Bill Griffith Movies

A hilarious documentary about the planned community of Levittown, New York. O'Hagan conducts interviews with longtime and one time Levittown residents (like rock singer Eddie Money and Zippy the Pinhead cartoonist Bill Griffith), in an effort to explain how architects and developers took the idea of a suburban paradise to extremes. The community's elderly residents recall a time when beneath the bland surface of Levittown, its houses equipped with all mod cons, behaviors like wife swapping were commonplace. One mid-life Levittown "survivor" spends most of his days on a shrink's couch, as he attempts to unravel the mystery of life after Levittown. It's well-crafted, poignant poke at suburban planning and how ironically, it was meant to make life a little easier. ~ Denise Sullivan, Rovi

A feisty, feminist intern uncovers a medical conspiracy in this icy thriller about mysterious goings-on at Boston Memorial Hospital. When her best friend and aerobics partner, Nancy Greenly (Lois Chiles), emerges in a vegetative state from a routine abortion, Dr. Susan Wheeler (Genevieve Bujold) does some digging and discovers an overabundance of anesthesia-induced comas among otherwise healthy young patients. The male authority figures who challenge Susan's technically illegal tampering with medical records include her boss, Dr. Harris (Richard Widmark); the chief anesthesiologist, Dr. George (Rip Torn); and even her boyfriend, Dr. Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas), who doesn't want Susan's shenanigans to get in the way of his shot at chief resident. As Susan continues her crusade, the paper trail leads to the Jefferson Institute, a mysterious, experimental facility in which vegetative patients are stored en masse, suspended from the ceiling by wires threaded through their long bones, in order to reduce the cost of long-term care. A shadowy assailant begins to stalk Susan just as she uncovers the link between the Jefferson Institute and the comas at Boston Memorial, setting the stage for climactic suspense scenes involving morgues, malpractice and endless institutional corridors. Writer/director Michael Crichton adapted his second feature film from Robin Cook's bestseller of the same name. Tom Selleck, who would star in Crichton's Runaway several years later, appears briefly in Coma as another victim of lethal anesthesia. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi