Lexi Randall Movies
- 1999
This follow-up to the acclaimed made-for-TV movies Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark finds Sarah (Glenn Close) and her husband Jacob (Christopher Walken) dealing with the trials of life on their Kansas farm in 1918. Jacob must contend with the unexpected arrival of John (Jack Palance), his father, who left him and his mother behind many years ago, while Sarah is worried about her eldest daughter Anna (Lexi Randall), who has left home to help treat the victims of the influenza epidemic. Anna, meanwhile, has worries of her own, as her boyfriend has just shipped out to fight in WWI. Based on the novel by Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain & Tall: Winter's End was produced as part of the award-winning anthology series Hallmark Hall of Fame. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, (more)
- 1995
- PG
This character drama follows the exploits of an aged oil seeker, known only as Mr. Cox, as he roams across Texas in search of black gold. He has a special gift for it and has helped many wildcatters strike it rich. Unfortunately, he has yet to find his own gusher. In 1935, Cox has only a suitcase and a cat to his name. During a tremendous windstorm, he is forced to seek shelter in a farmhouse, owned by Don and Cora Day. The Days have three daughters and must scramble to eke out a meager existence on their dusty farm, located near the town of Henrietta. While there, Mr. Cox begins getting that old feeling that tells him that there is a lot of oil on the Day's farm. They think he is plumb loco and ask him to leave, but Cox wants to find out if it is true. He goes to an old friend, Big Dave, who thanks to Cox, has become an oil tycoon, to help him do some test drilling, but Big Dave has a short memory and brushes Cox off as a "hopeless loser." The determined Cox then devises a scheme to force Big Dave to provide him with financial backing. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Duvall, Aidan Quinn, (more)
Jon Avnet's The War is set in the rural south and brimming with lessons on social consciousness, much like his previous effort, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). During the summer of 1970 in backwoods Mississippi, Stephen Simmons (Kevin Costner) is struggling to be a breadwinner for his family while still suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in the Vietnam War. His wife Lois (Mare Winningham) provides most of the family income. Stephen gets a job in a mine and saves a friend who has been injured, helping him erase his guilt over abandoning another friend during a firefight in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Simmons children, Stu (Elijah Wood) and Lidia (Lexi Randall) are feuding with an even poorer family of neighbors, the Lipnickis, over access to a tree fort that Stu and Lidia built. Mr. Lipnicki (Raynor Scheine) is drunken and abusive and helps escalate the disagreement into a major battle for the fort. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Elijah Wood, Kevin Costner, (more)
- 1993
Hallmark Hall of Fame's success with Sarah, Plain and Tall inspired the making of this sequel, with the entire cast back for the second production. Initially a mail-order bride, Sarah (Close) now loves Jacob (Walken) but still wants to return to Maine. When danger threatens, she and the family finally go back to Maine. This is the story of that visit back East. With the same nostalgia value as that which kept Little House on the Prairie on the air for years, it is another irresistible Hallmark production. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, (more)
This Disney-produced made-for-TV version of the classic children's tale features Noley Thornton as Heidi, the plucky girl from the Alps, with Jane Seymour as a mean-spirited governess and Jason Robards as Heidi's kindly grandfather. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- 1992
After being released from an institution, a manic-depressive attempts to get custody of her 5 children and struggles with the opposition of her oldest daughter and the foster parents. ~ Rovi
- Starring:
- Sarah Jessica Parker, Sally Struthers, (more)
- 1991
The made-for-television film Sarah, Plain & Tall is a Hallmark Hall of Fame production about a single New England schoolteacher (Glenn Close) who responds to an advertisement by a Midwestern widower, who is asking for a bride to help him raise his two children. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Walken
The Long Walk Home is a recreation of a troubled era in American history. The time is 1955; the place, Montgomery, Alabama. When Rosa Parks, an African American woman, is arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, it is the first volley in the great Bus Boycott, organized by Dr. Martin Luther King in order to desegregate the Birmingham transportation system. The boycott is a decided inconvenience for Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek), a well-to-do white woman. Now, Miriam must drive to the black section of town to pick up her maid Odessa Cotter (Whoopi Goldberg) and bring her to work. Outside of her own social circle, Miriam realizes for the first time just how privileged, sheltered and self-centered her life has been. What brings this fact home is the realization that Odessa has literally been raising two families: the Thompsons' and her own. Odessa has also sacrificed her own health and wellbeing to serve her employers without question or complaint. Awakened to the true inequities of "Separate But Equal", and impressed by Dr. King's edict of nonviolent resistance, Miriam joins the boycott. This stirs up the racist feelings harbored by Miriam's husband Norman (Dwight Schultz), who at the behest of his goonish brother Tunker (Dylan Baker) joins the Klanlike White Citizen's Council. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sissy Spacek, Whoopi Goldberg, (more)
