Word: lahti
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cause for charity but as a recognizable human misfortune, almost inevitable given the circumstances. Grant's direction is both sensitive and street-smart (filming was done in Pittsburgh). Daniels, though too fresh-faced as the blue-collar father, brings hot-tempered passion to the role. And Lahti, possibly the best actress in America working in TV (she won an Emmy nomination for her performance in the mini-series Amerika), is truly heartbreaking. She can convey both the despair lurking behind a brave comment to her husband and a pathetic joy at ever smaller victories. "You guys, look!" she gasps...
...based on the true story of a couple who were involved in the bombing of a napalm factory in which someone was killed. In Running, the events are changed, and we are told the victim is only wounded, presumably to avoid alienating viewers from the fictitious couple, Annie (Christine Lahti) and Arthur Pope (Judd Hirsch) and their two sons Danny (River Phoenix) and Harry (Jonas Abry...
...movie exploits the issue of family separation relentlessly. At heart, Running on Empty is a tearjerker. A particular heart-wrencher is the scene where Annie confronts her father after years of separation. Lahti, who is invariably better than the movies she is in, turns in a solid, believable performance. But the scene is disturbing, not only because it is emotionally manipulative, but also because it suggests that the Popes have forgotten that their sacrifice was a protest against bourgeois ideals. Annie goes back to her father, whom she once described as an "imperialist pig" for help in sending...
...kept his family on the run; Plimpton offered pert consolation in that film too. Those films foundered on their ambitions; this time the pieces fall together. The actors are an ensemble who know each other like, well, family. Hirsch is righteous and funny without ever being Alan Alda; Lahti etches another of her nifty modern heroines; Phoenix shows the strength and range that could make him a must-see star for decades. All locate saving quirks in characters who could have been TV-movie-of-the-week stereotypes...
...family, the Popes may seem unique. Not many parents are '60s radicals like Artie (Judd Hirsch) and his wife Annie (Christine Lahti), on the lam since they bombed a university lab in the dear dread days of the Viet Nam War resistance. Even fewer have stayed together and raised two fine sons: Danny (River Phoenix), now 17, and Harry (Jonas Abry), 10. At heart, though, the Popes share the passionate conservatism of any family: their desperate fugitive adventure has become a habit worth preserving at all costs. Their secret, their constant risk of exposure, keeps them close. And Danny...