tchenko), her life was a rollercoaster ride of success and tragic failures. Two of her children drowned when her chauffeur left the car unattended and the vehicle plunged into a river. Duncan lived by her own rules, often shunned by the very people who had so passionately embraced her pioneering efforts in dance, women's liberation and free thinking. Redgrave was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A classic 1960's cult film in the British "angry young man" tradition, the hero of this film from Czech director Karel Reisz is more lunatic than agitator. Morgan Delt (David Warner) is an artist from a working class background, married to Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave), a woman far above him in social standing. Given to a rich fantasy life to begin with, Morgan goes off the mental deep end when Leonie informs him that she's asking for a divorce and taking up with art dealer Robert Stephens (Charles Napier), a man more befitting her class. Thoroughly gone around the bend, Morgan enacts a series of bizarre gags and stunts in a campaign to win Leonie back, including putting a skeleton in her bed and crashing her wedding dressed as a gorilla. His antics eventually get Morgan arrested and committed to an asylum, where he embraces his mother's ardent communist beliefs. Redgrave was Oscar nominated for Best Actress for her role, her feature film debut. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide