Laurie Murdoch Movies
After living his life with clockwork precision, a man throws any and all caution to the wind in this freewheeling comedy-drama. Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds) is a successful motivational speaker and author whose book "The Five-Minute Efficiency Trainer" advises readers that strict organization and avoiding impulsive behavior is the key to success. Frank is married to Susan (Emily Mortimer), who has been his sweetheart since college, but while he's happy, she's beginning to have second thoughts -- she chose to be with Frank rather than his best friend Buddy (Stuart Townsend) because of his sweet and gentle nature, but his new habit of carefully budgeting every moment of the day has squeezed most of the fun out of their lives. After a quarrel with Susan leaves Frank in a troubled state of mind, he's enthusiastically propositioned by a sexy woman at a self-help seminar (Sarah Chalke), and has to take a pregnant woman (Jocelyne Loewen) to the hospital when he nearly runs her over on the street. Susan learns about Frank's day and comes to the mistaken conclusion that he's been unfaithful to her with both women. Susan leaves him and Frank decides that his hyper-organized life is to blame for the collapse of his marriage. Suddenly, Frank figures its time to give his id full reign -- he buys a motorcycle, starts fist fights in bars, sleeps with strange women, takes up streaking, and does nearly everything the old Frank would warn him against. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer, (more)
Where does legitimate concern end and paranoia begin? A man finds himself walking that fine line in this tense independent drama. Terry Allen (Peter Krause) is an accountant who lives a seemingly ordinary life until he loses his job. Unable to buy the new house he was hoping to get for his fiancée, Marla (Kari Matchett), Terry spends most of time in his apartment, looking for job leads, sending out resumés, and feeling increasingly powerless. As Terry watches more and more stories about the war on terror on cable news channels, he begins developing an intense suspicion of his new neighbor Gabe Hassan (Khaled Abol Naga), an Arab exchange student. Terry notices Gabe keeps late hours, takes out his trash in the middle of the night, and has a lot of visitors of Middle Eastern descent dropping by his flat, and slowly Terry becomes convinced Gabe is involved in terrorist activities. Terry visits Tom Hillary (Richard Schiff), an FBI agent, and tells him about Gabe and his habits; Tom doesn't pay much attention to what Terry has to say, and convinced danger lurks, he decides to take the law into his own hands. Civic Duty received its world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Krause, Kari Matchett, (more)
An unlikely band of scientists and soldiers join forces to save the world from certain destruction in this action-drama. As the world is struck with a variety of inexplicable phenomena -- attacks by enormous swarms of birds in London, the explosion of the Colosseum in Rome, a potentially deadly malfunction which forces the Space Shuttle into a Los Angeles riverbed, and the simultaneous deaths of 32 people with pacemakers in Boston -- a team of top scientific minds from around the globe is assembled to determine what has thrown the world into such a frenzy. Dr. John Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) makes the startling discovery that the Earth's electromagnetic forces have begun to collapse, thanks to a sudden lack of movement of the molten ore at the center of the Earth. If the planet is to be saved, the core of the Earth needs a jump start, and Keyes assembles a team to burrow to the center of the planet and bomb the insides back into action. Joining Keyes on this dangerous, last-chance mission are the brilliant but arrogant Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), French arms expert Dr. Serge Levesque (Tchéky Karyo, maverick researcher "Brazz" Brazzleton (Delroy Lindo), geeky computer genius Rat (DJ Qualls), and two no-nonsense military types, Commander Richard Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca Childs (Hilary Swank). However, as the crew digs deeper into the Earth, the more they discover what they haven't been told about their mission and what's really been causing the worldwide chaos. The Core was originally scheduled for release in the fall of 2002, but the movie didn't reach theaters until the spring of 2003 as special-effects experts perfected the film's more spectacular scenes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, (more)
Door to Door is the inspirational true story of a man who refused to let severe physical debilitation get in the way of his life's goal. William H. Macy (who also co-wrote the script) stars as Bill Porter, a Portland, OR, native born with cerebral palsy. Despite his spastic walk and oddly shaped countenance, Bill intends to succeed in life on ability rather than the pity of the unafflicted. Thus, in 1955, he manages to land a job as a door-to-door salesman for the Watkins Company. At first, Bill meets with nothing but slammed doors, hostile dogs, and unashamed hostility from "normal" people; but after making his first sale to a reclusive alcoholic named Gladys (Kathy Baker), there is literally no stopping him. For next 40 years, Bill walks some eight to ten miles per day plying his trade, winning one "salesman of the year" award after another. Also in the cast is Helen Mirren as Bill's supportive but aphasic mother, and Kyra Sedgwick as Bill's young assistant, Shelley, whose Herculean efforts to get the hero to "modernize" his tried-and-true methods invariably come a cropper. Door to Door debuted July 14, 2002, over the TNT cable network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This made-for-TV remake of the classic movie chiller Carrie is slightly more faithful to the original Stephen King novel--and slightly less profane and violent. Following in the bloody footsteps of Sissy Spacek, Angela Bettis stars as woebegone high school girl Carrie White, whose shy and awkward demeanor obscures the fact that she is "gifted" with awesome telekinetic powers. As part of a cruel and vicious student prank, Carrie's better-looking and more socially savvy classmates arrange for the hapless heroine to be elected prom queen--and one does not have to have seen the original film to know the terror that is unleashed once Carrie is crowned (in more ways than one). The climax is infinitely more "high tech" than in the 1976 film, but whether it is equally as frightening is a matter of taste; additionally, the 2002 version boasts a radically different ending, one that could very well accommodate a sequel or two...or three... Patricia Clarkson reprises the old Piper Laurie role as Carrie's abusive religious-fanatic mother. Carrie first aired November 4, 2002, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2000
The SG-1 crew's memories are wiped out by an alien ruling elite. Now O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson is convinced he is Jonah, Carter (Amanda Tapping) believes herself to be Terra, Jackson (Michael Shanks) answers only to Carlin, and Teal'c (Christopher Judge) has been "reborn" as Tor--and all four have been put to work as slave laborers in an underground facility. Refusing to accept reports that the SG-1 team has been killed, General Hammond (Don S. Davis) mounts a rescue attempt--but even if he succeeds, will the team remember anything of their past lives? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
- PG
Based on Jack Curtis' novel Christmas in Calico, this sentimental TV movie is set in Oregon in the early 1900s. Reba McEntire (who also produced) stars as widowed farmer Rose Cameron, who struggles to save her home from foreclosure, and to make enough money to pay for the medicine necessary to keep her sickly son Toby (Devon Alan). Nor is Rose the only person in town weighed down by problems: a well-organized gang, clearly bankrolled by someone with a lot of political pull, has been systematically stealing cattle, threatening to bankrupt everyone in the community. Enter a mysterious man on horseback named Harry Withers (Thomas Ian Griffith), an ex-outlaw determined to atone for his past by performing random acts of goodwill throughout the west. As Withers grows closer to Rose, she begins to suspect that he is actually someone else, someone far more famous than whom he claims to be (Hint: He's been living in South America for several years, and raindrops kept fallin' on his head). In the hearty spirit of brotherhood and political correctness, the beleaguered townsfolk join forces with a group of Chinese immigrants to help Withers vanquish the villains -- and, it is intimated, to reform Villain Number One. The Secret of Giving was initially telecast by CBS on November 25, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Reba McEntire, Thomas Ian Griffith, (more)
In this most recent spin on a familiar suspense-movie plot device, the 6-year-old son of wealthy Seattle industrialist Dan Carlin (Stephen Elliott) is kidnapped by a disgruntled ex-employee. Innocently unaware of his plight, the captive boy is locked in a room with his toy teddy bear, which has been booby-trapped with a time bomb. Tension mounts when the kidnapper is accidentally killed, leaving Carlin and a dedicated police detective (Karen Sillas) with less than 24 hours to locate both boy and bomb. As Time Runs Out made its CBS network debut on October 5, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Collins, Karen Sillas, (more)
- 1998
Having just moved to a new town, widow Elaine Freedman (Cheryl Ladd) and her teenage daughter, Justine (Jody Thompson) are greeted by the effusive, terribly nice Dr. Calvin Lawrence (Michael York). Sensing that Justine is bit testy and out of sorts (most kids her age tend to get that way, you know), Dr. Lawrence recommends that she begin taking a special vitamin which he manufactures in his own home. Before long, Justine is the model of perfection -- just like all the other teenagers in town. What no one realizes until it is almost too late is that the kindly Dr. Lawrence is the quintessential control freak, using mind-altering drugs and secret radio waves to create his own "perfect city," where everyone bends to his will. A TV movie variation on the theatrical feature Disturbing Behavior, Perfect Little Angels was based on a novel by Andrew Neiderman, and first aired November 14, 1998, on the Family Channel cable network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cheryl Ladd, Jody Thompson, (more)
Brett Leonard directed this 3-D Imax short feature (running 45 minutes) about a famous paleontologist's teen daughter, who's able to enter into the world of the dinosaurs. In Alberta, Canada, Dr. Donald Hayden (Peter Horton) and his assistant Elizabeth (Kari Coleman) find a Tyrannosaurus egg. Donald's daughter Ally (Liz Stauber) hopes the egg will prove her theory that dinosaurs were ancestors of present-day birds. Back at their museum, Ally knocks the egg on the floor, loosening some strange dust. At night, a T-rex skeleton springs to life, and Ally discovers she can use museum exhibits as a springboard for time travel, encountering famed dinosaur illustrator Charles Knight (Tuck Milligan) and paleontologist Barnum Brown (Laurie Murdoch). She also sees a flying Pteranodon, an Ornithomimus and other creatures -- which all become extinct in the meteoric conclusion. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Horton, Liz Stauber, (more)
