Robert M. Fresco Movies

Documentary filmmaker Ron Mann joined Hollywood actor/hemp activist Woody Harrelson as the thespian traveled up the West Coast preaching the merits of natural, organic living, the result of which is Mann's 2003 film, Go Further. In 2001, Harrelson and a group of friends and other like-minded individuals hopped on bicycles -- accompanied by a psychedelically decorated bus converted to run on hemp-seed oil -- and thus created the SOL (Simple Organic Living) Tour. Along the way, the actor made many stops which ranged from speaking at college campuses to meeting up with 1960s counter-culture guru Ken Kesey (who died not long after). The SOL group encountered a number of people that also lead pro-ecological ways of life, as well as some other folks that were just as skeptical or hostile toward the neo-hippies. Go Further premiered at the 2003 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

Immediately after the devastating assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2002, for the first time in history all American airspace was closed to airline traffic. This 60-minute TV special recounts the experiences of American travelers whose planes were forcibly rerouted to Newfoundland, stranding 44,000 passengers in a variety of tiny, far-flung Canadian communities. At first angry over the inconvenience and delay, most of the Americans ended up gratified by the unstinting kindness and hospitality of their Canadian hosts. The special not only details this spontaneous largesse, but also chronicles the lasting friendships forged during the five traumatic days following the terrorist attack. Based on a book commissioned by the Canadian government, Stranded Yanks: A Diary Between Friends was broadcast in the U.S. via PBS, as part of that network's coverage of the first anniversary of 9/11. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rob Fresco directed this astoundingly bizarre thriller featuring one of the more unusual psycho killers of recent years, Gary Burghoff, best known as Radar O'Reilly from the film and TV series M*A*S*H. As the demented Fleck, Burghoff gets to kidnap children from shopping malls and resell them to their parents, sleep with young boys, slash people to death with a razor, and have sex in a chair with a buxom female victim. As if that weren't reason enough for all fans of extreme cinema to hunt this film down, Burghoff gets to wear women's clothes as elderly fortune-teller Lady Esmerelda Zolotov, whose suicidal roommate (Alan Popper) gets shot by police while running around naked. The Exorcist's Jason Miller shows up as a wino, Playmate Rebecca Ferratti is the wife of the investigating cop (Fred Carpenter), and New York Daily News editor Tom Poster appears as one of Esmerelda/Fleck's henchmen. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

This Canadian documentary explores the life in exile of musicians from South Africa, Chile, and Cuba. Among those featured are the musical group Quilapayun and trumpeter Hugh Masekela. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Though aimed at those fastidious comic book collectors who spend exorbitant sums for old DC first editions (only to leave them unread and wrapped in plastic), Comic Book Confidential manages to convey the fanaticism and fun of this hobby to non-aficionados. Canadian director Ron Mann traces the history of the comic book industry, the idiotic purging of so-called violent comics in the 1950s, and the growth of the collectibles industry. Throughout the film, any comic book which does not meet Mann's exacting standards is trashed (Dell and Harvey, beware!) Among those interviewed are Marvel Comics mavens Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and EC mentors William M. Gaines and Will Elder. The underground "comix" movement is represented by Robert Crumb. Though he clearly loves comics, Ron Mann might have more successfully conveyed this with fewer clever camera angles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A maverick Big Apple cop sets off on a deadly pursuit of his two murderous brothers after they bomb a series of banks. He must hurry, for they are threatening to explode more banks if they aren't paid a fortune in ransom. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Director Ron Mann has put together readings by 24 different poets (after filming a total of 60 writers reciting their works), and then has poet and author Charles Bukowski verbalize "everyman's" criticisms of poetry: it is boring, irrelevant, self-indulgent, and does not make much sense. Then he counterpoints these statements with dynamic, entertaining, and inspiring works by poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Leroi Jones, Anne Waldeman, Helen Adams and 20 others. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this futuristic film, an extreme shortage of gasoline drives the government to deny citizens the right to own vehicles. A special force is put together to destroy these illegal cars, but one unbalanced member of the force (Alex Diakun) doesn't bother to remove the drivers before he torches the vehicles. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

O'Farrell (Bob Hope) is a navy sergeant who tries to boost the moral of the men by bringing in a shipment of beer. When the beer turns up missing, he calls an all-out search for the suds. In the process, O'Farrell captures a Japanese submarine single-handedly and tries to pilot the boat to safety. Phyllis Diller stars as the nurse who does absolutely nothing for troop moral in this uneven and poorly conceived comedy. Gina Lollobrigida and Jeffrey Hunter also star in the feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In 1907, the brilliant physicist Albert Abraham Michelson won the Nobel Prize for developing the optical precision instruments which made it possible for his fellow scientists to measure light waves. According to Bonanza scriptwriters Robert Fresco and Paul Rink, the German-born Michelson spent his youth in Virginia City, Nevada, where he was a student in the classroom presided over by the stern and merciless Mr. Norton (William Schallert). When young Albert (Douglas Lambert) is designated as a "problem child" and expelled from school, Ben Cartwright tries to find out why. Originally telecast March 18, 1962, "Look to the Stars" also features Joe De Santis and Penny Santon as Albert's hard-working immigrant parents Samuel and Rosalie Michelson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man with a strangely misshapen face wanders out of the desert near a small town and falls to the ground dead. The county sheriff (Nestor Paiva) tentatively identifies the dead man as Eric Jacobs, a laboratory assistant to Professor Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), a research scientist living a few miles out in the desert. But there's something strange about Jacobs; his facial features and bodily extremities are distorted to a point where he's barely recognizable. The sheriff calls in Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar), the local physician, who makes a diagnosis of acromegalia, a glandular disorder that affects the body's growth. He also tells the sheriff that it can't possibly be acromegalia, because symptoms as pronounced as those he sees in this case take years to develop, and the man was in perfect health just three months earlier. Hastings refuses to believe the professor's account of Jacobs' rapid deterioration, but the sheriff takes the word of the scientist. Back in his laboratory, Deemer continues his work, going over tests of a chemical on various animals, all of which are jumbo-sized, including guinea pigs the size of rabbits, baby mice the size of full-grown rats, and a tarantula three feet long. Suddenly, the professor is attacked by his assistant (Eddie Parker), whose face and hands are distorted in the same manner as Jacobs, and who injects the helpless scientist with the experimental chemical before collapsing dead. A fire starts during the attack and in the confusion, the tarantula's glass cage is broken and it escapes the burning laboratory, wandering out into the desert. Weeks go by, and a new assistant, Stephanie "Steve" Clayton (Mara Corday), arrives to begin work for the professor. When Hastings gives her a ride to Deemer's home, the scientist explains to the doctor that he's been working on a radioactive nutrient, that, if perfected, could feed the entire world's population. He also says that Eric Jacobs made the mistake of testing the chemical on himself and it caused the disease that killed him. Hastings and Steve begin a romance, unaware that wandering around the desert is the tarantula from Deemer's laboratory, now grown to the size of an automobile and getting bigger with each passing day. Soon livestock and then people begin disappearing, and the sheriff is at a loss to explain any of it, or the one clue left behind in each case: large pools of what seems to be some kind of venom next to the stripped skeletons of the victims. Hastings takes some of the material in for a test; meanwhile, Steve notices that Deemer is going through some bizarre changes. His mood has darkened and his features now appear to be changing, as the acromegalia, caused by the injection, manifests itself. Hastings learns that one of the professor's test animals was a tarantula, which was presumed destroyed. When he learns that the pools near the deaths are composed of spider venom -- equivalent to what it would take many thousands of spiders to generate -- he's certain that the tarantula from the laboratory survived. By this time, the title creature is bigger than a house and ravaging the countryside, killing everything in its path and knocking down power lines and telephone poles as it moves. Hastings arrives just in time to rescue Steve from the attacking creature, which destroys Deemer's house and kills the professor. The sheriff and the highway patrol are unable to slow the creature, now the size of a mountain and moving at 45 miles an hour, even with automatic rifle fire, as it follows the road through the desert toward the town. Even an attempt to blow it up with dynamite fails when the monster walking right through the blast. Finally, the creature is poised to attack the town, when jets scrambled from a nearby Air Force base (led by a young Clint Eastwood, barely recognizable behind an oxygen mask) swoop in. When rockets fail to divert the monster from its path, the jets roar in for a second pass and drop enough napalm to incinerate the creature. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide