Karen Black Movies
Though her career of the late '80s and early '90s might indicate otherwise, Karen Black is one of Hollywood's finest actresses and has appeared in a number of well-wrought dramas. Born Karen Ziegler, she began her professional acting career after graduating from Northwestern University. After appearing in a few revues off-Broadway, Black enrolled in the Actor's Studio to study under Lee Strasberg. She made her film debut as a teenage artist's model in exploitation filmmaker Herschel Gordon Lewis' The Prime Time (1960). In 1965, Black appeared on Broadway in The Playroom which only ran for a month, but did garner her a nomination for a New York Critic's Circle award. She then appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1967). She next appeared in Hard Contact (1969), but did not become well known until her convincing portrayal of a spaced-out LSD-taking hooker in the box-office sleeper Easy Rider (1969). The following year, Black won further acclaim for playing a goodhearted but somewhat dim-witted waitress in Five Easy Pieces. The role earned her a Best Supporting Actress award from the New York Film Critics and an Oscar nomination. With this auspicious beginning, Black went on to appear in a number of major Hollywood features during the '70s. Some of her most notable performances can be found in such films as Jack Nicholson's directorial debut Drive He Said (1971), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Day of the Locust (1975), and Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), where she got to show off her singing ability. In 1975, she also played four roles in the chilling television thriller Trilogy of Terror. But despite her excellent reputation as a fine performer, the dawn of the '80s marked a downswing in Black's career; she began appearing in lower quality films, a trend that did not reverse in the '90s, though she did make her screenwriting debut in 1997 with the drama Men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A young inventor is tinkering with his latest creation when something goes wrong, and he turns his dad into a real-life invisible man. Now the boy must somehow find a way to get him back to normal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Where does a seven-ton elephant sleep? That's the question four kids ask when they find themselves looking after a pachyderm in this family adventure. Malaika the elephant is captured by a mean-spirited hunter, but when she escapes, several children find her and try to help her get well as well as return her to safer circumstances. But a full-grown elephant is not the sort of secret that's easy to keep hidden. The cast includes Karen Black, R.D. Call, and John Laughlin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Black, John Laughlin, (more)
A woman who enjoys playing the field begins to ponder the relative merits of long-term commitment in this witty look at love, sex, and relationships. Stella James (Sean Young) lives in New York and wants two things out of life: a career as a gourmet chef and a satisfying relationship with a man. Stella shares a flat with her wealthy friend Teo (Dylan Walsh), but while they're close, their relationship is more platonic than romantic -- thanks in part to Stella's willingness to take up with any man that strikes her fancy -- and neither Stella nor Teo is entirely happy. In hopes of prodding her into doing something with herself, Teo gives Stella a gift -- an airline ticket to Los Angeles. In California, Stella finds a job in an upscale restaurant and soon begins making her way through a new batch of men; while she still enjoys picking and choosing from the many romantic prospects who cross her path, Stella finds herself becoming emotionally involved with George (John Heard), the owner of the dining room where she works. But is she willing to settle into the same sort of consistency in her love life that she's enjoying in her professional life? The supporting cast includes Karen Black, who also contributed to the screenplay; Mark Mothersbaugh composed the original score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1997
This psychological thriller is helmed Russian director Rodion Nakhapetov, who also fills a cameo role in the film. Traci Lords stars as Kelly Bekins, a recently widowed mother who takes her six-year-old son Matthew (Seth Adkins) to the motel where her scientist husband Joseph (Daniel Roebuck) was murdered while working on a top-secret AIDS cure. There, Kelly and Matthew meet the motel manager (Michael J. Pollard) and a janitor, Bubba (Tony Todd), who seems to be keeping a protective eye on them. To Kelly's surprise, Joseph's best friend and colleague Michael (Andrew Heckler) also appears at the motel seeking answers. When Matthew begins having psychic visions of his father's death, Michael suggests that he see a psychiatrist, Dr. Kessler (Karen Black), but she's involved in a complex scheme involving Joseph's killing and the sale of his research to the Russian Mafia. When Matthew's visions lead him to suspect that Michael's responsible for his father's death, the boy runs for help to Bubba, who turns out to be an FBI agent. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Traci Lords, Andrew Heckler, (more)
In this drama, a much-older banker embarks upon a forbidden love affair with an adolescent girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Samuel Bottoms, Lisa Eichhorn, (more)
- 1996
- R
Set in a future in which the media has become nearly omnipotent, this violent and gory crime thriller blurs the thin line between life and art while commenting upon the insanity of those who would do anything for fame. The trouble begins when unemployed actor Bobby is hired to play a serial killer on a crime reenactment television series. Wanting to fully understand the killer's motivations, Bobby begins researching the crimes and even gets helpful police officers to furnish the grisly details of recent murders. By the show's taping, Bobby has become an expert. Soon afterward, Bobby becomes a star, something that delights the real culprit and inspires him to go on to even more lurid, headline-grabbing crimes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Baldwin, Pete Postlethwaite, (more)
- 1996
- R
- Add Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering to QueueAdd Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering to top of Queue
This fourth installment in the horror saga bears little resemblance to Stephen King's original tale. Unlike the third episode, which was set in Chicago, this one is again set in a small Nebraska town where a medical student notices that the local kids are all ears when it comes to the words of a mysterious preacher who seems to encourage them to murderously stalk the adults. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Naomi Watts, Karen Black, (more)
- 1995
This low-budget sci-fi feature attempts to satirize life in Salt Lake City, UT, and begins as a young woman locates a strange bronze plate beneath the Great Salt Lake. As she tries to unlock its secrets, she discovers that it is part of a UFO conspiracy based on actual Mormon doctrines. The aliens turn out to be intergalactic sex fiends who want to take over the Earth. Fortunately, the heroine has help from assorted crazy characters who work together to save the planet. The title has little to do with the film, nor is it really related to Edward D. Wood Jr.'s awful classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1995
A doctor returns to her home island off the Mississippi coast in the wake of 1969's Hurricane Camille and ends up trying to solve the mystery of a traumatized, teenage foundling in this brooding character study. Dr. Dorie Walsh has returned to take over the island clinic, which, like many of the island's buildings, has been destroyed by the storm. Her reunion with her cold, distant mother is not joyful. The mystery begins when someone brings her an unconscious 15-year-old girl. If any one in the biologically close-knit Southern community knows her identity, the aren't telling. Dr. Walsh begins running various tests on the girl, whom she names after the hurricane, but after very little results she begins suspecting the girl is a wild child who has had little or no human contact. Her continued search into the mystery of Camille leads Walsh down many puzzling paths and into encounters with some fairly sinister local characters. In finding out the painful, surprising truth about Camille, Dr. Walsh is forced to come to terms with the traumas from her own past. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Henry Jaglom is a filmmaker who was a pioneer of the independent film movement long before it had a name. Jaglom began his Hollywood career in the mid-Sixties as an actor, but in 1971 he wrote and directed his first feature film, A Safe Place, which starred his friends Orson Welles and Jack Nicholson; it was an offbeat, personal work which received mixed reviews, setting a standard that many of Jaglom's future works would follow. After A Safe Place bombed at the box office, Jaglom began making films on tiny budgets which he often released himself, allowing his actors plenty of room to improvise and often dealing with women's issues in an intense and emotionally compelling manner. Jaglom has a significant cult of admirers, and a number of notable actors work with him at a fraction of their usual salaries, but his eccentricity and knack for self-promotion has rubbed a few people in the movie business the wrong way, and while some critics regard him as a singular talent, others consider him an overbearing con artist. Both Jaglom's supporters and detractors get a chance to air their opinions in Who Is Henry Jaglom?, a documentary about the filmmaker which offers a look at his movies, his life before and behind the camera, and the actors and craftspeople who've worked with him and have their own stories to tell. Jaglom himself is also extensively interviewed, and contributes a wealth of footage from his archives. Who Is Henry Jaglom? includes interviews with Candice Bergen, Karen Black, Dennis Hopper, Andrea Marcovici, Sally Kellerman, Martha Plimpton and many more. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Bare breasts abound in this black comedy that centers on a crooked plastic surgeon and abortionist and his nurse/lover who run the shady American Beauty Institute. There the two entice young women to come as patients. The patients are then killed and sent to the sicko Morganfeller, the richest man on the planet with a taste for necrophilia. The two use the money he pays them to help restore the Bulgarian king to his throne. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1993
- R
In this strange but ambitious gender-bending road movie, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Saltarrelli) and Leslie (Ginger Lynn Allen) are bisexual lovers who also have other relationships. To Leslie's chagrin, Elizabeth can't keep herself from running off with a good-looking guy every once in a while, but Leslie is the one with real problems. Her husband Steve (Chris Mulkey) is a brutal thug who beats her, treats her like dirt, and whose idea of sex would better suit most people's idea of rape. Leslie claims that she loves Steve and is too dependent on him to leave him. When Steve discovers that Leslie is involved with Elizabeth, he forces her to break off her affair, but Elizabeth decides that Leslie needs to get away from Steve, not her. Enlisting the help of her friend Cliff (Chris Denton), who has been on the verge of suicide since he discovered his wife is cheating on him, Elizabeth kidnaps Leslie and takes her to a combination dude ranch, deprogramming center, and rehab facility run by Carla (Karen Black), where they hope to wean Leslie away from Steve and get her on a healthier path with Elizabeth. This film was Ginger Lynn Allen's bid for mainstream respectability after a stint in adult films and a long string of exploitation movies. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ginger Lynn Allen, Karen Black, (more)
- 1993
- NR
After a terrible hurricane ravages a tropical island, a young doctor discovers an autistic child wandering about. This touching drama follows the doctor's attempts to help her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kathleen York, Karen Black, (more)
- 1993
Back when he died in 1900, William Marsh Rice was a Texas gazillionaire, having donated the funds to start the Rice Instittute (later known as Rice University) in Houston. In this movie, based on the director's stage play, when a suspicious will turns up on the occasion of Rice's death, the Texas Secretary of State (Sam Bottoms) investigates it. It soon appears evident that the chief beneficiary and the rich man's butler conspired to make up a false will prior to the butler poisoning the old man. In the sensational trial which resulted, expert testimony about handwriting was accepted in court for the first time. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Samuel Bottoms, Karen Black, (more)
- 1992
- PG
This youth-oriented actioner centers on a 17-year-old boy whose exceptional video-game-playing ability leads him to become a rookie spy with a mysterious organization that assigns him to get a mysterious package to Los Angeles ASAP. En route, the youth finds himself entangled in a deadly terrorist plot involving his dangerous package. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corey Haim, Brigitte Nielsen, (more)
- 1992
Remember when Karen Black used to be in A-list pictures like Nashville and The Great Gatsby? If you're a diehard Black fan, keep those earlier triumphs in mind while watching Auntie Lee's Meat Pies. Borrowing elements from Sweeney Todd and Motel Hell, the film casts Black as a resourceful baking entrepreneur. Just what gives her meat pies that special flavor? With the help of a quartet of former Playboy Playmates, our heroine "collects" handsome young men to feed into the grinder. If the star, title and premise doesn't whet your appetite, consider that Auntie Lee's Meat Pies also stars two comedy icons of yesteryear: Pat Paulsen and Huntz Hall! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1992
- R
Because of her thieving new husband, a young woman is thrown into jail where she is harassed by fellow prisoners and by the warden. Before long, hubby gets a chance to take on the identity of a guard so he can help her escape. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1992
- R
In this drama, a renegade Los Angeles priest, Father Daniel Tyrone, must return to his gang-land roots to prove himself innocent of killing a stripper. His investigation leads him to the seamy underbelly of the pornographic film industry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1992
- R
This melodrama follows the attempts of a good-hearted LA judge who tries a member of the Loco gang for the murder of two rivals. A young boy is talked into providing the key evidence to convict the gang member. Unfortunately, during the trial, fellow gangsters burst in and gun down the defendant. Now the judge knows something must be done to reform the system. She also tries to save the life of the young boy who testified and finds that both their lives are in jeopardy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1992
- PG13
Rubin & Ed is Trent Harris' off-the-wall buddy movie about two mismatched geeks on a quest to bury a frozen cat. Rubin Farr (Crispin Glover) is a shy, reclusive loner who lives in his mother's hotel. He'd much rather sit in his bedroom listening to Mahler, playing with his squeaky-mouse, than go outside. His mother has other plans, however, and one afternoon she decides to pull the plug on Rubin's eccentric behavior. She demands that he go out and make at least one friend. Rubin capitulates, and after a somewhat half-hearted search, he finds Ed Tuttle (Howard Hesseman, in one of his best performances). Ed is a divorced, middle-aged loser enrolled in a self-help/ get-rich-quick organization called PPR: Positive Power through Real Estate. Ed agrees to have dinner with Rubin and his mother if Rubin agrees to attend a PPR training seminar. All goes as planned for both, until Ed opens the freezer and discovers Rubin's dead cat. The unlikely pair then embarks on an hallucinatory quest through the Utah desert in order to find the perfect spot to bury Rubin's cat. Though at first mutually disgusted by each other, Rubin and Ed eventually learn how to become friends. Karen Black is superb as Ed Tuttle's annoying ex-wife Rula, as is Michael Greene as PPR magnate Mr. Busta. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Howard Hesseman, (more)
Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as Buck Henry, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and Alan Rudolph, who is hawking a Bruce Willis action film described as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, (more)
This stylish chiller tells the grim tale of a sleeping vampire, Czakyr, who is inadvertently awakened when his ancient crypt beneath a church is flooded. At the same time, Cindy and Lucy, two teenage girls, prepare to go to college. Cindy is only visiting the town while Lucy is a local. Just before they go, the girls must go for a late night dip in the flooded crypt as this is a local rite of passage. Unfortunately, Lucy's cross falls from her neck and the blood-thirsty Czakyr attacks her while Lucy escapes. Later Father Frank Aldin informs his pal Mark Garnener, a teacher, that Cindy has become a vampire and has made her mother Karen a bloodsucker too. Frank has captured the two and locked them in a room. He feeds them on blooded leeches. Mark decides to investigate this wild claim and with Lucy returns to her home town and finds that most of the residents have become Czakyr's minions. They capture the two invaders, but the two manage to get away. The town drunk, piloting a religious van, picks up the fleeing couple and takes them to an abandoned lumber mill. That night Cindy visits Lucy and asks her to help destroy Czakyr. Lucy has already killed her mother. The next morning Mark and the drunk find that Lucy has disappeared. They race to town to save her and embark upon their final confrontation with the evil bat man and in the end, good does indeed triumph over evil but not before much blood is spilled. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter DeLuise, Ami Dolenz, (more)
In this thriller, the owner of a popular health spa is forced to go into hiding because he knows that a prominent (and corrupt) congressman, who is running for a seat in the Senate, is responsible for the death of his friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Wings Hauser stars in this direct-to-video thriller as John Saxon, an L.A. cop who learns that the head of a counterfeiting plot is the same man who rescued him from certain death in Vietnam. Also titled Blood Money. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wings Hauser, Karen Black, (more)
