Annie McEnroe Movies

A woman who enjoys playing the field begins to ponder the relative merits of long-term commitment in this witty look at love, sex, and relationships. Stella James (Sean Young) lives in New York and wants two things out of life: a career as a gourmet chef and a satisfying relationship with a man. Stella shares a flat with her wealthy friend Teo (Dylan Walsh), but while they're close, their relationship is more platonic than romantic -- thanks in part to Stella's willingness to take up with any man that strikes her fancy -- and neither Stella nor Teo is entirely happy. In hopes of prodding her into doing something with herself, Teo gives Stella a gift -- an airline ticket to Los Angeles. In California, Stella finds a job in an upscale restaurant and soon begins making her way through a new batch of men; while she still enjoys picking and choosing from the many romantic prospects who cross her path, Stella finds herself becoming emotionally involved with George (John Heard), the owner of the dining room where she works. But is she willing to settle into the same sort of consistency in her love life that she's enjoying in her professional life? The supporting cast includes Karen Black, who also contributed to the screenplay; Mark Mothersbaugh composed the original score. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The title character, a manic depressive prone to very irrational behavior (Richard Gere), is hospitalized for treatment. While there, the psychiatrist responsible for his rehabilitation (Lena Olin) becomes involved with him and cannot stand to allow his check-out. ~ John Bush, Rovi

With Heaven and Earth -- cobbled together from two autobiographical reminiscences (When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace by Le Ly Hayslip -- Oliver Stone completes his self-declared "Vietnam Trilogy" (the other films being Platoon and Born On the Fourth of July) of films examining the Vietnam War from different perspectives. Heaven and Earth begins in the central Vietnamese village of Ky La during the 1950s. Phung Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le) is an innocent peasant girl, helping her mother (Joan Chen) to tend the rice paddies while being lectured in the ways of life by her father (Haing Ngor). The idyllic peace of the village is disrupted when a jet bomber crosses the skies. Soon the village is decimated as the American-backed South Vietnamese government troops and the Viet Cong engage in brutal warfare in which the victims are the innocent villagers. Le Ly is both tortured and raped. She leaves Ky La for Danang for a life as a prostitute. There she meets the tall and craggy American soldier Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), a kind but lonely man who isn't looking for sex but for someone to settle down with -- as he says, "I want an Oriental wife." They marry, and Steve takes her back to the United States, where her in-laws look at her not as a wife but as a pet. In the harsh glare of 1970s U.S. culture, Le Ly has trouble adjusting to the American way of life. But not as hard a time as her husband, who, after twenty years in Vietnam, discovers he cannot adapt to civilian life. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Val Kilmer delivers what was considered one of 1991's best performances as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory bio-pic of the seminal 1960s rock group The Doors. Stone cuts a jagged swath through Morrison's life, starting with a childhood memory where Morrison sees an elderly Indian dying by the roadside. It picks up with Morrison's arrival in California and his assimilation into the Venice Beach culture, followed by his film school days at UCLA; his introduction to his girlfriend Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan); his first encounters with Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan); and the origin of The Doors -- made up of Manzarek, Robby Kreiger (Frank Whaley), and John Densmore (Kevin Dillon). As the fame of The Doors grows, Morrison's obsession with death increases. The band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and no-shows at concerts. Morrison, meanwhile, sinks deeper into a drug-induced haze, having mystical sexual encounters with Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), an older rock journalist involved with sadomasochism and witchcraft. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Thanks to the carelessness of a cute little dog, newlyweds Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are killed in a freak auto accident. Upon arriving in the outer offices of Heaven, the couple finds that, thanks to a century's worth of bureaucratic red tape, they're on a long celestial waiting list. Before they can earn their wings, Davis and Baldwin must occupy their old house as ghosts for the next fifty years. Alas, the house is now owned by insufferable yuppies Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones. Horrified at the prospect of sharing space with these obnoxious interlopers, Davis and Baldwin do their best to scare O'Hara and Jones away, but their house-haunting skills are pathetic at best. In desperation, the ghostly couple engage the services of a veteran scaremeister: a yellow-haired, snaggle-toothed, profane, flatulent "gonzo" spirit named Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). The problem: Beetlejuice cannot be trusted-especially when he falls in love with O'Hara and Jones' gloomy, black-clad teenaged daughter Winona Ryder. Beetlejuice producer David Geffen, director Tim Burton, and composer Danny Elfman were also involved in an animated TV-series spin-off. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on James Ellroy's novel Blood on the Moon, Cop is a grim, brutally violent, darkly humorous modern-day film noir. Lloyd Hopkins (James Woods), is an obsessive, amoral LAPD police detective investigating a murder he believes to have been the work of a serial killer. Hopkins is cynical and obsessed with the way society fills women's heads with fairy-tale promises of romance. "Innocence kills," he sneers. "I see it every day." His investigation leads him to the bookstore of a writer of feminist poetry (Lesley Ann Warren) who has for some time been receiving gifts of poems and flowers from an unknown admirer. Hopkins, looking through her diaries, realizes that the dates of the gifts correspond to the dates of the murders, and he begins a hunt for the killer which leads to a violent and exciting conclusion. Cop is completely absorbing because of Woods' chillingly effective performance. Few actors can make an amoral, clever, sardonic, and vicious character as appealing as Hopkins. As Hopkins, Woods combines complex contradictions with ease, showing the various sides of his character's personality. Cop, while singularly unpleasant is always insightful and fascinating. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

The brother of a slain werewolf newscaster joins the battle against a lycanthropic femme fatale in this sequel to 1981's horror/humor update. Shortly after the events of the original The Howling, Ben White (Reb Brown) attends the funeral of his sister, journalist Karen White (played here by Hana Ludvikova and by Dee Wallace in the original). There, he meets both Jenny Templeton (Annie McEnroe), one of Karen's colleagues, and Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee), a mysterious interloper who claims the slain reporter was a newscaster. Providing videotaped evidence of the transformation -- and turning up to destroy Karen as her undead body rises from the grave -- Crosscoe convinces Ben and Jenny to accompany him to Transylvania to battle Stirba (Sybil Danning), an immortal werewolf queen. Along the way, the do-gooders encounter Mariana (Marsha Hunt), another lusty werewolf babe, and her minion Erle (played by Fearless Vampire Killers veteran Ferdy Mayne). Arriving in the Balkans, Ben and company wander through an ethnic folk festival, unaware that Stirba is off in her castle having sex with other werewolves and plotting their downfall. Eventually, the adventurers do battle with Stirba in an assault that involves disguised dwarves, mutilated priests, supernatural parasites, and surprise revelations. Howling II is variously known as Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf and Stirba the Werewolf Bitch. Director Philippe Mora, who previously helmed The Return of Captain Invincible, would return for Howling III: The Marsupials. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Director Michael Ritchie spoofs survivalists in this rambling black comedy. Donald Quinelle (Robin Williams) is a successful young executive who is called to his boss' office one morning and is fired by a parrot sitting in the CEO's chair -- a method the company uses to axe high-powered execs. Donald meets Sonny Paluso (Walter Matthau), a former gas station owner who is out of work because his business was blown up. At a diner, the two newfound friends witness a robbery and catch sight of the perpetrator, Jerry Reed (Jack Locke). Reed is a mob hit man who swears to kill the two men who saw him commit the crime. Donald, formerly afraid of weapons, becomes obsessed with guns as a way to protect himself from the mob. He enrolls in a survivalist training school in the mountains of Vermont. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Oliver Stone's first directorial effort for a major studio (and his second horror film after the 1974 Seizure) came shortly after the phenomenal success of Midnight Express, which was based on Stone's Oscar-winning screenplay. The director turned to Mark Brandel's obscure thriller "The Lizard's Tail" as source material for what is essentially a silly psychosexual variant on low-budget horror films like The Crawling Hand. The title appendage belongs (for a while, anyway) to smug, conceited artist Joe Lansdale (Michael Caine), who owes his success to a popular comic strip featuring a macho, Conan-type hero. After Lansdale's drawing hand is sheared off in a grisly car accident, his career, dignity, self-control and even his sanity soon begin to abandon him as well. His tenuous relationship with his wife Anne (Andrea Marcovicci) falls apart as she takes steps to improve her own self-worth -- something she had never had the strength to do before the accident. Bitter and paranoid, Joe begins to lash out in anger at everyone around him ... and becomes convinced that his severed hand has come back, wandering in fields and dark alleys and squeezing the life out of everyone it comes in contact with. The question of whether the hand is real or merely a manifestation of Lansdale's rage is never answered, even in the film's "shock" coda. At any rate, it's impossible to take the film seriously -- the crawling-hand effects are laughably shoddy for a major studio production, reflecting none of the skills of effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi, and Caine's sweaty, pop-eyed histrionics are too goofy to be convincing. On the plus side, James Horner's score is remarkably chilling, contributing a great deal to a few effective suspense scenes -- but it belongs in a better film than this. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Ken Wahl and Judge Reinhold are returning from service in the Army in the Panama Canal Zone. Reinhold kept a few Army-issue items, including a camera. He takes an aerial photo to check out the camera, unknowingly photographing a secret base to be used in the Bay of Pigs operation. Authorities find the negatives when they land and suspect the two to be spies, and the chase is on. ~ Rovi