Luca Bercovici Movies

This stylish crime thriller concerns a former criminal trying to set himself on the straight and narrow, until he happens upon a set of bootleg printing plates for $100 bills and soon finds himself a wanted man by both sides of the law. Luck of the Draw (also known as Quicksand), stars William Forsythe, Dennis Hopper, and Ice-T. The film gained some unusual press attention while it was being filmed when Mickey Rourke was fired from the project, reportedly because he refused to play a scene without his pet Chihuahua (the role was recast with Michael Madsen). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Frank Zagarino and Shannon Sturges star in this science fiction thriller. A spacecraft with an all-female crew is forced to jettison fuel due to engine problems, and makes an emergency landing on a planet being used as a penal colony. It seems everyone on the prison world has been killed except for two people, with the psychotic Convict 762 apparently responsible for the carnage. However, while one survivor claims to be a guard watching over the prisoner, the other says exactly the same thing. So who is right? Who can they trust? And how will they ever get home? ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama with comic overtones, Tanya (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a barmaid who works at a sleazy tavern, while her husband Henry (Luca Bercovici), a one-time baseball player sidelined by a knee injury, divides his time between praying at home and praying at a Catholic mission. Henry is supposed to receive an insurance settlement for his injury, but at the moment Tanya's low-pay/high-stress job is the household's sole means of support. When she discovers that Henry has already been sent a $130,000 settlement, which is now sitting in his bank account, he claims that the money is cursed, and he doesn't want her to have any. Predictably, Tanya doesn't share this superstition; when he hits her in the ensuing argument, Tanya walks out. Before long, she meets Benny (Benny O'Malley), a would-be card shark and con man who agrees to help Tanya get some of the money away from Henry. Posing as a representative of the mission, Benny intends to ask Henry to help them pay for some repairs that cost, oh, about $130,000; to reinforce his scheme, he and a friend fabricate a miracle on the mission's grounds involving a tree that grows incredibly fast. The theatrical release of The Big Squeeze ran 98 minutes; the version released on home video added another 7 minutes of footage. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this "supernatural" comedy, a plain-jane spinster cares for her elderly grandmother, who happens to be a fanatic wrestling fan -- and also extremely rich. When her obnoxious relatives show up for Thanksgiving dinner, the grandmother, who has been given a magic potion by an exorcist, turns into a supernatural killer who takes on different shapes to perform her murders. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

Wesley Snipes is battling bad guys in the air again, this time with parachutes, in this action-packed suspense thriller. Pete Nessip (Snipes) is a Federal Marshall who, teamed with his brother Terry (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), is escorting criminal computer genius Earl Leedy (Michael Jeter) to a new prison facility. Pete, Terry, and Earl are on a jet en route to Earl's new lockup when terrorists attempt a daring hijacking; Terry is killed in an explosion aboard the plane, and suddenly Earl is missing. Pete discovers that a team of sky-diving outlaws, led by former DEA agent gone bad Ty Moncrief (Gary Busey), have snatched Earl from his flight and spirited him away for a special raid on Washington D.C.; Ty and his men intend to take advantage of an obscure rule in which the normally restricted airspace in Washington D.C. is open to parachute enthusiasts on July 4. Eager to avenge his brother's death and put both Ty and Earl behind bars, Pete recruits sky-diving expert Jessie Crossman (Yancy Butler) to teach him how to infiltrate Ty's team of sky-bound criminals. Superb aerial stunt work highlights this film; please note that Pete's last name is an anagram for the leading man's last name. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Actor Steven Antin wrote the screenplay, and U.S.C. film professor Jefery Levy directed this self-absorbed trifle about a self-absorbed screenwriter and his nutty family and friends. Antin plays Monkey Zetterland, an innocuous young man who is trying to work on his screenplay -- something having to do with the defunct Los Angeles streetcar system -- while a collection of relatives, friends, and neighbors continually interrupt him. His family is a collection of personified neurosis: there is Honor (Katherine Helmond) a soap-opera actress with hemorrhoids who is afraid of being fired; Grace (Patricia Arquette), his lesbian sister who is crestfallen to find that her lover Cindy (Sofia Coppola) is pregnant; brother Brent (Tate Donovan), an anal hairdresser with his elbow constantly bent over a cell phone; and Mike (Bo Hopkins), his Dad, who shows up for Thanksgiving dinner with his pet parrot. But his neighbors are no better: Imogene (Sandra Bernhard) screams to him, "I love you, Monkey Zetterland!"; Daphne (Debi Mazar) complains that Monkey doesn't spend enough time with her; Sofie (Martha Plimpton) and Sasha (Rupert Everett) are a pair of terrorists devoted to blowing up insurance companies that deny insurance policies to HIV-positive patients; and Bella (Ricki Lake), a crazed fan of Monkey's mom. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A pair of climbers attempts to scale the world's second-largest and most dangerous mountain in this visually impressive but dramatically weak adventure. Skirt-chasing lawyer Taylor Brooks (Michael Biehn) and sedate family man Harold Jamison (Matt Craven) share a love of risky mountain climbing and embark on numerous collaborative expeditions. During one of these climbs, they encounter a team of fellow mountaineers preparing to tackle the legendary Pakistani mountain K2. Brooks immediately becomes obsessed with this task, and he convinces the reluctant Jamison to join the team. The bulk of the film centers on the dangerous climb and even more challenging descent, beset with challenges both natural and human. Though adapted from a stage play by Patrick Myers, the schematic personal dramas take a back seat to cinematographer Gabriel Beristain's overwhelming landscapes, filmed both on location at the real K2 and on a smaller Canadian peak. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Mayoral candidate Dr. Rachel Olsen (Brigitte Nielsen) has a dangerous plan for swift justice in the form of a band of ex-convicts, called the Peacemakers, who roam the streets to do her bidding. When a boxer friend (Tony Burton) is killed by Olsen's thugs, an outlaw cop (Jeff Wincott) goes undercover to get evidence, and works his way up to the inner circle of the doctor's army. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

The wife of a wealthy man hatches a plan to gain his inheritance by murdering her unsuspecting husband. She is helped by the sniveling man with whom she's having an affair. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

This crazy-quilt melange was originally released as Andy Colby's Incredibly Awesome Adventure; apparently it was retitled to avoid confusion with the very similar Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Randy Josselyn plays Andy Colby, a 12-year-old videotape addict. Making a visit to the local rental store, Andy comes across a cassette titled "Incredible Video Adventure". A weird-looking video clerk (isn't that a bit redundant) warns Andy in Gremlins fashion that he must not sit too close to the TV while watching the tape, and he must never, ever let loose of the remote control. Alas, Andy breaks both those rules-whereupon he and his little sister Bonnie (Jessica Puscas) are sucked into a maelstrom of thrills and adventure. Most of the highlights are culled from previous Roger Corman productions like Space Raiders, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, Deathsport, Chopping Mall and Wheels of Fire. In other words, it's a feature-length "cheater," a hodgepodge of past cinematic glories. The young stars perform as well as possible under the circumstances (it's hard to be convincing while reacting to stock footage), but the film's acting honors go to Chuck Kovacic as the wigged-out villain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joe Dante's box-office fantasy Gremlins had barely left American cinemas before Charles Band's B-movie factory, Empire Pictures, rushed out this cheap knockoff. While Dante's film benefited from the director's wry sense of humor and the high-concept clout of executive producer Steven Spielberg, Band's tawdry little creature feature boasts lower production values than a high-school haunted-house fundraiser. The title monsters are a pack of obnoxious demons -- enacted by a handful of rubber dolls covered with KY jelly -- summoned up by the metaphysical shenanigans of college student Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis) after he discovers his late father's occult paraphernalia at the family estate. Jonathan later invites a group of annoying friends to participate in an all-night party, during which he intends to perform an elaborate parlor trick -- actually a satanic ritual through which he hopes to acquire his father's supernatural powers. This doesn't sit well with Dad, who bursts violently from his grave (a nice touch) to have a chat with his wayward son while legions of ghoulies (well, four or five, anyway) descend upon the revelers. Considering the entire production revolves around the antics of the ghoulies themselves, the alleged puppetry involved is laughable -- the inarticulate puppets do little more than open drooling mouths full of pointy teeth before offscreen stagehands fling them at the heads of cast members. The film's main points of interest lie with the supporting cast, which includes Bobbi Bresee as a supernatural seductress (sporting an eight-foot tongue!) and Eraserhead's John Nance as a bizarre gardener. Somehow, this became one of Empire's top moneymakers, spawning no less than three sequels. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

This uneven attempt at horror parody, direced by Norman Thaddeus Vane, gets off to a fairly promising start with a fun performance from Ferdinand Mayne (the imposing lead vampire in Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers) as the impossibly flamboyant horror superstar Conrad Radzoff -- whose idea of a memorable promotional stunt for his latest film involves the murder of its director. Though this proves a hard act to follow, Radzoff manages to do so by kicking the bucket himself. Then enter the annoying young members of a horror-film society who decide to steal Radzoff's corpse to use as a macabre centerpiece at their next hootenanny. Big mistake. Mrs. Radzoff is none too pleased and consults a spirit medium to reanimate her husband's body and avenge the desecration of his crypt. Sadly, what began as a clever comic nod to horror films of yore (and their die-hard fans in particular) collapses completely into routine slasher formula as Radzoff floats his coffin around the house in pursuit of his enemies, dispatching them in outrageously gory ways. Distributors released a title on video, shortly after the run of this film, entitled 'Frightmare II.' It was in fact a 1974 Pete Walker film all but unrelated to this one and erroneously advertised as the sequel to Vane's film. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide