Mary Boylan
Disarmingly realistic in its depiction of the realities of frontier life, Heartland is a strong antidote to the cliches of traditional Westerns. This semi-documentary slice of life is based on the diaries of Elmore Randall Stewart about her days on the Wyoming frontier in the early 20th century. It's a strongly feminist statement about a woman raising her small daughter alone and scrapping for a living by working for a shy Scottish rancher. Director Richard Pearce brings an endearing touch to a film that is helped greatly by the dazzling cinematography of Fred Murphy. Conchata Ferrell and Rip Torn star in this small film that substitutes veracity for a high-powered plot.
A Manhattan priest with a penchant for solving crimes goes to the aid of a young actress. She is becoming enmeshed in a series of bizarre incidents she can't explain, and her complaints to the police have gone ignored.
Two Vietnam vets, Tom and Nordi, live sad lives in a crumbling New Jersey town. Sharing a one room apartment, they talk about their inability to hold down real work, struggle to get noticed at the VA and fail to connect with women. This changes for Tom when he meets Marcella and they begin a relationship. However, he can't escape his past with Nordi and the co- dependent, toxic relationship soon takes a gruesome turn.
12-year-old Regan MacNeil begins to adapt an explicit new personality as strange events befall the local area of Georgetown. Her mother becomes torn between science and superstition in a desperate bid to save her daughter, and ultimately turns to her last hope: Father Damien Karras, a troubled priest who is struggling with his own faith.
Thief Duke Anderson—just released from ten years in jail—takes up with his old girlfriend in her posh apartment block, and makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being recorded on audio and video, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.
