Patricia Charbonneau
DESERT HEARTS depended on the connection between its two lead actors, Patricia Charbonneau and Helen Shaver, and on their trust in director Donna Deitch. In the following program, made by the Criterion Collection in New York in 2017, the actors and the director discuss the making of the film, the close bond they formed, and the ways it changed their lives.
Builder Robert is visiting his ailing wife in a nursing home and is having problems getting a taxi home due to an intense snow storm. One of the doctors, Katherine offers him a lift home however their car gets stuck and they have to spend the night in an empty cabin nearby. They talk and bond, but afterwards seem to have difficulty beginning a relationship.
A drug deal hijacked by a third party, they leave the drugs and take the money. A stripper witnesses a murder and now the Mafia's after but there is nowhere safe to hide.
Two professionals, Jeff and Marty, take a business trip to the Philippines. Their deep dissatisfaction with their lives leads them to forsake their friends and families for a return to the alcohol and drug-induced wanderings of their youth.
An attorney takes the lawyer/client relationship too seriously. She ends up falling for her client, a very charming photographer who has been charged with a multiple murder. She wants to believe he is innocent but she cannot deny her suspicions.
Paul and Kathy Plunk buy a small motel in a lonesome mountain region in Oregon. Their newfound tranquility is broken by a pair of guests who turn out to be wanted criminals on run from the police. They need money, so they assault the Plunks, force them to withdraw all their money from the bank. But the nightmare just begins as they take the Plunks and their baby with them as hostages.
A psychological thriller from the writer of the original "Twilight Zone!" In a showdown of man vs. machine, Martin plunges into a chaotic nightmare trying to save his mind from the megalomaniacal corporation!
During routine maintenance of a liquid-fuelled ICBM, the fuel tank is penetrated by a falling spanner. The film traces the efforts of the maintenance crew and associated military and civilian personnel to recover the potentially disastrous situation before the fuel tank is sufficiently depressurised that the stack collapses and explodes.
The hard-boiled saga of hair-trigger cop Lieutenant Mike Torello and his obsessive pursuit of ruthless gangster Ray Luca.
When terrorists start killing scientists who are working on NATO's laser defense program, an elite team, the Counter Assault Tactical (C.A.T.) Squad, is brought in to to stop the killers.
The story of straight-edge literature professor Vivian who travels to Reno to get away from a relationship breakup when she falls in love with an attractive and unconventional girl named Cay.
