Robert Elswit Movies

Based on Kate Chopin's moving novel The Awakening, and set in the early 1900s, this drama chronicles the struggle of a young wife to escape the oppressing conventions of society and live life to the fullest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast October 9, 1983, Tiger Town was the first feature film made specifically for the Disney Channel cable service. Roy Scheider stars as a veteran Detroit Tigers right fielder, whose chances of getting into at least one World Series before retirement diminishes with each Tigers loss. Scheider's biggest fan is preteener Justin Henry, so devoted to baseball that his mother wakes him up each morning by playing "The Star Spangled Banner." Recalling the words of his late father--"If you really believe deep in your heart, there's always hope and you can make it happen"--Henry closes his eyes and "wills" Scheider to hit a winning home runs. Wham! It works! Thereafter, Henry shows up at every game, convinced that the Tigers will lose if he doesn't "will" a few homers from the bleachers (indeed, whenever Henry is absent, the Tigers tank). A crisis develops when it appears as though Henry will not be on hand for the deciding pennant game between the Tigers and the Orioles. Beautifully acted and directed for the most part (the scene in which Henry learns of his father's death is particularly well-handled), Tiger Town falls apart about ten minutes before the ending, when it degenerates into a standard "Disney movie," complete with a destructive slapstick chase. Otherwise, Tiger Town, the maiden directorial effort of Alan Shapiro, is a first-rate baseball picture, one of the best of the genre. Watch for cameo appearances by ex- "Supreme" Mary Wilson, Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, and sportscasters Ernie Harwell, Ray Lane and Al Ackerman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this flat attempt at comedy by the director of the Police Academy series, Neal Israel, a brash Dana Cannon (John Murray, brother of Bill) lands in a crooked re-education school for delinquent drivers, run by Deputy Halik (James Keach, brother of Stacey). The objective is to lord it over the miscreant drivers sent to the school (wrongly given citations and tickets by cops out to fill a quota, according to opening sequences) and make some money in the bargain. Deputy Halik has already decided to flunk out anyone in his classes, with the objective of impounding their cars and then auctioning off the vehicles to the highest bidders. Dana, the irrepressible new student, manages to unite the other put-upon drivers at the school into a single, determined faction -- and trouble quickly brews. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Director Donna Deitch makes a strong impression in her first feature film, a simple story of a lesbian love affair, based on Jane Rule's 1964 novel Desert of the Heart. Helen Shaver stars as Vivian Bell, an uptight 35-year-old Columbia University professor who travels to Reno to get a divorce. She arrives in Reno on her way to Frances Parker's (Audra Lindley) ranch, where she is staying to establish six weeks of residency in order to obtain the divorce. Once at the ranch, Vivian catches the fancy of Frances's adopted daughter Cay (Patricia Charbonneau), a casino worker ten years younger than herself. Vivien tries to remain unruffled as Cay makes unabashed overtures to her. Cay thinks that all Vivian needs is the love of another woman, and soon enough the two are in each other's arms. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The Children of Times Square are alienated and disenfranchised kids from all over the country. With nowhere to go and no real purpose in life, they converge on the streets of New York, totally vulnerable despite their outward toughness. Howard Rollins plays a ruthless cocaine dealer who, in the tradition of Fagin, wins the confidence of many of these kids and organizes them into a criminal gang. The film traces the "recruitment" by Rollins of two teenagers, runaway Brandon Douglas and New Yorker Danny Nucci. Joanna Cassidy plays Douglas' mother, who desperately tries to free her son from Rollins' influence. Made for TV, Children of Times Square debuted on March 3, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This made-for-cable thriller stars Powers Boothe as a former policeman whose son (C. Thomas Howell) has fallen prey to a band of white supremacists. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

This made-for-cable biopic originally went out under the simpler title Margaret Bourke-White. Farrah Fawcett stars as the famed photojournalist, whose work for Life magazine from 1936 onward gained her worldwide celebrity. The best scenes, showing the dauntless Bourke-White (Fawcett) at work in the most grueling and perilous of situations, are all too fleeting. The filmmakers evidently believed that the audience would be more intrigued by Bourke-White's stormy relationship with her husband, novelist Erskine Caldwell (played with a fluctuating Southern accent by Frederic Forrest). The film's chief assets are the well-focused performance of Farrah Fawcett, and the lensed-on-location sequences in Louisiana and Moscow. Margaret Bourke-White premiered over the TNT cable channel on April 24, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set at a Southern college during the 1950s, three co-eds (Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen and Phoebe Cates) re-assess their values in light of the burgeoning civil rights movement. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Successful LA marketing analyst Michael Boll (James Spader) seemingly has it all-except a sense of self-confidence. Enigmatic drifter Alex (Rob Lowe) enters Michael's life and immediately begins to exert a negative influence. As Michael's self-esteem zooms (aided by generous dollops of sex and drugs) he allows himself to be dragooned into a life of crime by the demonic Alex. The "doppelganger" aspects of Bad Influence, and the film's many unexpected twists and turns, echo films of Alfred Hitchcock, especially Strangers on a Train. The film's boldest stroke is to cast the likeable Lowe as the bad guy (albeit a charming one) and the often villainous Spader as the malleable milquetoast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Matthew Lawrence plays an 11-year-old boy whose life is torn asunder by the divorce of his parents. John Ritter plays Lawrence's doctor father, who finds himself with only one day to make amends to his estranged son. Complicating matters are the divergent emotions of Lawrence's mother's new husband, and his father's new wife. Though the title would suggest that Ritter is forced to mature, it is in fact Lawrence who comes of age before the final fadeout. The Summer My Father Grew Up was first telecast March 3, 1991, where it lost the ratings war hands-down to a rerun of RoboCop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This made-for-cable women-in-prison film is an anthology collecting three short subjects. In the first, a pregnant inmate (Rae Dawn Chong) must seek protection from a gang; in the middle film, a prisoner tries to keep her family from following her lead into a life of crime; and in the closer, a killer (Lolita Davidovich) facing parole is loathe to leave the security of life behind bars. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Graham Swift, this drama follows the past and present crises of schoolteacher Tom Crick (Jeremy Irons), who attempts to resolve the problems in his own life and the apathy of his students by relating stories of his troubled childhood in the English Fens (a marshy region in Britain). ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Debra Winger's performance as a slow, mentally disturbed woman in A Dangerous Woman, raises the film far above its conventional, violence-ridden plot. Winger plays Martha, a quiet, lonely woman who has adjusted to a life without a man as she toils away at her small job at a dry cleaners in a small town. She lives in the guest cottage of the home of relative Frances (Barbara Hershey). Frances is a single woman who takes up with a variety of men as a cover for her loneliness and insecurity. When Anita (Laurie Metcalf) barrels her car into Frances' porch (thinking, correctly, that her husband is inside Frances' house), alcoholic handyman Mackey (Gabriel Byrne) appears on the scene and offers to fix Frances' porch. As Mackey works on the porch, Mackey becomes involved with both Frances and Martha. Into this melodramatic brew is added Getso (David Strathairn), a petty crook who works with Martha at the dry cleaners. When the four principles interact with each other, the disturbing results include an unwanted pregnancy, a murder, and some unsparing violence. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide