Margaret Travolta Movies
John Travolta and Robin Williams team up in the Walt Disney Company's Old Dogs, a family comedy that pairs the two as close business partners whose lives are thrown into disarray when twin seven-year-olds are put into their care. Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, co-stars, along with the couple's daughter, Ella, who makes her big-screen debut here. Wild Hogs helmer Walter Becker directs a script by Evolution scribes David Diamond and David Weissman, with producing duties going to Andrew Panay, Peter Abrams, and Robert Levy. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Robin Williams, (more)
Todd Robinson's Lonely Hearts features John Travolta and James Gandolfini as Elmer C. Robinson and Charles Hildebrandt, a pair of homicide detectives who are on the trail of lovers on a crime spree. The evil duo of Ray Fernandez (Jared Leto) and Martha Beck (Salma Hayek) take advantage of elderly widows, stealing as much money as they can after gaining the victim's confidence, and then murdering their mark. Robinson becomes drawn into the case too deeply in order to help him confront his feelings, as his wife has recently killed herself. The story is based on the real life "Lonely Hearts" killers of the late '40s, the infamous couple whom the director's grandfather played a large part in bringing to justice. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Travolta, James Gandolfini, (more)
When the weight of rejection begins to set in after being denied entry to every college he has applied to, a high school burnout attempts to placate his mom and dad and win the heart of his dream girl by scheming with his friends to create a fake university in a hilarious comedy of artificial education directed by Steve Pink and starring Justin Long. Bartleby "B" Gaines (Long) is a high school senior whose street smarts just never seemed to translate into the classroom, and whose bad luck in love has left him pining for the unattainable Monica (Blake Lively). When Bartleby and his rebellious crew of outcasts find the frequent college rejection letters they have all been receiving bringing endless grief from their disappointed parents, they soon band together to create the fictional South Harmon Institute of Technology. After creating a believable façade in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, employing the talents of a close friend's brilliantly subversive uncle (Lewis Black) to pose as the dean, and creating a phony website in order to sell the school to their parents, Bartleby and friends soon realize that all of their hard work has paid off in ways than they never imagined. With a variety of college rejects attempting to enroll in classes at the ersatz university and the skepticism of some privileged students from a nearby college drawing unwanted attention to the South Harmon Institute of Technology, Bartleby and friends find their ruse becoming ever more difficult to maintain. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Justin Long, Jonah Hill, (more)
The Rwandan genocide itself may have been confined to around 100 days in the spring and summer of 1994, but its emotional and familial aftereffects lingered, persisted and continued to shape lives far into the early years of the early 21st century. On a judicial level, the country spent the years following the genocide legally contending with this tortured history, via war crimes cases held in a system of courts known as gacaca. This particular documentary program hones in on one genocidal survivor, a Rwandan woman whose husband and children were brutally murdered by one of the perpetrators of the massacre. It witnesses her difficult confrontation in gacaca with the man she formally accuses of ruining her life; when she succeeds in bringing him to justice, it imbues the rest of her fellow villagers with the courage necessary to face their own genocidal experiences for the very first time. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margaret Travolta
Adversaries become wary allies in this free-wheeling action comedy. Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) is a Los Angeles Police Department officer who finds himself out of a job after he becomes involved in a violent altercation with police academy flunk-out Earl Montgomery (Martin Lawrence), escalating into a media event which brings the LAPD a wealth of bad publicity. Unable to find work, Hank finally takes a job as a "rent-a-cop" with a private security firm -- and discovers to his annoyance that his new partner is Earl. While neither of them are thrilled to be working together on the lowest strata of the law enforcement community, the two find themselves dealing with bigger crime than they expected when they stumble across evidence of a elite smuggling network operated by criminal mastermind Nash (Eric Roberts). Hank and Earl want to put Nash out of business, and they try without success to persuade the police of the importance of the case. But before long they discover it's not just Nash's men who are after them, but two high-ranking LAPD officials, Lt. Washington (Bill Duke) and Detective McDuff (Colm Feore). National Security was directed by Dennis Dugan, who'd previously helmed antic comedies starring Adam Sandler and Chris Farley; this film also marked Martin Lawrence's entry into the elite of Hollywood's comedy stars, with Lawrence taking home a 20-million-dollar paycheck for his work on the picture. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Martin Lawrence, Steve Zahn, (more)
A family of paranormalists investigates the strange goings-on at a high school still reeling over a student's very public suicide in this teen thriller. Hangman's Curse concerns the further exploits of the Veritas Group, a loose collective of people committed to researching supernatural mysteries. The group's members include the Springfield family -- parents Nate (David Keith) and Sarah (Mel Harris) and Elisha (Leighton Meester) and Elijah (Douglas Smith) -- whose current assignment takes them to the aforementioned high school. There, they find that Abel, the teen who took his life, had been long ostracized by various cliques in the school -- jocks, popular kids, and the like -- all of whom are falling prey to mysterious ailments. As Nate and Sarah watch from the sidelines, it's up to Elisha and Elijah to pose as students to get inside the mystery. Hangman's Curse was based on the novel by Christian author Frank Peretti. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Keith, Mel Harris, (more)
The disappearance of a military leader and the death of four of his men leads two investigators to wade through a morass of deceptions and half-truths in search of the facts in this thriller. Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) is the leader of an elite team of U.S. Army Special Forces operatives known as the Army Rangers; West is known as a highly effective officer, but one with a short temper and aggressive attitude who is not well liked by his soldiers. During a seemingly routine training exercise in Panama, a hurricane sweeps in, and four of West's six men are dead, while West himself seems to have vanished. Eager to get the facts behind what happened, Col. Bill Styles (Tim Daly) assigns Capt. Julia Osborne (Connie Nielsen) to investigate. However, Osborne is having a hard time getting the two survivors to talk, so Styles brings in Tom Hardy (John Travolta), a former Army Ranger who served under West and became a first-class interrogator; Hardy later became a DEA agent, but left law enforcement after allegations of corruption. Hardy interviews Dunbar (Brian Van Holt), who claims that the four soldiers had been murdered, and West was killed in retaliation. Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), the other survivor (whose father is a powerful officer) has a very different story of how the five men turned up dead, and it's up to Hardy and Osborne to determine who is telling the truth -- or if anyone is saying exactly what happened. Basic marked the first time John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson appeared in the same film together since their breakthrough roles in Pulp Fiction. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Connie Nielsen, (more)
A gifted forger and confidence man attempts to stay one step ahead of the lawman determined to bring him to justice in this comedy-drama from Steven Spielberg, based on a true story. Frank W. Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a 16-year-old high school student who finds himself emotionally cut adrift when his mother, Paula (Nathalie Baye), leaves his father, Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken), after Frank Sr. falls into arrears with the Internal Revenue Service. One day at school, Frank Jr. attempts to pass himself off as a substitute teacher, and easily makes the subterfuge work. His small-scale success gives Frank some ideas, and he soon discovers bigger and more profitable ways of hoaxing others, passing himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor, and an attorney. Along the way, Frank learns how to become a master forger, and uses his talent and charm to pass over 2.5 million dollars in phony checks. Frank's increasingly audacious work soon attracts the attention of Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), an FBI agent who is determined to put Frank behind bars. Frank seems to enjoy being pursued by Carl, and even goes so far as to call Carl on the phone to chat every once in a while. While posing as a doctor, Frank falls in love with Brenda Strong (Amy Adams), a sweet girl working as a candy striper. When Frank asks Brenda to marry him, he decides to assume a new identity to impress her father, Roger (Martin Sheen) -- who happens to be the District Attorney of New Orleans, LA. Catch Me If You Can was based on the autobiography of the real Frank W. Abagnale Jr., who has a cameo in the film and today works on the side of the law as a top consultant on preventing forgery and designing secure checking systems. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, (more)
Adam Larson and Tony R. Abrams' directorial debut Pumpkin is an unconventional love story. College senior Carolyn McDuffy (Christina Ricci) agrees to coach handicapped athletes from a local town in order to help her sorority win an award. She and her sorority sister Jeanine (Dominique Swain) are put off by the activity. Carolyn's discomfort begins to dissipate after meeting Pumpkin Romanoff (Hank Harris), a young man in a wheelchair who has dreams of competing in the shot put. Slowly, Carolyn falls in love with Pumpkin, sending her into conflict with her boyfriend Kent (Sam Ball), her sisters, and Pumpkin's mother (Brenda Blethyn). This film was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christina Ricci, Hank Harris, (more)
- 2002
In the conclusion of a two-part story, Drew (Drew Carey) figures out that the irresponsible behavior of 19-year-old Milan (Jessica Cauffiel), appointed the store's new president by her father Lord Mercer (Jim Piddock), stems from a lifelong need for her dad's approval. When Lord Mercer fires Milan, Drew begs him to give the girl another chance--which might have been a mistake, as indicated when party-animal Milan transforms the store into her own personal, never-ending "rave." Meanwhile, Lewis (Ryan Stiles) pulls a "Hannibal Lecter" when Oswald (Diedrich Bader) brings home a human liver as his nursing-school homework assignment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Director Dominic Sena follows up his stylish action film Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) with this high-tech thriller. John Travolta stars as Gabriel Shear, a charismatic spy who plots to steal a multi-billion-dollar fortune in illegal government funds. In order to make his scheme work, however, Gabriel needs some help from a computer hacker, which is where Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) comes in. Stanley has been paroled from prison after serving a lengthy sentence for penetrating the FBI's cyber-surveillance operations. Issued a restraining order that keeps him away from computers and living penniless in a trailer park, Stanley wants only to be reunited with his daughter Holly, who's in the custody of his ex-wife, now remarried to a pornographer. Gabriel and his partner Ginger (Halle Berry) offer Stanley the chance to get his child back in exchange for his help, but the hacker soon realizes he's a pawn in a larger operation than the high-tech bank heist he thought he was perpetrating. In the meantime, a dedicated federal agent (Don Cheadle), the same man who once arrested Stanley, is trying to expose Gabriel's operation. Swordfish also stars Sam Shepard and Zach Grenier. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, (more)
Just as the university research team is about to prove that their new technique will permit water to be used as a fuel, their laboratory is sabotaged and the lab manager is killed. Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) stumbles onto the scene and manages not only to witness the sabotage, but to escape from it. When he tries to talk about it to authorities, he discovers that they think he and the other project survivors committed the crime. In reality, a group of energy companies have conspired with interested parties in the government to completely erase all notion of the existence of a way to use water as fuel. The project sponsor (Morgan Freeman) wants Eddie to turn himself in, but before he can do that, he must find enough evidence to clear himself and his friends. But in order to succeed, Eddie must avoid assassination attempts by the real perpetrators. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, (more)
There are angels among us, and they like lots of sugar in their coffee, in writer-director Nora Ephron's comic fantasy Michael. Vartan Malt (Bob Hoskins) is the editor of a tabloid called the National Mirror that specializes in unlikely stories about celebrities and frankly unbelievable tales about ordinary folks. When Malt gets word that a woman is supposedly harboring an angel in a small town in Iowa, he figures that this might be right up the Mirror's alley, so he sends out three people to get the story -- Frank Quinlan (William Hurt), a reporter whose career has hit the skids; Huey Discoll (Robert Pastorelli), a photographer on the verge of losing his job (even though he owns the Mirror's mascot, Sparky The Wonder Dog); and Dorothy Winters (Andie MacDowell), a self-styled "angel expert." They arrive at the rooming house of Patsy Millband (Jean Stapleton), who informs them that she does indeed have an angel for a tenant, and introduces them to Michael (John Travolta). Michael has wings like an angel, but the resemblance ends there; Michael loves cigarettes, has an uncontrollable sweet tooth (and a pot belly to match), tends to use a large number of non-angelic phrases, is not much on personal hygiene, and likes to hang out with the ladies. Michael informs his visitors that in Heaven, an angel is allowed a certain number of "vacations" on Earth, and he's in the midst of one now; trouble is, this is the last one he's entitled to, and he wants to make the most of it. Frank and Huey then stumble on a great story idea -- if Michael wants to have some fun, why not take him to Chicago, where he can really kick up his heels? Michael was written in part by Jim Quinlan, himself a one-time reporter, though with a much more respectable tabloid than the Mirror -- he wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Andie MacDowell, (more)
