Jason Oliver
- 2000
Four guys whose lives are going nowhere discover to their horror that they have to go someplace (and soon) in this independent comedy-drama. A quartet of college graduates/dropouts are sharing a run-down house on the outskirts of L.A. -- a struggling writer (Timothy DiPri), a chronic burnout (Jason Oliver), a self-styled ladies' man (Mark Fite), and the one guy who actually pays attention to the bills and the rent (Todd Stanton). One day, the guys discover that their landlord is selling the house and that they'll soon be forced to vacate the premises, leaving them and their buddy who crashes on the couch (Jason Cross) with nowhere to go. Suddenly responsibility is staring them in the face, as they tear themselves away from the holy trinity of beer, pot, and cable television and look for jobs that will allow them to pay an actual security deposit. Left Overs was the debut feature from writer and director Jason Phillips -- it earned a theatrical release from noted oddball exploitation outfit Troma Team Pictures. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Di Pri
- 1995
In this thriller, an attempted variation of Roman Polanski's Repulsion, a young woman is repeatedly threatened by a violent intruder. The pretty woman had a husband, but lost him after he killed her lover and then himself in front of her. Now she is constantly harassed and approached at work, but consistently demurs. She begins to believe she is being stalked and her suspicions are confirmed when her apartment is entered and she is knocked around and robbed. A policeman is assigned for protection, but after she rejects his advances, he stops doing his job adequately. Now the woman is on her own against an unknown force. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Mark L. Lester's follow-up film to his Class of 1984 is a rancidly violent peek at a near-future high school world of terror -- The Jetsons meet The Terminator. In Lester's world, total anarchy rules (at least in Seattle). Classrooms are sinkholes of violence, and around the kill-zone high schools "Free Fire Zones" are set up that look like re-creations of Dachau. Rival youth gangs roam these areas with enough artillery for a second Vietnam War. The gangs' insane violence is exacerbated by a drug called Edge. When the Department of Educational Defense needs to supply new teachers, they look to a secret government agency headed by Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach) who sends new teaching recruits (Pam Grier, John P. Ryan, Joshua Miller) to the beleaguered high school. These novice teachers are not your ordinary teaching-college graduates, however. They are "tactical education units" -- cyborgs reprogrammed to teach readin' and writin' and 'rithmetic. If the students don't learn their daily assignments, they learn an even bigger lesson -- learn or die. The strict disciplinarian robots compel the student gangs to unite and fight the new educational menace. Under the leadership of Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg), who has just gotten out of reform school and has seen that there is more to life than killin' and cuttin' and Edge, the punks take up arms against the cyborgs who are invading their high-school turf. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bradley Gregg, Traci Lind, (more)
In this comedy, Corey Woods (Fred Savage) sneaks his emotionally disturbed little brother, Jimmy (Luke Edwards) out of the home he has been placed in, and sets off on a trip across the country. Along the way they team up with young Haley (Jenny Lewis), and together they discover that the silent Jimmy has a gift for playing video games. With this newfound information, the trio sets off for a video game competition in California, pursued by a number of concerned relatives. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred Savage, Beau Bridges, (more)
- 1988
I'll Be Home for Christmas has the texture of a Norman Rockwell painting and the ambience of William Saroyan's The Human Comedy. Set in Rockport, Massachusetts (where this TV movie was filmed), the story takes place during World War II. Hal Holbrook and Eva Marie Saint are the parents of three grown children, all of whom are involved in some capacity with the defense program. Oldest son Whip Hubley is a bomber pilot, daughter Nancy Travis is a "Rosie the Rivetter," and younger son Jason Oliver has just enlisted. The film doesn't miss a trick, from the presence of the daughter's soldier-boy sweetheart to the crucial wire from the War Department. Its expected cliches aside, I'll Be Home for Christmas is meticulous in its recreation of the Yuletide of 1944; the film is perfect Christmas Eve TV fare, and never mind that it originally premiered on December 12, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on the Stephen King short story The Body, Rob Reiner's easygoing nostalgia piece is set in Castle Rock, OR, over Labor Day weekend, 1959. A quartet of boys, inseparable friends all, set out in search of a dead body that one of the boys overhears his brother talking about. The foursome consists of intellectual Gordie (Wil Wheaton), born leader Chris (River Phoenix), emotionally disturbed Teddy (Corey Feldman), and chubby hanger-on Vern (Jerry O'Connell). The boys' adventures en route to the elusive body are colored by the personal pressures brought to bear on all of them by the adult world. Richard Dreyfuss, playing the grown-up Gordie, narrates the film, while Kiefer Sutherland dominates every scene he's in as a brutish high-school bully. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, (more)
