Rebecca Wackler Movies

Set in the early 1900s in a small Southern town, this made-for-cable television romance centers on the "scandalous" love affair that blossoms between a free-thinking, strong-willed Northern widow and the much older owner of a local general store. The plot is based on a novel by Olive Ann Burns. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

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

In this comedy drama, three women meet each other in a divorce attorney's waiting room and soon become fast friends as they try to help each other through the pain of their crumbling marriages. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Peter Dexter adapted his National Book Award-winning novel for this probing made-for-cable film featuring Dennis Hopper in the title role as an unrepentant racist in 1949 Georgia. Trout is a greedy and paranoid shopkeeper who murders the sister and mother of a black man who refuses to repay Trout's IOU. When Trout is arrested for the crimes, he can't comprehend why he would be aprehended for his actions. Lawyer Harry Seagraves (Ed Harris) arrives to represent Trout in court, but Seagroves dislikes defending a man whom he feels deserves to be punished. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Love Crimes, an erotic thriller directed by Lizzie Borden, explores the psychology of a con man posing as a photographer, who seduces women and then blackmails them using humiliating, revealing pictures he has taken of them. David Hanover (Patrick Bergin) preys on the hopes of women by offering them love and a possible career as fashion models. When some of the women complain, but refuse to aid in Hanover's prosecution, DA Dana Greenway (Sean Young) becomes obsessed with catching Hanover, to the point where she tracks him down and spys on him in his secluded home, making herself a potential victim. He catches her and holds her captive. Feminist filmmaker Borden, who also directed the remarkable, low-budget film Working Girls, raises interesting questions regarding sex, humiliation and male-female relationships, but the film is spoiled by the ambiguity of her central character, Dana. An abused child herself, she has the same self-loathing that the other woman who are preyed upon by Hanover possess, but her motivations for her actions remain murky. Despite these flaws, Borden, always an interesting filmmaker, raises important issues which perhaps can't be adequately resolved using the restrictions of the thriller genre. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Kim Basinger plays a burglar ex-con who's just been released from a 10-year stint and intends to go straight, when a big-time Atlanta crime boss kidnaps her six-year-old son and forces her to pull one last heist. She concocts an elaborate bank job but goes one step further and outwits both the bank and the mobster. ~ Rovi