Donna Dubrow Movies
They say you can't miss what you never had, but one woman wants to put that idea to the test in this comedy. Kathy Whiting (Harley Jane Kozak) is a housewife and mother of two who enjoys a happy but unexciting relationship with her husband Peter (Bill Pullman), while her best friend Emily Embrey (Elizabeth McGovern) runs an art gallery and is living with a good-looking artist, Elliot Fowler (Brad Pitt). Both women feel that a sense of romantic adventure is missing from their lives, and Kathy has never been able to forget Tom Andrews (Ken Wahl), a football player that she was in love with in high school but never slept with (she was saving herself for marriage at the time). So when Kathy learns that Tom is living in Denver, and Emily will be going there on business soon, she asks Emily for a very big favor: find Tom, seduce him, and then give her a full report on what she's been wondering about these 15 years since graduation. The Favor was filmed in 1991 but went unreleased until 1994, after A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall had made fourth-billed Brad Pitt a box-office draw. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Harley Jane Kozak, Elizabeth McGovern, (more)
The Amazon rain forest is a living laboratory for Dr. Robert Campbell (Sean Connery), a reclusive research scientist living with a Brazilian native tribe. Campbell has accidentally discovered a flower extract that cures cancer, but has been unable to duplicate the formula. With the assistance of Dr. Crane (Lorraine Bracco), he explores every possible chemical derivative, but continues to fail. When a child in the village is near death from a tumor pressing against his trachea, Campbell and Crane stand against each other on the moral issue to use the last of the successful serum to save him or to keep it for further analysis. At the last moment, Crane reconsiders, and agrees to save the child. At the same time, commercial loggers begin to creep ever closer to the village, and government officials demand the tribe's relocation. With only yards remaining between the bulldozers and the tribe, Campbell discovers a vital clue to the elusive elixir he seeks. His attempt to stop the workmen results in violence and a raging forest fire which destroys his lab equipment and the natives' village. The story ends with Campbell, Crane, and the tribe pushing deeper into the jungle in search of new answers.
In a change of pace from his usual action film fare, the skilled work of director John McTiernan brings emotional depth to what would otherwise be just another pro-environmental propaganda film. Connery, who had starred in McTiernan's crowd-pleasing 1989 film The Hunt for Red October, gives a convincing performance as the determined and complex researcher haunted by mistakes of the past. Bracco's character adds the realistic humor of the city scientist adjusting to Spartan life in the trees, but she does so with both strength and dignity. The constant bickering of two equally obstinate scientists gives a mild "honeymooners in the jungle" quality. Filmed in the Mexican rain forest, the canopy is captured in breathtaking cinematography. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, Rovi
In a change of pace from his usual action film fare, the skilled work of director John McTiernan brings emotional depth to what would otherwise be just another pro-environmental propaganda film. Connery, who had starred in McTiernan's crowd-pleasing 1989 film The Hunt for Red October, gives a convincing performance as the determined and complex researcher haunted by mistakes of the past. Bracco's character adds the realistic humor of the city scientist adjusting to Spartan life in the trees, but she does so with both strength and dignity. The constant bickering of two equally obstinate scientists gives a mild "honeymooners in the jungle" quality. Filmed in the Mexican rain forest, the canopy is captured in breathtaking cinematography. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Lorraine Bracco, (more)
African-American activist and actor Melvin Van Peebles directed this comedy-drama starring Godfrey Cambridge as Jeff Gerber, a white, middle class husband to Althea (Estelle Parson) and father of two who is also a mild bigot. One morning, Jeff wakes up to discover that he has become a black man overnight. After trying in vain to remove his new pigment, Jeff ventures out into the world, only to discover the hostility he once engendered himself. After his neighbors petition to get him out of the neighborhood, his boss (Howard Caine) tries to use his new identity to the company's advantage and his doctor suggests he seek medical care elsewhere, Jeff comes to see the many sides of racism. The only rays of hope in his situation are the friendship of several fellow black people, including a bus driver (D'Urville Martin) and a restaurant counter man (Mantan Moreland). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, (more)
