Lainie Kazan
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Getting home early, Beverly Hills wife Michelle Halaburton (Lyndie Benson) catches her husband Dustin (Harry Hamlin) in bed with her best friend Allie (Joanne Baron), who works at Michelle's favorite beauty salon. Not long after this, Michelle and Allie embark on a life of crime. At the beauty salon, Michelle sees how to get access codes to homes of the salon's wealthy patrons. During the break-ins that follow, the two collect cash, art, and jewelry. Their haul escalates until the wrong house at the wrong time could lead to their downfall. Surprised by the spoiled son (James Wilder) of one of their victims, they capture him, tie him up, and try to devise a way out of the situation. Shown at the 1997 Hollywood Film Festival. Bhob Stewart
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Call them "Grumpy Old Goodfellas," old mobsters who trade in their rods for a retirement home. Fast-talking Richard Dreyfuss is the nominal leader of the quartet of retired Jersey wiseguys, and thick-headed softy Dan Hedaya, silver-haired lady's man Seymour Cassel, and Burt Reynolds, an enforcer with a pacemaker, round out the group. When their Florida apartment house threatens to go condo with young, upscale tenants, they flex their creaky muscles and scare off investors with a devious bit of mob theatrics. Their success spirals out of control, and soon they're up to their toupees in blackmail, murder for hire, a homicide investigation by a cop who just may be Dreyfuss's character's long-lost daughter (Carrie-Anne Moss), and a mob war with a Hispanic drug lord. Jennifer Tilly costars as a scheming stripper, and Lainie Kazan is terrific as a brassy widow.
The script, by Kingpin cowriter Barry Fanaro, flirts with leering sexual humor and outrageous gags while turning unrepentant killers into a cute and cuddly bunch of snappy-dressing codgers. Leave it to director Michael Dinner to transform that into a warm, sweet, good-natured film that explores the way the aged lose dignity in their later years and celebrates the strength of four guys who draw on their skills, their courage, and their spirit to take their dignity back. --Sean Axmaker
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Garry Marshall's 1988 drama about a 30-year friendship between two women, one wealthy (Barbara Hershey) and the other (Bette Midler) seeking her fortune in show business, is well written (based on the novel by Iris Rainer Dart) and nicely textured in its contrast between the characters' separate destinies. When Hershey becomes ill with cancer, the film takes a predictably sentimental course, yet Marshall brings out the best in both actresses and catches some very fine drama. The film is a little too long, perhaps, but overall it is a fine experience. --Tom Keogh --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
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This typical but well-made action movie, which spawned numerous sequels, means to combine the best elements of the disaster movie with the hard-boiled attributes of traditional action-adventures. When a plane is hijacked to the Middle East by Palestinian terrorists, the Pentagon calls into action the Delta Force, an elite squad of highly trained commandos led by tough guy mainstay Lee Marvin and karate-action-star Chuck Norris. Their mission is simple: to thwart the terrorists and rescue the hostages, and the plot concentrates largely on just that, as the team uses its experience and fighting skills to get the job done. Its sometimes preachy patriotic bent occasionally gets in the way of the action, and Norris is a one-dimensional figure who at times takes himself too seriously, but his rapport with easygoing veteran Marvin moves the film over some implausible rough spots. While not a groundbreaking contribution to the genre, Delta Force impresses with its straightforward tough-guy style. --Robert Lane.
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This love letter to the golden days of live television in the 1950s is a thinly veiled depiction of Your Show of Shows, the groundbreaking comedy show that starred Sid Caesar. The story, set in 1954, focuses on one of the writers for the show (Mark Linn-Baker), who is given the task of chaperoning that week's guest star, a famously ill-behaved movie star named Alan Swann. He's based on Errol Flynn and played with Oscar-nominated glee by Peter O'Toole. He also happens to be the writer's movie hero, but proves to be a hilariously drunken party animal, one who opens the naive young writer's eyes in a variety of ways. The highlight of the film is Swann's visit to the writer's outer-borough home and his encounter with the writer's star-struck mother (a delightful turn by Lainie Kazan). One of the better films directed by former actor Richard Benjamin. -Marshall Fine
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At first glance, What's Cooking? looks like it was dreamed up by some politically correct screenwriting committee: a series of overlapping stories that intercut among four families (one Hispanic, one Vietnamese, one African American, one Jewish) all preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. But what could be toothless and smarmy is made gripping and genuinely affecting by a mixture of observant writing, fluid direction, and a truly superb ensemble of actors, including Mercedes Ruehl, Alfre Woodard, Joan Chen, Julianna Margulies, Kyra Sedgewick, Dennis Haysbert, and a host of less well known but just as capable others. The script is a marvel of orchestration: small annoyances blossom into fierce conflicts, secrets are deftly revealed, and sanctimoniousness is subtly punctured. The acute but sympathetic portrait of family stress and tension is layered with quiet observations about race and class, as well as the capacity for tolerance and forgiveness. It's recently become a cliché to have characters express themselves through food (examples include Soul Food, Big Night, and Eat Drink Man Woman), but What's Cooking? turns food into a witty exploration of culture as everyone prepares their turkeys in entertainingly different ways--this is not a movie to watch on an empty stomach. Warm without false sentiment, What's Cooking? is deeply enjoyable. --Bret Fetzer
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