Peter Harris Movies

Happy, Texas is a fish-out-of-water comedy about two con men who escape from prison, then pose as gay lovers to hide out in a small Texas town. Mistaken for consultants to the Little Miss Fresh Squeezed Beauty Pageant, Harry (Jeremy Northam) and Wayne (Steve Zahn) go along with the ruse so they can stake out the local bank, owned by Josephine "Joe" McClintock (Ally Walker). The story kicks into high gear as Harry starts falling in love with Joe but cannot let on about his feelings. Also complicating matters is that gay Sheriff Dent (William H. Macy) has the hots for Harry, and Harry must pretend he's interested to keep the cops off his back. Meanwhile, Wayne is getting in touch with his feminine side as he tries his best to teach dance steps and flaming baton twirling to the little girls; he's also lusting after the girls' teacher, Ms. Schaefer (Ileana Douglas). Everything leads up to the big beauty pageant, where the cops are finally on Harry and Wayne's tail. First-time director Mark Illsley received wide media attention for this commercial piece, which sold to Miramax after a very public and intense bidding war. Steve Zahn's performance won him a special acting award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, where the film premiered in dramatic competition . ~ Arthur Borman, Rovi

Three male teenaged layabouts and their slightly older friend contemplate livening things up a bit with a theft. When they discover that the shop they were to rob has a new alarm system, all but one of the kids decides to give the robbery a pass. The one kid who goes ahead is caught, and sentenced to reform school. Meanwhile, the other guys talk about crimes they could commit, several of them seek dates with local girls, and not much happens. There are complicated friendships and loyalties among the boys, which change when the fellow put into reform school gets out. Ultimately, the older chap astonishes everyone by declaring his love for one of the lads in the middle of a robbery which everyone is participating in. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Character actor Charles Martin Smith directed this quirky horror film about a dead rock star who wreaks vengeance on a small town. When a rock musician is banned from performing at a high school Halloween dance and ends up perishing in a hotel fire, he vows vengeance on the town and comes back from beyond the grave to obliterate the population. He does this through one of his most rabid fans, the nerdy Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price), a high school outsider. He is such a fan that he plays the rock star's final album "Songs in the Key of Death" in reverse, looking for instructions on how to live his life. The rock star willingly obliges Eddie with helpful hints and soon Eddie is able to face down the high school bullies and gain the attention of an attractive girl. But soon Eddie begins to suspect that the ghost is using him. With the ghost intent on destroying the town, Eddie uses his newfound self-confidence to stand up to the ghost and save the town from destruction. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Saturday Stayback was assembled from the refuse of the failed British sketch-comedy series O.T.T. (Over the Top). Like its undistinguished predecessor, the "new" series was an adult spin-off of the zany children's program Tiswas. Once again, a group of spirited comic performers offered a dizzying blend of skits, standup routines, and scattershot pop-culture satires. Only marginally more successful than O.T.T., Saturday Stayback was seen over Central Television in weekly 45-minute dollops from January 22 to February 26, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi