Barbara Niven Movies

Two Southern California volleyball teams determined to prove their superiority on the court find out that they're not as different as they previously thought after tragedy strikes close to home in director Neema Barnette's affectionate sports drama. The Madonnas and the Phantoms are two volleyball teams with a longstanding grudge. With a bitter rivalry that frequently spills off of the court and into the streets, the Madonnas and the Phantoms appear to have nothing in common until fate forces them to break down the social and cultural barriers that bind them. Now determined to keep it together on the court as they make their way to the championships, these former rivals are about to find out what true sportsmanship is really all about. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

After too many years away, brittle big-city doctor Sydney Ludwick (Lisa Hartman Black) returns to her home town of Bloomfield for a high school reunion. She is mildly surprised to find out that her widowed mother Helen (Rue McLanahan), with whom she hasn't communicated since the death of her dad, has transformed the family home into a bed-and-breakfast. Likewise bidding fair to bring change to Sydney's life is the fact that her high school sweetheart Gus (Dale Midkiff) is now a widower. But nothing quite prepares Sydney for the revelation of a dark secret that her mother has been harboring for years, with the tacit assistance of local pastor Ed Jenkins (Don Harvey). The background music is provided by country singer Clint Black, husband of the film's leading lady. Produced for cable's Hallmark channel, Back to You & Me originally aired on July 23, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a recently divorced woman moves into a new house and becomes obsessed with solving a murder that once occurred there, she is troubled to discover that their may be a link between the violent crime and the neighbor who has attracted her affections in a tense thriller starring Lisa Zane, Barbara Niven, and Gary Hudson. As the clues begin to pile up and the psychological tension gradually bubbles to a boil, the realization that the man whom she has grown to adore may in fact be a cold-blooded killer prompts her to begin a dangerous investigation. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Based on actual events which occurred aboard the "USS Constitution", this made-for-cable movie begins as young Maddie Nolan (Hayden Panettiere) boards the Naval carrier under the command of her father Gary (Bill Pullman). Maddie is participating in a traditional "tiger cruise", wherein the family members of Naval personnel are invited to join the men and women in uniform during a typical days of maneuvers. Unlike her fellow passengers, however, Maddie has an ulterior motive: Weary of being a "Navy brat" who has spent her childhood moving from one base to another, she is hoping to persuade her father to give up the service and settle down in one place. But on the third day at sea, Commander Dolan's carrier is ordered to assume "combat mode": the date is September 11, 2001, and America is under attack! Tiger Cruise debuted August 6, 2004, on the Disney Channel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's yet another version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with a gender-bender twist. Tori Spelling stars as Carol Cummings, a fabulously wealthy and enormously successful TV talk show host -- and a first-class shrew. Caring little for anything but the money and the celebrity that her job accrues, Carol mercilessly bullies and harangues everyone with whom she works, from her ulcerated producer Jimmy Fields (Michael Landes) to her long-suffering personal assistant Roberta Timmons (Nina Siemaszko), a single mom who dares not risk losing her job -- especially with Christmas just a few days away. While feverishly putting together a Yuletide TV special, Carol is visited by the ghost of her Aunt Marla (Dinah Manoff), who in her time was an even more insufferable diva than her niece. Warning Carol to change her ways before it is too late, Aunt Marla further proclaims that Carol will that evening be visited by three spirits who will show her the error of her ways. From this point forward it's the same old story, though it's fun to watch Gary Coleman as the Ghost of Christmas Past (appropriately in the form of a washed-up sitcom star!) and especially William Shatner as a Dr. Phil-style Ghost of Christmas Present. Also, the film represents one of the few times that the Scrooge character has a living love interest -- namely, Jason Brooks as John, a well-known Good Samaritan who continues to pine for Carol even after she has decided that he's the proverbial millstone around her neck. A Carol Christmas was first telecast by cable's Hallmark Channel on December 7, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Can a naive Armenian boy find happiness in suburban America? That's the question behind the tale of Anoosh (Melik Malkasian), a boy who was born on a Freedom Airlines flight and ended up being the star of their ad campaign when not busy with the family sheepherding business. Now grown to adulthood, Anoosh decides to head to America to find his fortunes in the outside world, arriving as part of an international exchange program that puts him in the home of happy suburbanites Walt and Suzy (Steven Clark Pachosa and Barbara Niven). However, Anoosh doesn't immediately fit in with Middle America, where most of the residents seem even stranger than he does. Anoosh of the Airwaves was shown in competition at the 1999 Hollywood Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Shot in 33 days, this $9.6 million biographical drama of behind-the-scenes interactions within the Rat Pack group of Frank Sinatra (Ray Liotta), Dean Martin (Joe Mantegna), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Don Cheadle) is set against the political backdrop of the '60s, establishing links of singers, gangsters, actors, and politicans (sometimes brushing shoulders in the same rooms). The film also explores Sinatra's relationship with John F. Kennedy (William Peterson). Deciding to support Kennedy, Sinatra patches up his feud with Peter Lawford (Angus Macfadyen), since Lawford's wife, Pat (Phyllis Lyons) is JFK's sister -- and a Sinatra-Kennedy friendship soon follows. However, when Joe Kennedy (Dan O'Herlihy) decides Sinatra's nightclub, mob and commie connections are a no-no for JFK, the patriarch's interference angers Sinatra. Meanwhile, Sammy Davis Jr. enters into an interracial liaison with May Britt (Megan Dodds), and the dynamics of the situation are visualized in an imaginative musical fantasy sequence in which Davis sees himself singing and dancing for an unresponsive line of white supremacists. Broadway's Savion Glover stepped in with the film's choreography. Substitute singers featured the voice of Michael Dees for Sinatra and Mantegna duplicating Dino. Also covered here are the events that led to the filming of Ocean's Eleven (1960). For an actual Rat Pack stage performance, see The Rat Pack Captured (1965). Filmed in LA, the TV movie premiered August 22, 1998 on HBO. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Wendi Westbrook, Barbara Niven, and Taylor Leigh star in this crime drama set in a women's prison. An FBI agent needs to track down some evidence which was hidden away by the former girlfriend of a major drug kingpin. The woman in question is now behind bars, so the agent poses as a prisoner in hopes of gaining her confidence and learning her secrets. After a number of shower scenes, the agent is taken off the case, but the dope ring has discovered the nature of the agent's project and kidnaps her daughter in retaliation. Desperate to get her child back, the agent joins forces with a sympathetic guard from the prison to confront the dealers and bring her daughter home. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide