Alain Silver
A writer suffering from a creative block stumbles into a situation most middle-aged man would envy in this independent comedy-drama from writer and director Gary Walkow. Richard McMurray (Campbell Scott) is a novelist who enjoyed overnight success with the publication of his first book, The Trouble With Dick. Seven years later, Richard is working on his second novel but hates the story more with each passing day, while his marriage to a well-known actress is falling apart. Richard agrees to speak to the class of Diane (Alex Kingston), his former girlfriend who teaches a college literature course and inspired on of his novel's main characters. Spending the day with Diane is the last straw for Richard's wife, and she kicks him out of the house. During his lecture to the class, Richard comes clean about the sad state of his marriage and the fact he has no place to stay that night, and afterward one of the students, Kristin (Izabella Miko), offers Richard the use of the couch at her apartment. Jacqueline (Lizzy Caplan), Kristin's flatmate, is agreeable to Richard's presence, and offers a deal -- both Kristin and Jacqueline are aspiring writers, and in exchange for tutoring and "literary consultation," he's welcome to stay as long as he pleases. Before long, Richard's consultations with his new charges begin taking place in the bedroom, and Jacqueline informs him that she wants him to help her write a sexy novel that will help her become "the post-modern Jacqueline Suzanne." While Richard enjoys the ongoing ménage et trios at first, it doesn't take long for matters to become difficult and even dangerous. A sequel of sorts to Gary Walkow's first feature (called The Trouble With Dick), Crashing also features David Cross and Stephen Gyllenhaal. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Campbell Scott, Lizzy Caplan, (more)
- 2000
Christopher Coppola directs this droll re-working both of Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Paul Morrissey's Heat (1972). Washed up child actor and pizza delivery guy Curson Beeley (Marc Coppola) is taken in by retired TV executive Agnes Fuchs (Barbara Bain). In her estate, Beeley lives a pampered life of luxury while Fuchs quietly tries to resurrect his career. As his television comeback seems more and more likely to happen, Beeley's life becomes complicated on other fronts -- his ex-girlfriend continues to harass him, Fuchs becomes increasingly demanding in bed, and he is plagued by a bizarre outbreak of boils. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Bain, Noah Blake, (more)
William S. Burroughs' ill-fated performance of his "William Tell act" -- resulting in his wife Joan Vollmer getting a bullet in the brain with a shot glass atop her head -- soon became the stuff of Beat legend. This film, directed by Gary Walkow, traces this doomed romance from its inception to its bloody end. The movie opens in 1944 New York, where Columbia journalism student Vollmer is already living a bohemian life filled with pharmaceuticals and a host of future beatniks, including hunky Jack Kerouac (Daniel Martinez), a young Allen Ginsberg (Ron Livingston), and of course, Burroughs (Kiefer Sutherland). Also frequenting Vollmer's pad is Lucien Carr (Norman Reedus) whom everyone is enamored with, especially Dave Kammerer (Kyle Secor), who winds up dead after trying to jump the object of his affection. Seven years later, Joan and William have married in spite of Burroughs' obvious homosexual predilections. Their domestic bliss is strained when the two have to flee to Mexico City after they get slapped with a drug rap. Ginsberg and Carr, now correspondents for the UPI, visit the couple only to discover that Burroughs split town with his lover-for-hire. Vollmer and the boys decide to go on a road trip that is brimming with heterosexual tension. William eventually returns from his sex-binge suspecting that Joan had a fling with Carr. During that fateful night, Burroughs pulls out a gun that he was going to sell for drug money and performs one of the most spectacularly botched party-tricks in literary history. This film was screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Courtney Love, Norman Reedus, (more)
Is it a routine delivery job, or the first stage of the apocalypse? No one is quite sure in Palmer's Pick-Up, a bizarre road comedy from writer/director Christopher Coppola. Bruce Palmer (Robert Carradine) and his pal Pearl (Richard Hillman) run their own small trucking service and are doing none too well, so when they get offered a large paycheck for hauling an huge crate, contents unknown, from California to Florida in time for the millennial New Year's Eve, they leap at the chance. However, the farther they go, the more people are trying to stop them, and they start picking up just enough details from the increasingly bizarre interlopers they encounter en route to wonder if perhaps they're transporting the Devil himself across state lines (after all, Florida is near the Bermuda Triangle ...). Palmer's Pick-Up features a remarkable supporting cast which includes Talia Shire, Morton Downey Jr., Soupy Sales, Alice Ghostley, Rosanna Arquette, Clu Gulager and his sons John and Tom, and Grace Jones in the role of a lifetime as one half of a pair of Siamese twins. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Carradine, Richard Hillman, (more)
In this offbeat western, a gunfighter whose magic gloves allow him to draw his weapon at unheard-of speed seeks revenge against a vicious outlaw who has killed many innocent people. Presented by Francis Ford Coppola, whose nephew directed the film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1993
- R
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me is an offbeat comedy about a criminal (Max Parrish) who shoots his fiancée (Sean Young) during their shotgun wedding, and runs away with her fortune, winding up in a trailer park. As he bides his time waiting for a phony passport, he falls in love with a young woman, who is the sister of a mean, bullying stripper and porno star. After the criminal rejects the overtures of the porn star, she plots her revenge. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adrienne Shelly, Max Parrish, (more)
This sci-fi actioner is set in the year 2074. The story is framed by the war between the two international corporate giants, Pinwheel Robotics and Kobayashi, responsible for manufacturing the cyborgs that 21st century technology has become dependent upon. In fact, most of the world is being run by the sophisticated androids. The conflict turns violent when the Kobayashi cyborgs begin methodically killing their competition. To stop them, the head of Pinwheel, Martin Dunn, creates the perfect computer housed in the body of a beautiful woman. The cyborg, Casella Reese, has a strange fluid flowing within in her that when activated will cause her to literally explode should she have an orgasm; Dunn designed her to infiltrate Kobayashi and assassinate the CEO. The real problems begin when Casella, who is also equipped with human emotions and independent thought, falls in love with her martial arts teacher, Colt Ricks. When she learns of her upcoming suicide mission, she and Colt, with the help of their informer, the cyborg mercenary Mercy, try to reach Mombasa where unlicensed androids can live in peace. Unfortunately, they must first escape their city and the cyborg killers who pursue them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Palance, Elias Koteas, (more)
Sam Grimm (Perry Lang) and his brother Max (Christopher Atkins) stand to inherit the mortuary academy that bears their family name in this black comedy. The two brothers must first graduate, and their progress is monitored by school manager Dr. Paul Truscott (Paul Bartell) and the academy's top lecturer Mary Purcell (Mary Woronov). Truscott is blackmailed when he falls in love with a corpse (Cheryl Starbuck), a beautiful cheerleader who choked to death on popcorn. Dickson (Tracey Walter) is the mechanical wizard whose animatronic expertise brings a dead heavy-metal band back to life for one last encore performance. Co-starring Wolfman Jack and Cesar Romero. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, (more)
A teenager puts his life in jeopardy when he tries to convince authorities that his high school's most unpopular teacher is a murderous Satanist who likes to torture and murder hookers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elliott Gould, Richard Roundtree, (more)
- 1984
Made for cable television, The Ratings Game was directed by Danny DeVito, who co-starred in the film with his wife Rhea Perlman. DeVito plays the owner of a New Jersey trucking firm who yearns for a televison career. He offers several TV-series ideas to a receptive network programming head. On the verge of being fired, the network exec decides to have his revenge on his ex-bosses by selecting the very worst of DeVito's concepts. The "born to fail" series becomes a hit, and soon DeVito is the hottest programmer in the industry! More truthful than many of us are willing to admit, The Ratings Game premiered with astonishingly little fanfare over The Movie Channel cable service on December 15, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, (more)
Two unusual children have a unique solution to the problem of living without a father in this offbeat horror vehicle. Tom Blanchard (Fabian Forte) is the new deputy in a small town along the California coast, and during his first day on duty he gets to know Nora Dennis (Marilyn Burns), who works with the local board of education. Among Nora's chores is looking in on Professor Nicholas (Bill Randa, aka Will Rand), an eccentric widower who home schools his two children, Beth (Nell Regan) and Michael (Patrick Regan III), but when Nora is unable to get in touch with Nicholas, she wonders if something is afoot. Nora's suspicions are well founded -- a handful of renegade bikers invaded the Professor's property, and one killed him during an argument. However, we soon discover why Nicholas was raising his children on his own -- Beth and Michael possess telekinetic abilities, and are able to use their powers along with spells from their late dad's books on the occult to re-animate father's corpse and make him do their bidding. Director Patrick Regan cast his children Nell and Patrick III as the telekinetic youngsters in what proved to be their only screen roles. Kiss Daddy Goodbye has also been released as Caution, Children At Play, The Vengeful Dead and Revenge Of The Zombie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1981
- PG
This painfully dull Alien parody pits an inept spaceship crew against a mutating, one-eyed walking manure pile that grows out of an organic lump they obtained on a remote planet. When the token mad scientist (Patrick Macnee, whose hammy performance provides one of the film's few real laughs) determines that the creature's lethal attacks on the crew are only a self-protective fear reaction, he casts aside what few ethics he might have had to keep the crew from frying it. Since the entire crew (led by Leslie Nielsen) are blithering idiots, they fail to realize the creature's true intentions until Macnee hooks it up to a voice synthesizer, through which it performs the lovely soft-shoe number "I Want to Eat Your Face" (providing the film's other real laugh). Those expecting Airplane!-style antics from Nielsen will be sadly disappointed by his deadpan performance. Written and directed by Bruce Kimmel, who previously worked with co-star Cindy Williams in The First Nudie Musical. Enough said. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cindy Williams, Bruce Kimmel, (more)
