This time-capsule film from 1971 is a perfect example of having one's cake and eating it, too. Written and directed by filmmaker Tom Laughlin--and starring him in the title role--Billy Jack concerns a half-white, half-Indian karate expert who protects a free school built on principles of pacifism by kicking hell out of pesky rednecks.
Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page star in this tense psychological drama of love and betrayal. During the Civil War a wounded Union soldier is sheltered by the headmistress and students of a girls' academy in the South. As his health returns his desire increases, but can he trust these enemy women to not turn him in? He takes his chances but soon realizes that his benefactress can't be trusted... with his love or his life!
The 1988 sequel to one of the most successful movies of all time finds Eddie Murphy reprising his role as Detroit police detective Axel Foley, and once again playing a fish out of water as he tries to solve a series of heists in Beverly Hills that may be connected to the attempted murder of his friend, a Beverly Hills police captain (Ronny Cox). Constructed in a much flashier and faster-paced visual style than the first film, the song still remains the same as Foley tries to keep his job in Detroit while solving crimes for the Beverly Hills cops.
While its sequels were formulaic and safe, the first Beverly Hills Cop set out to explore some uncharted territory, and succeeded. A blend of violent action picture and sharp comedy, the film has an excellent director, Martin Brest (Scent of a Woman), who finds some original perspectives on stock scenes (highway chases, police rousts) and hits a gleeful note with Murphy while skewering L.A. culture. Good support from Judge Reinhold and John Ashton as local cops not used to doing things the Detroit way (Murphy's character hails from the Motor City).
While vacationing in Rio, a befuddled older fellow finds himself involved in a comedic affair with the teenage daughter of his best friend. Michael Caine is perfect as the man in a doubful marriage, who is hit on suddenly by his best friend's daughter, Jennifer, played by the voluptous and pretty Michelle Johnson. Caine's chemistry with Joseph Bologna (who can portray the archetypal cynic as well as anyone) gives the film enough comic thrust to overlook the somewhat pedestrian performances of some of the other principal actors. Overall, it's a great movie to look and laugh at.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas documents in rousing song and dance a new Texas Legend, which now joins the Alamo as a historical institution immortalized in story, song, book, play and movie. The demise of the real life Chicken Ranch inspired the musical stage play, and now the big screen version stars Burt Reynoldsias Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd and Dolly Parton as the Chicken Ranch's proprietress, Miss Mona. The two join together not only in romance, but to fight big city TV crusader Melvin P.
The bizarre world you met in 'Planet of the Apes' was only the beginning... What lies beneath may be the end! In an effort to find the missing astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston), James Fransiscus goes on a rescue mission to the planet of the apes. Using the information he receives from the ape village that Taylor escaped from, Brent locates him in an underground fortress in the forbidden zone guarded by telepathic humans.
Oscar winners Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson lead a stellar cast that includes Sir Laurence Olivier, Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson in this action-packed adventure bursting with sensational battles, raging storms and intensity as powerful as the mighty sea itself! Bristling with commanding performances, blazing dialogue and "superb action scenes" (Los Angeles Times) this "spectacular movie" (New York Magazine) is "everything a high-adventure fan could want" (Variety)!
This shaggy-dog fable barely drew fleas when it arrived in the winter of 1986. Now critics refer to it as a winning, offbeat classic. What took 'em so long? Probably the fact that director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) and screenwriter Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) were chasing something very elusive: a cockeyed, scatological look at delayed glory. Robin Williams plays Jack Dundee, a meek bank VP in Taft, California, who daily relives the humiliation of a bobbled pass in the game against Bakersfield.
Devotees of Neil Simon's repartee, such as in his Goodbye Girl and Brighton Beach Memoirs, will enjoy this earlier tale of domestic dispute between newlyweds. Corie (Jane Fonda) is the young housewife trying to keep life exciting while making a home for her and her husband, Paul (Robert Redford), on the fifth floor of a Greenwich Village walkup apartment. He's working hard at starting his career as lawyer; she's eager to be romantic and spontaneous; and the two have plenty to squabble about.
