Art Evans Filmography

Young Cesar

Actors: Clifton Powell, Dominic Daniel, Sam Sarpong

Synopsis: An incarcerated father is forced to stand by and watch as his two young sons struggle to survive on the streets in a gritty urban drama starring Clifton Powell and Sean Blakemore. Ali Dean is a failed father, and now he will bear witness as his failure threatens to turn into an endless cycle of Read More

After All

Actors: Holly Robinson Peete, D.B. Woodside, Kelli Shanygne Williams, Mike Warren, Hattie Winston

Synopsis: One of the first feature-length productions from Black Entertainment Television's Arabesque Films, After All was based on the same-named novel by Lynn Emery. Having single-handedly yanked herself out of the ghetto, ambitious TV anchorperson Michelle Toussaint (Holly Robinson Peete) is determined Read More

Always Outnumbered

Actors: Laurence Fishburne, Bill Cobbs, Natalie Cole, Bill Duke, Laurie Metcalf

Synopsis: Michael Apted (Gorillas in the Mist) directed this Walter Mosley script adaptation of Mosley's short story collection, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Ex-con Socrates Fortlow (Laurence Fishburne) returns to L.A., looks for work, becomes friends with Right Burke (Bill Cobbs), is told he's too Read More

Metro

Actors: Eddie Murphy, Michael Rapaport, Michael Wincott, Carmen Ejogo, Denis Arndt

Synopsis: Eddie Murphy once again finds himself exchanging both wisecracks and gunfire in this comic action-thriller. Scott Roper (Murphy) is a hostage negotiator with the San Francisco Police Department; Roper has his own way of doing things, which doesn't always mean following department proceedure, but Read More

The Great White Hype

Actors: Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Berg, Damon Wayans, Jon Lovitz, Corbin Bernsen

Synopsis: Boxing is more than just a sport -- it's also a business and a con game in this satirical comedy. Rev. Fred Sultan (Samuel L. Jackson) is a shrewd boxing promoter and manager whose meal ticket is heavyweight champion James "The Grim Reaper" Roper (Damon Wayans), a fighter whose skill and Read More

Tales From the Hood

Actors: Clarence Williams III, Joe Torry, Corbin Bernsen, Wings Hauser, Anthony Griffith, Michael Massee

Synopsis: Boyz N the Hood meets Tales from the Crypt in this alternately horrific, funny, and socially conscious anthology film. The four grim vignettes are framed by the tale of three street hoods who break into Mr. Simm's inner-city funeral home to find a stash of drugs. The mortician puts them off, by Read More

Bushwhacked

Actors: Daniel Stern, Jon Polito, Brad Sullivan, Ann Dowd, Anthony Heald

Synopsis: Poor Max Grabelski doesn't have any luck at all. What little he had runs out when local racketeers set the bungling delivery man up to take the fall for their money-laundering schemes. Sure enough, when the government agents arrive, he is found holding a package filled with loot. Not only that Read More

Bitter Harvest

Actors: Patsy Kensit, Stephen Baldwin, Jennifer Rubin, Adam Baldwin, M. Emmet Walsh

Synopsis: When the call went out for a Baldwin, Stephen answered and was cast in the lead of Bitter Harvest. Patsy Kensit and Jennifer Rubin costar as a pair of oversexed young ladies who get their jollies by victimizing their male lovers. Wide-eyed Baldwin, in need of emotional aid and comfort after the Read More

CB4: The Movie

Actors: Chris Rock, Allen Payne, Deezer D, Chris Elliott, Phil Hartman

Synopsis: Comedian Chris Rock stars in this scattershot satire of rap music in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap. This film within a film begins with A. White (Chris Elliot) screening a rough cut of a documentary he has made of the notorious CB4 rap group -- consisting of group leader Albert, also know as MC Read More

Trespass

Actors: Bill Paxton, Ice-T, Bill Sadler, Ice Cube, Art Evans

Synopsis: Maverick director Walter Hill, who had a big hit with 48 Hrs., indulges his customary yen for violent and disturbing scenes in this overlooked action film, which was also released under the name Looters. Set in the economically-depressed town of East St. Louis, IL, the film's release was delayed Read More

The Finishing Touch

Actors: Shelley Hack

Synopsis: In this erotic thriller, Los Angeles is being terrorized by a serial killer, and detectives Sam Stone (Michael Nader) and his ex-wife Hannah (Shelley Hack) are thrown together in an attempt to capture the murderer. Working as an undercover agent, Hannah develops a soft spot for one of the prime Read More

Mad About You: I'm Just So Happy For You

Synopsis: Paul (Paul Reiser) completes a filmed documentary about Yankee Stadium (including the obligatory profile of the peanut vendor) for PBS. Meanwhile, Jamie (Helen Hunt) goes after a big ad account. She succeeds, and a party is thrown in her honor; alas, PBS turns thumbs-down on Paul ("Let 'em keep Read More

Mad About You: Out of the Past

Synopsis: Paul goes through the classic stages of zaniness when his former girlfriend Lynne Stoddard (Lisa Edelstein) pays a visit to New York. The fun, however, really begins when wife Jamie (Helen Hunt) takes Paul up on his suggestion that she meet Lynne at their favorite restaurant. This is the Mad About You Read More

A Different World: To Be Continued

Synopsis: As Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison) prepares to make his valedictory speech at Hillman's graduation ceremony, he must also cope with the likelihood that Whitley (Jasmine Guy) will be leaving him to accept a job in New York. Meanwhile, Ron tries to keep his dad from finding out that he isn't eligible to Read More

Die Hard 2

Actors: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Bill Sadler, William Atherton, Franco Nero, Dennis Franz, John Amos

Synopsis: "Another basement, another elevator...how can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?" asks John McClane (Bruce Willis), in what is doubtless the key question of this film. A year after foiling the terrorist takeover of a high-rise office building in the first movie, McClane is waiting to Read More

Downtown

Actors: Anthony Edwards, Forest Whitaker, Penelope Ann Miller, Joe Pantoliano, David Clennon

Synopsis: When suburban police officer Alex Kearney (Anthony Edwards) angers a wealthy, influential citizen by stopping him for a traffic violation, he finds himself transferred to the city's worst precinct. Struggling to adapt to his new inner-city surroundings, Kearney must deal with his gruff new Read More

A Different World: The Apple Doesn't Fall

Synopsis: Ron (Darryl M. Bell) wants to be a professional musician, but his father (Art Evans) wants him to join the family's car-dealership business. Stuck in the middle of this domestic squabble are Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison) and Whitley (Jamine Guy), neither of whom is any help at all. And in another Read More

The Mighty Quinn

Actors: Denzel Washington, Robert Townsend, James Fox, Mimi Rogers, M. Emmet Walsh

Synopsis: Xavier Quinn (Denzel Washington) is police chief of a tiny Caribbean island. Quinn's efforts to straddle the fence between the local blacks and the moneyed whites have lost him the respect of both groups. When a murder is committed, Quinn suspects that the killer is Maubee (Robert Townsend), a Read More

Mom

Actors: Jeanne Bates, Brion James, Mark Thomas Miller

Synopsis: While investigating a bizarre series of slayings, reporter Clay Dwyer (Mark Thomas Miller) begins to suspect his tenant (Brion James) of being a vampire, and indeed, the man soon turns Dwyer's mother (Jeanne Bates) into one of the undead. Though Clay is able to kill the original blood-sucker, he Read More

School Daze

Actors: Kadeem Hardison, Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell, Kyme, Joe Seneca, Ossie Davis

Synopsis: Fraternity and sorority members clash with the other students at a historically black university in this politically charged musical, which marked the sophomore feature from director Spike Lee. Dap (Laurence Fishburne) is a politically conscious brother who leads anti-apartheid demonstrations and Read More

White of the Eye

Actors: David Keith, Cathy Moriarty, Art Evans, Alan Rosenberg, Alberta Watson

Synopsis: A stylish take on the woman in jeopardy and mad killer genres, White of the Eye poses the question, What would you do if you suspected your loving husband to be a serial killer? Arizonan Paul White (David Keith) is an expert at installing high-end stereo systems in the homes of wealthy citizens. Read More

Native Son

Actors: Carroll Baker, Akosua Busia, Matt Dillon, Art Evans, John Karlen, Elizabeth McGovern, Oprah Winfrey

Synopsis: Previously filmed in Argentina in 1951, black author Richard Wright's powerful race-conscious novel Native Son was remade in this barely released 1986 version. The story involves Bigger Thomas (Victor Thomas), an angry Depression-era Chicago black who hopes to elevate himself through his Read More

Ruthless People

Actors: Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater, Anita Morris

Synopsis: The last film to be co-directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, Ruthless People stars Bette Midler (capitalizing on her comeback performance in Down and Out in Beverly Hills) as Barbara, a spoiled rich woman who is kidnapped by the kindly Ken and Sandy Kessler (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater Read More

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling

Actors: Dennis Farina, Wings Hauser, Richard Pryor, Debbie Allen, Art Evans, Fay Hauser, Barbara Williams

Synopsis: Popular African-American comedian Jo Jo Dancer is severely burned while free-basing cocaine. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. While hovering between life and death, Dancer flashes back to his childhood, when he grew up in a brothel. Read More

Into the Night

Actors: Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Farnsworth, Irene Papas, Kathryn Harrold

Synopsis: Filled with enough cameos to keep film buffs entertained, this otherwise routine action-comedy by John Landis boasts Michelle Pfeiffer as one of its major attractions. She plays Diana, a woman prone to having affairs with some very dangerous men, and Jeff Goldblum is Ed Okin, an aerospace engineer Read More

Fright Night

Actors: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall, Stephen Geoffreys

Synopsis: A teenage horror film addict is shocked to discover that his new next-door neighbor is a vampire in this delightful mix of horror and comedy. The problems only grow for young Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) when he expresses his thoughts about fanged new neighbor Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon Read More

Tuff Turf

Actors: James Spader, Kim Richards, Paul Mones, Robert Downey, Jr., Matt Clark

Synopsis: This routine film catalogues what happens to a teen's life when he is wrenched from an easy existence in affluent, East Coast suburbia and dropped into the lean, mean streets of a downscale L.A. suburb. James Spader is Morgan Hiller, displaced with his parents and brother when his father loses Read More

A Soldier's Story

Actors: David Alan Grier, Wings Hauser, Howard E. Rollins, Jr., Adolph Caesar, Dennis Lipscomb, Art Evans, Patti LaBelle, Denzel Washington

Synopsis: Inspired by the Herman Melville novel Billy Budd, writer Charles Fuller created the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play, which he then adapted into this film drama in 1984, for socially conscious, liberal director Norman Jewison. In the racially-divided 1940s, Fort Neal, Louisiana, is a Read More

World War III

Actors: Rock Hudson

Synopsis: World War III is an ambitious if unnecessarily protracted speculative TV movie. Set in a "future December," the film prophesies an American grain embargo levied on Russia. US President Rock Hudson is entreated by the Soviet higher-ups to drop the ban; meanwhile, a group of renegade Russian Read More

National Lampoon's Class Reunion

Actors: Gerritt Graham, Michael Lerner, Fred McCarren, Miriam Flynn, Stephen Furst

Synopsis: A high school class reunion turns bloody when a former student seeks revenge on his classmates in this black comedy. That mayhem would strike this 20-year reunion seems preordained, given that the name of the school is Lizzie Borden High. Little did anyone expect, however, that this trouble would Read More

Wrong Is Right

Actors: Sean Connery, George Grizzard, Robert Conrad, Katharine Ross, G.D. Spradlin, Leslie Nielsen

Synopsis: Based on Charles McCarry's 1979 novel The Better Angels, Wrong is Right is set in a near future in which violence has become something of a national sport and television news has fallen to tabloid depths (a significantly bigger stretch in 1982, when the film was released.) Star Sean Connery plays Read More

Between Two Brothers

Actors: Michael Brandon, Pat Harrington, Jr., Helen Shaver, Mary Jackson, Peter White

Synopsis: In this family drama, a famed lawyer is forced to come to grips with the lousy way he has treated his emotionally disturbed brother. Most of the story centers on the attorney's attempts to atone for his actions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Actors: Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee, Esther Rolle, Madge Sinclair

Synopsis: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is based on the writings of African-American poet/playwright Maya Angelou. Though she eventually became America's poet laureate, Angelou was once just another little black girl growing up in Depression-era Arkansas. Her efforts to better herself run up against the Read More

The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again

Actors: Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Ruth Buzzi, Tim Matheson, Kenneth Mars, Elyssa Davalos

Synopsis: Tim Conway and Don Knotts, mere supporting characters in the original Apple Dumpling Gang, are promoted to starring roles in the 1979 sequel The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. Once more cast as clumsy, soft-hearted western outlaws, Conway and Knotts come to the rescue of cavalry private Tim Matheson Read More

The In-Laws

Actors: Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, Richard Libertini, Nancy Dussault, Penny Peyser, Arlene Golonka

Synopsis: Dentist Sheldon Kornpett (Alan Arkin) is a respectable man. He has a daughter who is about to marry the son of a very suspicious character, Vince Ricardo (Peter Falk). They are practically relatives already, the wedding is so near. Certainly, Sheldon already despises Vince as if he were already a Read More

M*A*S*H: Private Finance

Synopsis: Generous Klinger (Jamie Farr) offers money to an impoverished South Korean girl. Alas, the girl's mother misunderstands, and before long Klinger is accused of despoiling the young woman. While all this is transpiring, Hawkeye (Alan Alda) is having his own problems trying to keep a promise made to Read More

The Main Event

Actors: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Paul Sand, Patti D'Arbanville, Whitman Mayo, Rory Calhoun

Synopsis: Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal attempt to recapture the screwball spark of What's Up, Doc? in the labored farce The Main Event. Streisand plays Hillary Kramer, a bankrupt perfume executive who discovers that one of her tax write-offs from more prosperous times was the ownership of prizefighter Read More

Youngblood

Actors: Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Bryan O'Dell, Ren Woods, Tony Allen, Vince Cannon

Synopsis: In this realistic urban drama, a recently returned Vietnam vet moves back to his home in Watts to resume his life as a gang member. He spends much of his time training a younger man to be a gang member. The trouble really begins when one of the gang fatally overdoses on drugs. The gang vows to get Read More

King: The Martin Luther King Story

Synopsis: King: The Martin Luther King Story originated as a three-part miniseries, first telecast February 12, 13 and 14, 1978. Paul Winfield is starred as Martin Luther King, with Cicely Tyson as Coretta Scott King. The film covers the years 1954 through 1968, taking Rev. King from his first peaceful Read More

Minstrel Man

Synopsis: Not to be confused with a 1945 film musical of the same title, Minstrel Man is a made-for-TV chronicle of two African-American entertainers, played by Glynn E. Turman and Stanley Clay. Confined to racist show-biz tradition of the early 20th century, dancer Turman is permitted to perform only if Read More

Fun with Dick and Jane

Actors: George Segal, Jane Fonda, Ed McMahon, Dick Gautier, Allan Miller

Synopsis: Dick Harper (George Segal) and his wife Jane (Jane Fonda) have always lived way beyond their means. Just because Dick has just lost his high-paying job is no reason for Jane to stop spending like there's no tomorrow. To make ends meet, Jane takes up a new career: armed robbery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Read More

Big Time

Leadbelly

Actors: Roger E. Mosley, Paul Benjamin, Madge Sinclair, Alan Manson, Albert Hall, Art Evans

Synopsis: This biographical picture explores the troubled life of blues singer and master guitarist Leadbelly, who developed his style and wrote many of his songs during his frequent stints in prison. Featured performances are "&Rock Island Line" and "&Goodnight Irene". ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Claudine

Actors: Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, Tamu, David Kruger

Synopsis: Claudine (Diahann Carroll) is an impoverished African-American Harlem resident. Unmarried, Claudine supports herself and her six children by working as a maid--albeit secretly, so she can still qualify for welfare. Garbageman James Earl Jones falls in love with Claudine, and after strenuous effort Read More