Michelle Burke Movies

In this bittersweet comedy-drama, Olympia Dukakis plays Dotty, a woman with extreme agoraphobia. Dotty's condition has prevented her from leaving her house for the past 20 years, but just before her husband Hiram (Andy Griffith) died, he made Dotty promise that she would scatter his ashes near Cathedral Rocks, a mountain range in New Mexico where Dotty and Hiram used to vacation before her agoraphobia set in. One night, Hiram appears to Dotty in a vision and reminds her that she hasn't made good on her deathbed promise to him, telling her that he won't know true peace until his ashes have been scattered according to his wishes. Realizing she has to make good on her promise, Dotty steels herself for a long voyage as she leaves her home for the first time in two decades. Produced for television, Scattering Dad was first aired on the CBS television network on May 27, 2001.
~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A reporter tries to balance his loyalty to friends with his personal integrity in this drama. Martin (Timothy Hutton) is a newspaperman from Detroit who has just published a book on organized crime. Doc (Joe Pantoliano), his close friend, has low-level connections to the Mob, and helped him get much of the information. While working on a story, Martin meets Sara (Michelle Burke), an exotic dancer with a complex story. He and Sara find themselves attracted to one another, and a romance grows between them, but Sara is angered when Martin uses deeply personal details of her story in one of his columns. After Martin promises Sara he'll never again betray her confidence, Doc approaches him with an offer -- a movie studio has expressed an interest in Martin's book, and Doc is having a cash-flow problem that's put him in debt to Mob loan sharks. Why not make Doc the producer on the movie so he can make some quick money and pay off the thugs? While Martin weighs the wisdom of this course of action, a studio chief tells Martin he's interested in his recent column about the stripper; if he can integrate the story into his book, they're certain to make a deal. The Last Word also stars Richard Dreyfuss, Chazz Palminteri, Cybill Shepherd, and Roma Downey. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

"The Coneheads" were a sketch on the Saturday Night Live television show of the late '70s which were expanded to feature-length proportions with this film. The story concerns Beldar (Dan Aykroyd) and Prymaat (Jane Curtin), who leave the planet Remulak to prepare for an invasion of Planet Earth. But due to a malfunction, they find themselves plunged into the Hudson River and forced to take up residence in Paramus, New Jersey where Beldar gets work as an appliance salesman and makes a deal for a phony social security card. Before long, all thoughts of invading Earth are left behind as Beldar and Prymaat quickly adapt to suburban life -- except for their coneheads and metallic-sounding voices, they become a typical middle-class suburban family. The Coneheads have a child, Connie (Michelle Burke) and Beldar becomes a New York cab driver and starts up his own driving school. Connie grows into a teenager and a neighborhood boy, Ronnie (Chris Farley), develops a crush on her because he likes to rub her conehead. But a nefarious INS agent, Gorman Seedling (Michael McKean), and his toady assistant, Turnbull (David Spade), are hot on The Coneheads' trail because of Beldar's false social security card. Not only that, but the Remulakian Highmaster (Dave Thomas) is beginning to wonder what ever happened to Beldar's invasion of the third rock from the sun. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi