Rachel Talalay Movies

Thesps Matt Lucas, Bob Hoskins, Mark Gatiss and Lee Ingleby star in this live-action BBC miniseries adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's beloved novel The Wind in the Willows. The program weaves the familiar tale of Mole, Rat, Badger and the inimitable Mr. Toad, who remain fast friends as they experience exciting adventures involving stolen motorcars, imprisonment, houseboating. gypsies and freewheeling nighttime expeditions. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Produced by the same team responsible for C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation, the CBS series Without a Trace focused on the activities of the FBI's Missing Persons Squad. Each episode revealed the methodical, minute-by-minute, clue-by-clue procedure used by the Squad in their efforts to locate people who seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Of special interest was the squad's weekly reconstruction of the D.O.D., or Day of Disappearance. Like C.S.I., the series was highly but not obtrusively stylized, using fast-cutting, dreamlike flashbacks and superimposed images. Anthony LaPaglia headed the cast as the Squad's businesslike, super-efficient leader Jack Malone. Created by Hank Steinberg of 61* fame, Without a Trace debuted September 26, 2002, in the prime Thursday-night time slot opposite NBC's long-running ER. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Due to the round-the-clock coverage of the World Trade Center tragedy, the beginning of the fall 2001 TV season was delayed on all of the major networks. The first "new" primetime series to be unveiled was CBS's Wolf Lake, a quirky supernatural effort in the tradition of The X-Files and Twin Peaks. Six months after the disappearance of his girlfriend Ruby, Seattle policeman John Kanin (Lou Diamond Phillips receives an anonymous tip that the girl was spotted in the remote Pacific Northwest community of Wolf Lake. Unbeknownst to John (at least at first!), the community is controlled by shapeshifting werewolves, several of whom are locked in a power struggle to attain the coveted title of Alpha Wolf. Working hand and glove with local lawkeeper Sheriff Jack Donner (Tim Matheson), John sets about to solve Ruby's disappearance, while at the same time trying to sort out the strange goings-on in Wolf Lake. Meanwhile, John's 16-year-old daughter Sophia (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is herself beginning to exhibit wolflike tendencies, carries on a clandestine romance with local "wild boy" Luke Cates (Paul Wasilewski), the son of powerful industrialist Willard Cates (Bruce McGill), who happens to be the chief competition of local entrepreneur Tyler Creed (Scott Bairstow) for the Alpha Wolf position. The only person who knows all the dark secrets of Wolf Lake is enigmatic biology teacher Sherman Blackstone (Graham Greene. Not surprisingly, the weekly, 60-minute Wolf Lake was executive-produced by an X-Files alumnus, Alex Gansa. The series debuted on September 19, 2001. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter Hewitt (Tom and Huck) directed this $30-million family film, an adaptation of Mary Norton's classic children's novels about a miniature family of wee folk, four inches high, living beneath the floorboards of an English cottage. The Borrowers family, so labeled because they "borrow" from the house's kitchen, consist of Pod Clock (Jim Broadbent), mother Homily (Celia Imre), and children Arrietty (13-year-old Flora Newbigin) and Peagreen (Tom Felton). Their adventure begins when they're almost caught in the kitchen by the Lenders, the tenants of the house, so they run for cover. When lawyer-Realtor Ocious P. Potter (John Goodman) discovers the owner of the house has died, he makes plans to evict the Lenders and demolish the building -- a situation where one would want to "neither a Borrower nor a Lender be." Fortunately, young Pete Lender (Bradley Pierce) has become friends with Arrietty -- an alliance leading toward a method of thwarting Potter. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can transfer the information from her address book into a software program that will store the information on her PC. Unknown to Terry, one of the employees of the store is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), known in the press as "The Address Book Killer," who likes to steal other people's address books and murder all the people listed within, including the book's owner. Terry accidentally leaves her book behind at the store, and Karl lifts it, but as he drives to her house to strike her off the list first, he is injured in a serious accident and taken to a hospital. While Karl is being given a CAT scan, lightning strikes the building and Karl is transformed into a series of electrical impulses that can travel as computer code from one system to another, or as current through power lines. Soon Terry begins to suspect something is wrong as her friends succumb to attacks by microwave ovens, hot-air blowers, and other household objects. Terry and her computer-savvy son, Josh (Wil Horneff), realize that they're at risk after Karl appears in Josh's virtual reality games; it's up to Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey), a brilliant hacker-turned-computer maintenance technician, to isolate and destroy the Karl virus before it can kill again. The film's soundtrack features such hip-hop stars as D-Nice and Too Short, Schoolly-D, Grandmaster Slice, and Kool Moe Dee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The producers insisted that this sixth entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street series marked the last; no points for guessing that additional sequels followed. This time, homicidal wraith Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) decides to extend his reign of terror past Elm Street. His agent-on-earth is his own long-lost daughter Maggie (Lisa Zane, sister of Phantom star Billy Zane). Securing a job as a dream therapist for troubled teens, Maggie is able to "open up" the minds of her patients so that Freddy can exercise his usual bloody prerogative. In a garish, 3-D climax, Freddy himself becomes the victim of the vengeful Maggie. Since what happens in this picture is laid out in the title, we can't possibly be accused of giving the ending away. Watch for cameos from Roseanne and her then-husband Tom Arnold, Alice Cooper, Elinor Donahue, and Johnny Depp, one of the stars of the very first Nightmare. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fourth trip down Freddy Lane was the most successful at the box-office, but although it has some impressive visuals, it is mostly an empty film. Credit must go to the effects team for some fine work, but otherwise, this entry from the director of Cutthroat Island (Renny Harlin) is extremely weak. Roland Kincaid falls asleep and awakens in the Springwood junkyard, where his dog -- named "Jason" in a sad foreshadowing of the film's giggly tone -- pees fire on Freddy's grave. The pyro-urinary baptism causes Krueger (Robert Englund) to reassemble from bones outward in an admittedly impressive sequence. Predictably, Freddy guts Kincaid, then appears in Joey's waterbed as a naked pinup girl (Hope-Marie Carlton) before slicing him to ribbons. And so it goes. The film has a few interesting ideas kicking around, but no real identification points. This is a video game, not a movie, and the characters seem to exist only in order to move the film from one effects sequence to another. There is a lot to be said for special effects, and the ones here are extraordinary and vivid. However, the wonderfully grim mood and subtle performances of Chuck Russell's outstanding third entry in the series are gone, abandoned by Harlin in favor of a splashy, comic book approach which would, unfortunately, dominate the series' later installments. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

The best of the Elm Street sequels, this creepy, surreal fantasy features terrific effects, a fine young cast, and an air of grim fatalism that sets it apart from its giggly successors. Patricia Arquette stars as Kristen, whose nightmare leads to a slashed wrist which looks suspiciously like a suicide attempt. She is placed in a hospital psychiatric ward with a group of six other troubled teens who all dream about the same horribly burned man (Robert Englund) trying to kill them. Perhaps the most unusual thing about this picture, however, is the unexpected depth of sadness running through it. There are some achingly sweet moments in this otherwise frightening film which, though not disruptive, are impossible to analyze. The first and most bizarre of these is Heather Langenkamp's entrance, which inexplicably causes most viewers to get misty-eyed, and there are several similar scenes throughout the film. One answer can be found in the sensitive direction of Chuck Russell, who emphasizes the tragedy and utter hopelessness in these kids' lives and manages to wring some unexpectedly perceptive turns from his cast. This is a film in which a great deal of care was obviously lavished on individual scenes (the sets are outstanding) and performances. The results are well worth repeated viewings, and prove that sequels don't necessarily have to be inferior films. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Several movie genres collide head-on in Android. Klaus Kinski plays a slightly cracked scientist, working in solitude on a remote space station. Kinski is hoping to develop a race of humanlike robots, the prototype of which is Max. 404 (Don Opper). He is interrupted by a coed gang of space-hopping escaped convicts. One of the cons, the lovely Brie Howard, falls in love with Max. 404, and he with her. The android's less attractive traits are exhibited when he jealously attempts to destroy female robot Kendra Kirchner. Though there's no budget to speak of, Android is one of the more likeable second-echelon sci-fiers of the 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide