Tera Tabrizi Movies

Carlito's Way is a tale of a former hood trying to escape his former life. Al Pacino is Carlito Brigante, a high-level Puerto Rican drug dealer sprung from a three-decade jail sentence after only five years, thanks to a technicality and his sleazy, cocaine-addled lawyer, Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). Carlito renounces his previous ways and takes a job as the manager of a club that Kleinfeld has invested in, planning to save enough money so that he can eventually move to the Caribbean. But no sooner is Carlito back on the streets of New York than his old life claws at him in the form of both old partners (Luis Guzman) and vicious up-and-comers (John Leguizamo). Nevertheless, Carlito stays clean and even restarts his relationship with a dancer named Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), until he is finally led astray by Kleinfeld, who manipulates Carlito into participating in the murder of a Mafia don from whom Kleinfeld has stolen a million dollars. At that point, the race is on to see whether Carlito and Gail can escape his world for good. The film is based on two novels about Carlito written by New York State judge Edwin Torres. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

Soft-core drama czar Zalman King, creator of such erotic fictions as 9 1/2 Weeks (1986), Two Moon Junction (1988), and Wild Orchid (1990), directed this tale of doomed romance that served as the feature-length pilot for a long-running cable television series. David Duchovny stars as Jake Winters, an architect and city planner preparing to wed his fiancee, successful interior designer Alex (Brigitte Bako). What Jake doesn't know, however, is that the guilt-stricken Alex is carrying on a torrid affair with a macho construction worker and part-time shoe salesman named Tom (Billy Wirth). Torn desperately between her two lovers, Alex chronicles the relationships in her diary. After she commits suicide, a despondent Jake discovers the eye-opening journal and has a violent confrontation with Tom that leaves neither man with much emotional resolution. In an effort to understand women and his own grief, Jake places an anonymous advertisement in newspapers, encouraging women to confess their erotic secrets to him through the mail, and setting the stage for Red Shoe Diaries, the series. Although he was soon famous as the male lead in The X-Files, Duchovny honored his agreement with King to star in the adult series, appearing in wrap-around segments at the beginning and end of each episode. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

A crime fighter created in the 1930s and popularized in movies, pulp novels, and a radio show starring a young Orson Welles, The Shadow came back to life in 1994 in this slick, well-cast production. Alec Baldwin stars as Lamont Cranston, a murderous opium dealer reformed by a Tibetan mystic, who teaches him how to use his keen mental powers to manipulate others. As penance for his past misdeeds, Cranston masquerades as a degenerate New York City playboy by day and secretly plays the heroic Shadow by night, staving off evildoers with a network of agents and a cab-driving sidekick (Peter Boyle). A greater challenge arrives when Cranston must fight Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the final descendent of Genghis Khan, who has received training from the same Tibetan master who instructed Cranston. Shiwan plans to use atomic weapons to take over New York and then the world. At the same time, Cranston meets socialite Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller), and, although he's instantly enamored of her, he discovers that her psychic abilities render his secret identity vulnerable. The Shadow was directed by former music video creator Russell Mulcahy, whose feature film debut Highlander (1986) was a cult classic. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi