Courtney Brown Movies
- 1994
- PG13
When your dog, bird, or water-dwelling mammal disappears, who do you call? Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey) is a low-rent private eye who specializes in recovering lost animals, so when Snowflake, the Miami Dolphins' aquatic mascot, is kidnapped, team representative Melissa Robinson (Courtney Cox) puts Ace on the case. However, Snowflake isn't the only Miami Dolphin who has gone missing; several key members of the team also disappear, including quarterback Dan Marino (who plays himself), who is spirited away while filming a TV commercial. With the Super Bowl only two weeks away, will Ace be able to find Snowflake and the missing athletes in time to salvage the big game? Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was a surprise box office smash and catapulted manic comedian Jim Carrey to stardom. The supporting cast includes Sean Young as ill-tempered Lois Einhorn, Udo Kier as the sinister Ronald Camp, and rapper Tone Loc as Ace's detective pal Emilio (Loc also wrote and performed a song for the closing credits). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Carrey, Courteney Cox Arquette, (more)
Abby (Lori Loughlin) and her brother, Loren (Shannon Presby), seem to have it all: good looks, lots of friends, and a great relationship with their loving mom and their heroic, discipline-minded military dad. When their folks are killed in a car crash, however, the siblings must move to small-town Florida to live with their sweet but cash-impaired Uncle Charlie (Ed Jones) and Aunt Fay (Lucy Martin), who own a gas station and a struggling, bargain-bin amusement park. For Abby and Loren, life in the Sunshine State proves to be a mixture of hard work, new faces, and harassment at the hands of drug-dealing, skirt-chasing local scion Dutra (James Spader) and his gang of trailer-park psychopaths. Dutra places a bet with the wiry, reptilian Gideon (John Philbin) about which of the young villains will be able to bed Abby first, leading to a series of increasingly vile sexual come-ons. Abby, however, has other romantic ideas involving a kindly boy named Mark (Eric Stoltz). Between bouts of defending his sister's honor, Loren finds a similarly wholesome romance with pretty, blond Karen (Paige Lyn Price). With the help of these new friends, Loren and Abby make some headway in the local social hierarchy, but their skirmishes with Dutra and his minions escalate, climaxing with attempted rape, kidnapping, and bumper-car violence on the night of a high-school dance. Director Sean S. Cunningham also directed the original Friday the 13th. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shannon Presby, Lori Loughlin, (more)
- 1984
- R
In this mindless movie aping the 1960 hit about teens out for sun, surf, and sex, the "boys" are at the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida -- the destination of thousands of U.S. university students on their spring break and the destination of the four female protagonists here. After arriving, Jennie (Lisa Hartman) has to decide whether she really cares for Camden (Daniel McDonald), a nerdy musician, or the jock Scott (Russel Todd); Carole (Lorna Luft) has been unexpectedly followed to Lauderdale by a boyfriend; Sandra (Wendy Schaal) falls in love with a cop when she is arrested; and Laurie (Lynn-Holly Johnson) is simply out for a good time with anyone, or everyone. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lisa Hartman, Russell Todd, (more)
Sand, surf, sun, and sex alternate in this bikini-clad movie about student lemmings heading to the sea at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the moment the last test is taken (and sometimes before). This time, Nelson (David Knell) and his three friends get into various types of innocent trouble while Nelson tries to evade his overbearing stepfather. Wet T-shirt contests vie for attention with bikini and He-shirt contests and a Playboy centerfold, but other than a fairly standard venting of pent-up energy, there is not much else to remember about this Spring Break. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Knell, Steve Bassett, (more)
- 1976
- G
Ray Tracey plays Joe Panther, a young Seminole Indian who is ambivalent toward the white world. Although he has achieved some recognition as an alligator wrestler, he seeks the wisdom of an old chieftain in his efforts to understand the white society he finds himself in. However, Turtle George (Ricardo Montalban) dispenses advice to the young man. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Keith, Ricardo Montalban, (more)
- 1976
Vietnam vet Richard Jaeckel sets out to aid his shark friends when he discovers they're being exploited by aquarium owners in this film, also known as Mako: The Jaws of Death. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Jaeckel, Jennifer Bishop, (more)
- 1975
Ricou Browning, the Olympic swimmer best known as the man inside the suit of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, directed this amazing bit of weirdness which could only have been a product of the cinematically insane 1970s. Richard Jaeckel stars as a Florida policeman tracking a gang of heroin dealers led by evil fatcat D'Angelo (Lloyd Bochner), who naturally has his hooks into everything, including the corrupt police captain (John Agar). There are drag queens, barroom brawls, shootouts, and the usual mayhem, but what makes this film particularly noteworthy is its central hitman, Lou. He has no legs and travels in a motorized wheelchair decked out with double-barreled shotguns. Lou is also strong enough that when he isn't blasting people with his killer wheelchair he can swing around on his arms and use his legless torso to bludgeon people into submission. Rance Howard plays Lou's trusty sidekick, and the film co-stars an African-American dwarf, accomplished stuntwoman Courtney Brown (who gets in a fairly flamboyant catfight), and Flipper's Luke Halpin, who was in the tawdry Mako: The Jaws of Death -- also starring Jaeckel -- at around the same time). Bizarre but oddly lovable, this is entertainingly loopy grindhouse trash emblematic of the days when Times Square showed the nation's strangest films at triple-feature theaters in which the audience was often more disturbing than the mayhem onscreen. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Steve Grayson (Elvis Presley) is a swinging racecar driver whose manager Kenny (Bill Bixby) has bet his money on the horses. Most of the horses didn't win, causing Steve to be visited by IRS agent Susan Jacks (Nancy Sinatra). Gale Gordon plays Hepworth, her stuffy supervisor, and William Shallert has the role of Abel Esterlake, former racecar driver who helps Steve on the track. Steve engages in the stock-car races at the Charlotte Speedway to get back the money to keep him and his manager out of jail. Presley delivers 11 songs, the most notable being "Let Yourself Go." Elvis by now was just playing out the innocuous string of movies that his musically insensitive, cigar-chomping manager Colonel Tom Parker had contracted for him. Soon Elvis would undertake the most successful live comeback by any performer in history and leave these trashy features behind. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elvis Presley, Nancy Sinatra, (more)
- 1966
Comedian Soupy Sales makes his feature film debut in this silly outing as a janitor cleaning up at Cape Kennedy. He has been specially assigned to make sure that none of the nuclear warheads there get dusty. It's not easy because spies run around spreading dust. One day the janitor stumbles into an experiment and ends up with some very strange abilities: he can fly and women cannot stay away from him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Soupy Sales, Tab Hunter, (more)
- 1965
A film crew arrives in Coral Key to shoot the underwater scenes for a horror movie. But the real monster turns out to be more of the green-eyed variety, when young Bud Ricks (Tommy Norden) becomes jealous -- the film cast includes a pretty young actress (Wende Wagner), who not only manages to infatuate Bud's older brother Sandy (Luke Halpin) but also Flipper, which leaves the boy feeling left out and very resentful. Between Bud's unhappiness, and the recklessness of the director (Jack Carr), a near-disaster takes place underwater, with potentially tragic consequences for the dolphin and several members of the film crew, including the "monster" (Ricou Browning). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
This 1964 sequel to the 1963 box-office hit Flipper is unnecessarily melodramatic at times, but at least it isn't a cookie-cutter imitation of the original. Suzy the Dolphin returns to the "male" role of the superintelligent Flipper, while Luke Halpin reprises the role of Sandy Ricks. This time, Flipper rescues a British family in the Bahamas, who are being held for ransom. Brian Kelly takes over from the first film's Chuck Connors as Ranger Porter Ricks, a role he'd continue to play in the long-running (1964-67) Flipper TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luke Halpin, Pamela Franklin, (more)
