Sid Levin Movies

T.T. (Dennis Christopher), a Midwesterner, has traveled to the beaches of California for a dose of the surfin' life. He believes that the people he finds there are glamorous and knowledgeable. They reject his Midwestern nerdiness, make fun of him, and generally give him a hard time for not fitting in and wanting to. However, eventually he figures out that they are no wiser than he is, and that their lives are surprisingly empty. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this sentimental coming-of-age drama, directed by Richard Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) and written by Mark Medoff (Children of a Lesser God), Whoopi Goldberg plays Clara Mayfield, whom Leona Hart (Kathleen Quinlan) meets up with in Jamaica, where Leona retreats to mourn the death of her baby daughter. Leona comes from a rich Maryland family and she leaves her husband, Bill (Michael Ontkean), and her young son, David (Neil Patrick Harris), back in the States in order to achieve some personal healing. She tells Clara she is in mourning and Clara responds knowingly, "I knew the fact, but not the substance." Hearing this kind of cryptic Charlie Chan-like aphorism, Leona can't resist Clara and hires her as her maid, taking her back with her, like a pet, to Maryland. "Come meet the most wonderful person," she tells her husband, and, to be sure, Clara is out-of-this-world wonderful, and since David's self-absorbed parents are neglecting him for their own private flirtations and obsessions, Clara takes up the slack and becomes, in effect, David's family. Clara dispenses worldly advice and has him spend weekends with her in the inner-city Jamaican community, where David learns how the other half lives. But just as David is letting his guard down and permitting Clara to become his 30-year-old buddy, Clara reveals a chilling past life that includes rape, incest, and suicide. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A man trained for a life of excitement and danger is given a new and unexpected challenge -- minding a grouchy old woman -- in this comedy. Doug Chesnic (Nicolas Cage) is a Secret Service agent who takes great pride in his job, performing his duties with the utmost professionalism and always minding the details. However, his assignment for the last three years has been a severe test of his patience; Tess Carlisle (Shirley MacLaine) is the widow of a former U.S. president who is well-known for her diplomatic and philanthropic work, and Doug has been in charge of her security force. But Tess tends to regard Doug less as a security officer and more as a domestic servant, like her chauffeur Earl (Austin Pendleton) or her nurse Frederick (Richard Griffiths). While Doug regards it as beneath his professional dignity to perform little chores around the house or bring Tess her breakfast in bed, she orders him to do so, and he's in no position to say, "no." Sometimes, Tess even refuses to obey Doug's security instructions, and should he argue his point too strongly, Tess will contact her close friend, the President of the United States, and ask him to give Doug a severe dressing down. So when Doug's three year hitch with Tess comes to an end, he asks to be given a more exciting and challenging assignment. However, Tess has other ideas; she's decided that she likes working with Doug, and she demands that his assignment be made permanent. Director Hugh Wilson also provides the voice of the President. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

John Ritter plays an unsuccessful actor who takes a job posing as comic-book hero Captain Avenger at comics stores and conventions. While thus garbed, Ritter foils a grocery store robbery. He skedaddles from the scene when the cops show up, leading witnesses to assume that he is a genuine costumed superhero, the sort that shows up to foil the villains and then modestly retreats after his job is done. Ritter is hired by the mayor's staff, who hope that the Captain Avenger tie-in will help the mayor win an upcoming election. This plan comes acropper, and Captain Avenger finds himself on the outs with the public. Prodded by his girlfriend Anne Archer to be himself and not rely on a costume and mask to gain adulation, Ritter becomes a bonafide hero when he rescues several citizens from a fire. Thanks to the enthusiastic performance of John Ritter, Hero at Large remains amusing even when you know what's going to happen next (a common occurrence in this film). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This movie is about Joe Cocker's 1970 U.S. tour which began in Detroit and ended in San Bernardino California. The bulk of the film is concert footage with studies of backstage life, life on the road, and a brief interview with a hard-core groupie. Joe Cocker is also a featured performer in the movie of the concert Woodstock, which came out at about the same time as this movie. His hoarse singing style, especially in rock ballads, closely resembles that of Rod Stewart, but his curious spastic gestures and un-selfconscious earnestness as a performer are uniquely his own. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Bill Murray teams up with his biggest co-star to date (with the exception of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man) in this family-oriented comedy. Jack Corcoran (Bill Murray) is a motivational speaker who makes his living advising others how to tie up the loose ends of their lives, but he has plenty of his own left dangling. Jack is emotionally at the mercy of his mother (Anita Gillette) and his fiancée Celeste (Maureen Mueller), while his booking agent Walter (Jeremy Piven) keeps promising him bigger and better things that don't materialize. Jack has grown up believing that his father died before he was born while trying to rescue a drowning child, but he learns that was not the case at all -- Dad spent a long career working as a circus clown, and died only a few weeks ago. However, Dad was kind enough to bequeath Jack a large stack of debts and his only tangible asset, an Indian elephant named Vera (Tia). Jack is in no position to keep a pachyderm at home, and he has two options for getting rid of the animal -- sell Vera to Terry (Linda Fiorentino), a mean spirited animal trainer, or donate her to Mo (Janeane Garofalo), a zoologist who hopes to return her to the wilds. Either way, Jack has to get Vera from the East Coast to California, and in order to make an important speaking engagement, he and the elephant have five days to cross the country. Larger Than Life also features Matthew McConaughey as an excitable truck driver; Keith David, Harve Presnell, and Pat Hingle also highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this British thriller, an aristocratic, wealthy and snobbish Englishwoman who is addicted to heroin falls for an American student who tries to help her kick her deadly habit. Meanwhile, narcotics-officer Stringer is determined to find the pusher, who has been sexually involved with her daughter, Sandy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

"You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets; you do it at home. The rest is bulls--t, and you know it." Returning to the autobiographical milieu of his 1968 debut Who's That Knocking at My Door? for his third feature, Martin Scorsese examined the daily struggles of a wannabe hood to keep his morals straight on the streets of Little Italy. Driven equally by his wish to become a respectable gangster like his uncle (Cesare Danova) and his desire to live his life like St. Francis, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) takes on his energetically unhinged friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) as his own personal penance, intervening to get Johnny Boy to pay off a debt to the local loan shark Michael (Richard Romanus). Despite his promises to his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson) that they will move out of Little Italy once he strengthens his position in his uncle's world, Charlie's involvement with Johnny Boy further ensnares him in the neighborhood. When Johnny Boy decides to mouth off to Michael rather than pay him, Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Teresa try to flee Michael's murderous anger (and an assassin played by Scorsese), forcing Charlie to realize that the rules of the streets do not mesh with absolution. Whereas fellow "film school generation" director Francis Ford Coppola transformed the Hollywood gangster movie into metaphorical epics about the Mafia and capitalism in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Scorsese revised the genre in the opposite direction, focusing on the gritty minutiae of daily life and drawing from personal memory. Combining documentary-style realism (even though most of the film was shot in L.A.); kinetic editing and camera movement; and expressionistic lighting, angles, and film speed, Scorsese presents an intimate picture of the trivial incidents and latent violence of Charlie's and Johnny Boy's world, naturalistically unfolding their experiences rather than simply explaining what motivates them. They lead a claustrophobic, petty existence that Scorsese and screenwriter Mardik Martin witnessed growing up in Little Italy, complete with a soundtrack of hit songs like "Be My Baby" and "Jumping Jack Flash" that had poured out of neighborhood radios. Mean Streets opened at the New York Film Festival to excellent notices and played strongly in New York but failed to duplicate that level of business elsewhere. Even so, Mean Streets established Scorsese and De Niro as formidable young talents and marked the beginning of a long-running and fertile collaboration that continued in such films as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), and Goodfellas (1990). Scorsese's exceptional grasp of the texture of day-to-day life, the rhythm and cadences of street talk, and cinema's visual and aural possibilities makes Mean Streets one of the pivotal films of the 1970s, as well as of Scorsese's career, and an influence on such future filmmakers as Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, among many others. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Norma Rae finds Sally Field cast in the title role, a minimum-wage worker in a cotton mill. The factory has taken too much of a toll on the health of Norma Rae's family for her to ignore her Dickensian working conditions. After hearing a speech by New York union organizer Reuben (Ron Leibman), Norma Rae decides to join the effort to unionize her shop. This causes dissension at home when Norma Rae's husband, Sonny (Beau Bridges), assumes that her activism is a result of a romance between herself and Reuben. Despite the pressure brought to bear by management, Norma Rae successfully orchestrates a shutdown of the mill, resulting in victory for the union and capitulation to its demands. Based on a true story, Norma Rae is the film for which Sally Field won her first Oscar; an additional Oscar went to David Shire and Norman Gimbel for the film's theme song, "It Goes Like It Goes." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this British thriller, an aristocratic, wealthy and snobbish Englishwoman who is addicted to heroin falls for an American student who tries to help her kick her deadly habit. Meanwhile, narcotics-officer Stringer is determined to find the pusher, who has been sexually involved with her daughter, Sandy. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Part 2, Sounder was the sequel to the 1973 filmization of William H. Armstrong's novel Sounder, with the same scenarist (Lonnie Elder III) but with a different director (Graham) and releasing company (Gamma III). Still set amongst Depression-era black sharecroppers in Louisiana, Part 2 features Harold Sylvester and Ebony Wright stepping into the roles originated in first film by Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson. They're still struggling against poverty and prejudice, but have now been given a ray of hope by activist teacher Anzanette Chase (taking over from first film's Janet McLachlan). Her school is closed down by the white landowners, who don't want the "coloreds" to get too "uppity." The sharecroppers band together to build their own school, so that their children can learn to create a better world. Musician Taj Mahal is back from the first film, doubling in a supporting role and providing the musical score. Originally designed as a made-for-TV movie, Part 2: Sounder was redirected to theatres instead. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Cicely Tyson ages from 19 to 110 in the role of Jane Pittman, a fictional African-American woman whose life began in slavery and ended at the inception of the Civil Rights Movement. Northern journalist Quentin Lerner (Michael Murphy) travels to the racially polarized south of 1962 to interview Ms. Pittman for a potential book. Her life unfolds in flashbacks, many painful and unpleasant, but just as many are uplifting and hopeful. Based on the novel by Ernest J. Gaines and filmed on location in Baton Rouge, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman won nine Emmy Awards, including Best Actress (Tyson), Director (John Korty), and Screenplay (Tracy Keenan Wynn). The film premiered January 31, 1974, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi