Zalman King Movies

Produced and directed by French Left Bank giant Agnès Varda as a summation of her long and enduring career, Agnès' Beaches constitutes a free-floating essay film. It is comprised of various elements that collectively pay homage to Varda's past -- including clips from the director's features, dramatically reconstructed moments from Varda's life, and elaborate, almost baroque monuments created onscreen to symbolize specific ideas and concepts -- such as an opening scene with a number of individuals setting up mirrors of various shapes and sizes on a great beach, and an enclosure lined, from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, with film strips from Varda's only cinematic flop, the 1969 feature Les Creatures. Varda uses beaches throughout the narrative as a recurring structural motif to convey her progress from one stage of life to another, while the freedom of form on display here recalls a similar approach on display in earlier Varda works such as the 1991 Jacquot de Nantes. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Brooke Burke is not just a top model and television personality, she's also the designer and marketing braintrust behind a new line of swimwear, and this documentary follows Burke and a crew of equally gorgeous models to Miami and Belize, as they work on creating catalog photos for Burke's sexy beachwear. Barely Brooke also finds Burke and her pals taking time out to explore the sights, relax, and offer us a glimpse of this busy woman's hectic lifestyle as she balances several careers with parenthood and marriage. Director Zalman King also contributes several dazzling fantasy sequences. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Three tales of unusual erotic delights are brought together in this home video release, which collects episodes from the popular Showtime series Red Shoe Diaries. In "Temple of Flesh," a married couple want to do something different to celebrate their anniversary. They meet up with an uninhibited man and woman who indulge in a sexy escapade in their limousine, which prompts the marrieds to expand their own sensual boundaries. A woman finds herself transfixed by a muscular masked wrestler in "Juarez." And in "The Farmer's Daughter," a young woman who helps tend her father's vineyard discovers a ruggedly handsome bicycle rider she's had her eye on has been injured in a traffic accident. She brings him home to patch his wounds, and as his broken bones heal, he becomes enamored of her wholesome sensuality. Anya Longwell, Neith Hunter, and Irina Grigorieva star in these three episodes; David Duchovny narrates. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Zalman King directed this tale of an international quest for the perfect wave by three professional surfers -- Shane (Patrick Shane Dorian), Mickey (co-scripter Matt George), and Keoni (Matty Liu). Starting in the South Seas, they head to Madagascar, Bali, and Hawaii, experiencing a series of adventures and misadventures, from 40-foot waves, to the girl from Ipanema -- all captured by the camera of cinematographer John Aronson with "special water photography" by Sonny Miller. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

The experiment of a doctoral student that utilizes a video camera causes a release of sexual inhibitions in herself and her study subjects. ~ Rovi

An outwardly successful woman teeters on the brink of emotional collapse in this psychological drama. Evelyn Stevens (Tilda Swinton) is a skilled and well-regarded attorney who is being considered for a prestigious judicial appointment. However, she's plagued by self-doubt and neurotic obsessions (the "perversions" referenced in the title), including an obsession with expensive clothes and cosmetics, lingering fears about her relationship with her lover John (Clancy Brown), an exaggerated sense of competition with the new lawyer in her office, and an intense sexual curiosity about Renee (Karen Sillas), the psychiatrist who has just moved into her building. Evelyn is forced to put her own problems on hold for the moment when she learns that her sister Madelyn (Amy Madigan), a Ph.D candidate struggling to complete her doctoral thesis, has been arrested again for shoplifting. In time, the two sisters realize that they have to come to terms with the psychic damage inflicted upon them in their childhood. Female Perversions was based on the best-selling novel by Louise J. Kaplan. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This Brazilian film, which presents the dilemma of impoverished Brazilian street kids, is a strange mixture of social commentary and soft-core eroticism. It is particularly interesting in that it has no named director and is actually compiled from several other sources. They include a Brazilian film "Boca de ouro", a local documentary, and clips from "Wild Orchid." The basic plot is based upon the filmed report of JJ, a U.S. TV reporter, who describes her experiences in Brazil. She tells how she and her ex-lover Reb, a photographer, were searching for the truth about the death-squads roving around slaughtering street urchins. She ends up interviewing gold toothed Boca, a vicious crime lord from the slums, who battles the businessmen behind the killings. They have the children killed because they drive away potential customers. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

All poor Blue really wants is to be a regular, suburban Southern California teen from the 1950s, with a boy friend and lots of normal friends. Unfortunately, Fate has other plans. This erotic drama (related to it's predecessor in name and director only) chronicles her experiences. Blue's father is a heroin-addicted jazz musician and her estranged mother is a hooker. The trouble begins when her father, Ham, runs out of heroin and gets too upset to play. Blue procures him a fix, but when he learns that she sold herself to the club owner to get it, he drops dead of shock. Blue continues working at the club, but she is no great shakes in the sex department and the club owner sells her to an upscale brothel that caters to high-ranking government officials. On one of her days off, she meets a handsome young man outside a church. Josh is everything she dreams of, clean-cut and kind. Unfortunately, she cannot tell him of her true profession and they must separate. Blue is despondent and makes a lousy call girl. To try and liven her up a bit, a senator hires her for a private gang bang. He films the festivities, but fortunately, just before she is raped by the depraved politicians, her chauffeur, Sully, who has become her friend, rushes in to save her and they leave town. Eventually they end up in Josh's town. She and Josh fall in love. Unfortunately, the irate madame has come looking for her. To break them up, she show's the young football captain the politician's video-tape of his girlfriend in action. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Soft-core drama czar Zalman King, creator of such erotic fictions as 9 1/2 Weeks (1986), Two Moon Junction (1988), and Wild Orchid (1990), directed this tale of doomed romance that served as the feature-length pilot for a long-running cable television series. David Duchovny stars as Jake Winters, an architect and city planner preparing to wed his fiancee, successful interior designer Alex (Brigitte Bako). What Jake doesn't know, however, is that the guilt-stricken Alex is carrying on a torrid affair with a macho construction worker and part-time shoe salesman named Tom (Billy Wirth). Torn desperately between her two lovers, Alex chronicles the relationships in her diary. After she commits suicide, a despondent Jake discovers the eye-opening journal and has a violent confrontation with Tom that leaves neither man with much emotional resolution. In an effort to understand women and his own grief, Jake places an anonymous advertisement in newspapers, encouraging women to confess their erotic secrets to him through the mail, and setting the stage for Red Shoe Diaries, the series. Although he was soon famous as the male lead in The X-Files, Duchovny honored his agreement with King to star in the adult series, appearing in wrap-around segments at the beginning and end of each episode. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Zalman King wrote and directed this soft-core Harlequinesque Romance that plays like Tennessee Williams meets Fredericks of Hollywood. April Delongpre (Sherilyn Fenn) is the daughter of a powerful senator and heiress to an old and respectable Southern family. April is engaged to marry the granite-handsome Chad Douglas Fairchild (Martin Hewitt) within a few days. But Chad has gone to Tuscaloosa to sign papers for their condo and the rest of the family has headed off to the lake, leaving April in the house alone with nothing to do except take long and languid showers--until she sets her eyes on the pecs of carnival roustabout Perry (Richard Tyson). Soon the two are making tasteful love in every nook and cranny of April's mansion. Unfortunately for the two sexual athletes, April's grandmother (Louise Fletcher) has assigned the local sheriff (Burl Ives) to keep an eye on her. And an eye on her he keeps, so that during the wedding ceremony, he has quite a story to tell. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Sky diver Clare (Ellen Barkin) wakes up disheveled and almost naked in Spain. She has left her husband Del (Martin Sheen) in Death Valley in order to find her former lover Augustine (Gabriel Byrne). She may have committed a murder, or it may all be fantasy. This film, directed by Mary Lambert is odd, confusing and sometimes downright laughable, full of preposterous plot twists and ridiculous symbolism. The plot makes little sense, and Lambert, while showing great visual style, has little concern for character or plot. It is never clear whether the mysterious visions that Claire experiences are memories or simply plot devices, and Clare's continued pursuit by a taxi driver with rusty teeth who keeps trying to rape her is ludicrous. Good performances by Barkin and Byrne, and a nice musical score by Miles Davis do nothing to save this pretentious, silly film. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Based on a true story, Endangered Species stars Robert Urich and JoBeth Williams. Urich plays vacationing ex-cop Ruben Castle, while Williams portrays Harriet Purdue, a small-town sheriff. Intrigued by Purdue's investigation of a rash of cattle mutilations, Castle begins following the evidence trail himself. What has been attributed to a religious cult or extraterrestrials by the locals turns out to be a covert operation conducted by a corrupt cartel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi