She flees to Taos, NM and Hopper finds her again (as do the Feds – again, I’m not sure how). For some reason the Feds also are able to do this and they show up simultaneously. Several months later he does so – recognizing her work in ad and going to the ad firm. The mob hires a sax-playing hit man (YES! REALLY!) played by Hopper to find her. When federal agent Fred Ward is unable to protect her (in a sign of how awful this movie is he offers to put her in the “Federal Protection Witness Program” and they don’t bother to fix that), she goes on the lam. She is then tracked by dim-bulb mobsters played by John Turturro and Tony Sirico (Paulie from The Sopranos with the same hair, minus the silver) who try to kill her at her apartment, but who only kill her boyfriend, played by Charlie Sheen. Anyway, Anne is about to have her big gallery opening when she accidentally witnesses mobster Joe Pesci killing someone.

It’s not a case of them hiring Holzer to make faux-Holzer pieces, they just use well-known (now) Holzer pieces. Benton’s art is provided by Jenny Holzer, in what was surely the worst mistake of Holzer’s career. Jodie Foster plays Anne Benton, a feminist conceptual artist in LA. Let me lay out the plot for you (I lost some notes due to a poorly executed email migration at my workplace, but it shouldn’t matter). I could not have survived the long version. The running times on Wikipedia indicate that I watched the shorter version. Apparently there is a longer cut that is known as Backtrack also. The copy I watched (online here, but, really, don’t watch it) did include him as director, so I don’t know about that. Wikipedia indicates that Hopper insisted that his name be removed, and that the film is credited to Alan Smithee. It left me feeling ashamed of myself.Ĭatchfire, according to the fine folks at Wikipedia, was a 1990 film, produced by Dick Clark, that was disowned by its director and star, Dennis Hopper. For example, last night I watched the 1990 film Catchfire just to see a one-minute cameo by Bob Dylan. Things that only a truly desperate man would do. Familiar Hopper cronies such as Bob Dylan, Sam Fuller, Julie Adams, Alex Cox, and Helen Kallianotes make appearances.There are things that I’ve done in writing this blog that I’m not proud of. When the hit man finally runs Ann down, stealing her out from under the nose of Detective Pauling (Fred Ward), he offers her a deal that anybody could refuse: Be killed or become his private chattel. While Ann does her own informal witness relocation, Milo begins to research the artist's life, looking for clues that might help him find her, and he becomes increasingly fascinated with her. Meanwhile, mob boss Lino Avoca (Vincent Price) has put out a contract on the artist with hit man Milo (Dennis Hopper). She manages to escape and report the crime to the police but recognizes Mafia soldier John Luponi (Dean Stockwell) at the station and takes off, becoming a fugitive. It stars Jodie Foster as Ann Benton, a self-possessed artist who stumbles across a mob hit in progress. Occasionally, his interest seeps into films like Wim Wenders's THE AMERICAN FRIEND, or the film under consideration, BACKTRACK. Dennis Hopper has long been passionately involved with the art world, both as a painter and a collector, and his eye for composition makes even his lesser films worth a look.

Backtrack movie jodie foster