Charlie Peters Movies

Inspired by the childhood experiences of actor George Hamilton, director Richard Loncraine's bittersweet period comedy tells the tale of one mother's attempt to find a new father for her two young boys after catching her husband with another woman. Beautiful but mercurial, Ann Devereaux (Renée Zellweger) has always gotten by on her own charms. Her husband, Dan (Kevin Bacon), is a successful bandleader, but when Ann becomes a witness to his infidelity, she packs their two sons, George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall), into her baby-blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible and never looks back. The year is 1953, and Ann is convinced that her girlish charms are still as irresistible as ever. At first their trip is something of an adventure for everyone involved, but the harder Ann searches for a suitable mate the more she realizes that true gentlemen are a dying breed. As time wears on, flamboyant fledgling actor Robbie and cynical aspiring writer George begin to tire of changing schools, their increasingly humble lodgings, and their mother's romantic misadventures. It's a life of instability and unpredictability punctuated by moments of sheer panic, and as Ann forms a different future for her family than either of her sons could have ever imagined, observant George learns to look past her narcissistic exterior and appreciate the determination, dignity, and love that lies just beneath the surface. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

What do you do when you've loved someone literally all their life? As Music From Another Room opens, five-year-old Danny is with his father, a U.S. Army doctor, when Dad is faced with an emergency. It seems Grace Swan (Brenda Blethyn), an old friend of the family, is in the last stages of labor and there's no time to get her to the hospital. Danny ends up helping his father deliver the infant, and moments after birth, Danny is holding the baby in his arms, convinced this is the girl he will marry someday. 20 years later, Danny (played as an adult by Jude Law), now an artist educated in England after the death of his father, is back in the States to help restore a church, and he meets Anna Swan (Gretchen Mol), the girl he helped deliver now all grown up and very beautiful. However, she's also become cold and cynical, and has a fiance to boot, so while Danny's attraction to her hasn't dimmed in two decades, it's clear winning her heart will be an uphill battle. The increasingly eccentric Swan family isn't much help either, including sweet but dizzy Grace, eggheaded father Richard (Bruce Jarchow), angry feminist Karen (Martha Plimpton), shy and blind Nina (Jennifer Tilly) and self-centered lout of a doctor Billy (Jeremy Piven). Screenwriter Charlie Peters steps up to the directors chair for this romantic comedy with a superb supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"Stupid is as stupid does," says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his relative level of intelligence with a stranger while waiting for a bus. Despite his sub-normal IQ, Gump leads a truly charmed life, with a ringside seat for many of the most memorable events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, hangs out with the Yippies, defeats the Chinese national team in table tennis, meets Richard Nixon, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. Meanwhile, as the remarkable parade of his life goes by, Forrest never forgets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn), the girl he loved as a boy, who makes her own journey through the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s that is far more troubled than the path Forrest happens upon. Featured alongside Tom Hanks are Sally Field as Forrest's mother; Gary Sinise as his commanding officer in Vietnam; Mykelti Williamson as his ill-fated Army buddy who is familiar with every recipe that involves shrimp; and the special effects artists whose digital magic place Forrest amidst a remarkable array of historical events and people. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Emile Ardolino directed this treacly sequel to Three Men and a Baby. The middle-aged trio of doting fathers -- Peter the architect (Tom Selleck), Michael the cartoonist (Steve Guttenberg) and Jack the actor (Ted Danson) -- have returned, sublimating their swinging bachelor instincts in order to raise 5-year-old Mary (Robin Weisman). The child of Jack and Sylvia (Nancy Travis), Mary was abandoned by Sylvia in the foyer of the boys' apartment house in the first film. In five years, Mary has grown from a diaper-filling infant to a cute kid who insists that the guys sing rap songs to her before she goes to bed. Sylvia now also lives with the bachelors as she pursues a promising Broadway career. Peter, Michael, and Jack dote on the moppet and parenthood has rarely seemed more idyllic. But Sylvia once again disrupts their placid existence. Accepting the marriage proposal of British director and surly cad Edward (Christopher Cazenove), she announces that she and Mary are going to move to England, leaving the boys high and dry. When it turns out that Edward is secretly planning to ship Mary away to a boarding school after the marriage, the three guys race frantically to disrupt Sylvia's wedding. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

After his mother's death, Fred P. Cheney (Bob Goldthwaith) must share the family financial business with his scheming stepfather Walter Sawyer (Dabney Coleman) in this misfired comedy. Fred also inherits Don, a talking horse who provides him with hot tips on the stock market. Don's voice is provided by John Candy, and Virginia Madsen plays Fred's romantic interest Allison Rowe. Mr. Ed and Francis the Talking Mule must be rolling over in their graves over this uneven comedy attempt. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Robert Mulligan directed this Americanized re-make of the successful Brazilian comedy Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. Sally Field stars as Kay Villano, a lonely widow of three years who can't forget the memory of her dead husband, Jolly (James Caan). Jolly was a selfish and unfaithful Broadway choreographer who still managed to win Kay over with his charm. But Kay has fallen in love again with Rupert Baines (Jeff Bridges), a stuffy professor of Egyptology. As her wedding day approaches, Kay receives a visit from Jolly's ghost, who taunts and harasses her, clearly upset that Kay is marrying someone so dull. Kay goes ahead with the marriage and Jolly refuses to disappear, resulting in a bizarre menage-a-tois. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide