Jeff Prettyman Movies

The big-screen debut of country singer George Strait is a familiar tale of a star returning to his roots, a route traveled the same year by John Mellencamp in Falling From Grace (1992). Strait plays Dusty Chandler, one of the hottest performers in country music. Dusty feels that his elaborate stage show is overwhelming his music, a suspicion confirmed one night when he forgets several bars of a chart-topping hit and his fans don't even notice. Disillusioned, Dusty tells his manager Lula (Lesley Ann Warren) and best buddy Earl (John Doe) that he's taking a break. After shaving his beard and cutting off his ponytail, Dusty heads for the small farm town where he grew up, visiting his wise old grandmother (Molly McClure) and ending up at the ranch of the Tucker family, where nobody recognizes him. He becomes a hired hand, earning the respect of owner Ernest (Rory Calhoun) and falling in love with Ernest's daughter Harley (Isabel Glasser), a woman determined to save the struggling spread with victory in a Las Vegas rodeo. When Dusty learns that Lula has secretly replaced him onstage with her boyfriend (Kyle Chandler), he stages a showdown that wins Harley's affections. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In this Western based loosely on actual events and people, Emilio Estevez stars as William H. Bonney (aka Billy the Kid). Sought for a petty crime in Lincoln County, Billy is taken in by John Tunstall (Terrence Stamp), a British ranch owner seeking to make it in the cattle business. Tunstall employs a group of "regulators," comprised of wayward youths he's gathered over the years, to watch over his ranch; in turn, he teaches them how to read and reforms them into better men. Tunstall's business interests come into conflict with those of corrupt and murderous businessman Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance), whose widespread connections make him a power to be reckoned with. When Tunstall won't budge from his right to pursue a living, Murphy's henchmen stage an ambush and kill him. This triggers a vow of vengeance from the quick-tempered Billy and his five fellow regulators, who are deputized to serve arrest warrants in the murder. However, when Billy decides to gun down the suspects instead of detaining them, his loyal pals become accessories in a vigilante spree to wipe the territory clean of Murphy and his web of conspirators. Soon, the supposed lawmen are on the run from bounty hunters, henchmen, and government soldiers, from all directions of the compass. This box-office hit also stars Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

In this actioner, an auto engineer and an auto racer become romantic rivals when they fall for the same wealthy socialite. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The "boys next door" are Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen), typical California teens freshly graduated from high school. Daunted by the prospect of the real world, the boys decide to go on one last fling in L.A. But it's not all clean, wholesome fun; in fact, Caulfield and Sheen launch their weekend bash by beating up a gas-station attendant, throwing a glass bottle at an old woman, and murdering gay-bar patron Chris (Paul C. Dancer). Somewhere along the line, Bo becomes repelled by their violence spree, but Roy seems to be sexually aroused by all the misery he's causing. And so it goes, without real rhyme or reason, until the bloody denouement. Director Penelope Spheeris later helmed Wayne's World, The Little Rascals, and The Beverly Hillbillies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The performers, attitudes, and music of late '70s, early '80s Los Angeles punk scene are documented in this film by director Penelope Spheeris. Not merely a compilation of concert footage, The Decline of Western Civilization compiles numerous viewpoints on the meanings of the punk movement, from journalists -- one of whom calls punk the folk music of the 1980s -- to club security guards, to the punks themselves. The center of the film, however, is the music, which is fast, loud, and abrasive and often played with purposeful ineptitude; the lyrics are intentionally controversial and shocking, often seeming to embrace violence, sexism, racism, and even Nazism, though usually in an ironic manner. The performances, by bands such as Black Flag, X, The Circle Jerks, and Fear, are mostly shot from within the audience, where the camera often becomes an unwitting participant in the crowd's slam dancing. Especially fascinating are the performances by The Germs, thanks to the antics of their violently self-destructive lead singer Darby Crash, who would later die of a drug overdose and gain a martyr status within the punk community. The film was followed several years later by a sequel focusing on the world of heavy metal. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide