Patrick Williams Movies

This holiday release pairs footage of a warm, crackling fireplace, with beloved Christmas music performed by country music star Martina McBride. Some of the tracks featured include Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Do You Hear What I Hear, Winter Wonderland, and more. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Season Four of Monk offers 16 new episodes (and a bonus) delineating the adventures of obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub). Functioning as Monk's erstwhile caregiver and assistant this season is Traylor Howard as Valerie Teeger, who had taken over from our hero's previous nurse Sharona Fleming in the middle of Season Three, due to the defection of supporting actress Bitty Schram. In the season opener, Monk meets his match--or so it seems--in the form of know-it-all detective Marty Eels (played by ex-Seinfeld costar Jason Alexander). Next up, John Turturo returns as Monk's agoraphobic brother Ambrose in a Halloween story that also involves the siblings' long-lost father. Then, Natalie takes over for a bedridden Monk to tackle the case of a murdered pizza deliveryman. To solve a subsequent homicide, Monk goes undercover at a business office--and finds he enjoys the work so much he almost loses sight of why he's there. Later on, Monk goes off on an unexpected bender in wine country, sobering up long enough to crack the case of a murder with a "nonexistent" victim. A dash of poignancy is added to the mixture when Monk finds out that his late wife Trudy may still be alive--and that she might have committed murder. And the episode "Mr. Monk and the Big Reward" introduces three brand-new, markedly eccentric detective characters, suggesting that the episode may have been intended as the pilot for a spinoff series. Other cases this season include the attempted murder of Monk's police buddy Lt. Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) at the wedding of Natalie's brother, and a less-than-sentimental journey to the past when Monk comes to the rescue of his childhood crush. Also: the death of a model whisks Monk off to the world of high-fashion (and bulimia!); an amnesiac Monk is led to believe that he is the husband of a small-town woman named Cora (Roseanne's Laurie Metcalf); Monk's police colleague Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) can't keep his mind on his work when he suspects that his "hippie" wife Karen (Glenne Headly) is having an affair; Monk sets out to prove an astronaut committed a murder that took place when the suspect was orbiting the earth; and a visit to the dentist's office leaves Monk at the mercy of a robber-murderer who seems to be a big fan of Marathon Man. In the season finale, Monk is summoned to jury duty for a minor robbery trial--and ends up solving yet another murder, not to mention foiling a scheme to spring a big-time criminal. In addition to the above-mentioned episodes, Season Four of Monk yields a special Christmas edition, "Monk and the Secret Santa", wherein murder rears its ugly head at the height of the SFPD's annual Holiday party--with Captain Stottlemeyer as the apparent target! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tagged as a "fairy tale for adults," Nicola Scott's byzantine spiritual fantasy Fated opens in Liverpool on New Year's Eve of 1992, when Tatty (Michael Angelis), a middle-aged artist, is suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned by his much younger French paramour, Amy (Katrine De Candole). As she flees from him, she is struck dead by a passing car - the incident quietly observed by a local boy (James Harris. Torn asunder with grief, Tatty erects a statue of his beloved and mounts it in the crumbling church of St. Luke's; he then bows to the monument and begs the deceased woman to revisit him in the flesh. Exactly thirteen years later, on New Year's 2005, Tatty's life is now a wreck; the incident has reduced him to an impoverished, ragged hobo who resides in St. Luke's, still hovering over his statue. Fleeing aggressors, a local boy, Cal (Brendan Mackey), opts to evade harm by stowing away in the church for one night. He encounters Tatty, and - when the head of the statue is accidentally knocked off - Amy is resurrected. Tatty informs Amy that her only hope of staying alive resides in kissing Cal (the first man she spotted after her resurrection) before dawn. But he fails to anticipate Amy's continued rejection of himself and her inclination to fall in love with Cal. As the night progresses, events unfurl in surprising and completely unexpected ways. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

First telecast by CBS on November 28, 2004, When Angels Comes to Town is the third in a series of whimsical TV-movies featuring Peter Falk as an eccentric, all-purpose guardian angel named Max. Sent to a small town in Maine just before the Christmas holidays, Max immediately gets to work on what he thinks is his current assignment: To help Sally Reid (Tammy Blanchard) earn enough money so that she can adopt her orphaned brother Jimmy (Alexander Conti). Unfortunately, it turns out that Max has goofed: Instead of Sally, he was supposed to come to the aid of Karl Hoffman (Seann Gallagher), a misguided young man who is poised to lay off the artisans working at the glass factory run by his Uncle Gregory (Mark Anthony Krupa), an East German refugee. Thus it is that Max's heavenly superior, an attractive angel named Jo (Katey Sagal), descends to earth to untangle the mess. Subsequently, however, both Max and Jo come to realize that the ultimates fates of Sally and Karl are inextricably intertwined. As was the case in the earlier A Town Without Christmas and Finding John Christmas, the cagey Max adopts several disguises in the course of his assignment, at one point showing up in drag! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Beauty and Power tells the sordid tale of Judith Exner (Natasha Henstridge), who claimed to have dated Frank Sinatra (John Ralston) and to have been the mistress of Jack Kennedy (Kevin Anderson, who played also Bobby Kennedy in Hoffa). The story is told in flashback, from Exner's point of view. In voice-overs, Exner breaks her life down into three critical mistakes -- the three major romantic relationships in her life. The first, she explains, was marrying Billy Campbell (Grant Nickalls), who was more concerned with his acting career than with their marriage, and who cheated on her frequently. Her friendship with an L.A.-based mobster leads to an affair with Sinatra, which she breaks off after he tries to involve her in a ménage a trios. She remains friends with Sinatra, and then meets Kennedy while he's just beginning his primary campaign for the presidency, and she soon falls in love with him. At around the same time, she meets Chicago gangster Sam Giancana (Peter Friedman), who falls in love with her and is jealous of her romance with Kennedy. Eventually she becomes a liaison between the presidential candidate and the mob, carrying briefcases of Kennedy money to Giancana for his help with the election. Kennedy professes his love for her and tells her that his marriage is just for show, and that he'll get a divorce if he doesn't win the presidency. Of course, things don't work out the way Exner might have hoped. The FBI begins harassing her, and she grows frustrated with her arrangement with the president. Beauty and Power debuted on Showtime in July 2002. It was directed by Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan). ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

The remarkable life and tragic death of Marilyn Monroe has fascinated film fans for decades, but this two-part TV miniseries, based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, takes an unusual approach, using dramatic license (the film announces itself as a work of fiction using the names of real people) to look inside the minds of Monroe and those around her to ponder the circumstances of her rise and fall. Young Norma Jeane Baker (Skye McCole Bartusiak) is raised by single mother Gladys (Patricia Richardson), who is unstable, uncaring, and poorly equipped to deal with the responsibilities of parenthood. As Norma Jeane grows up without a father and with little affection from her mother, she suffers from a poor self-image and craves attention; when she grows into a beautiful young woman who is unusually attractive to men, she falls into a number of romances and a short-lived marriage in search of the approval she needs so desperately. When Norma Jeane (now played by Poppy Montgomery) turns 20, she meets a photographer, Otto (Eric Bogosian), who sees star potential in her beauty. Otto's cheesecake pictures catch the eye of I.E. Shinn (Wallace Shawn), an agent who in turned introduces her to Mr. R (Richard Roxburgh), the head of a movie studio, who offers to make Norma Jeane a star -- if she would be willing to have sex with him. Norma Jeane unenthusiastically agrees, and Mr. R proves good to his word; renamed Marilyn, she becomes an major film star and an international sex symbol. But the adulation proves to be a poor substitute for the love she craves, and as she falls into relationships with any man who treats her with a modicum of respect -- including a famous baseball player (Titus Welliver) and an acclaimed author (Griffin Dunne) -- her life begins to spiral out of control. Blonde also stars Ann-Margret, Kirstie Alley, and Patrick Dempsey; the series first aired May 13 and May 16, 2001, on the CBS television network. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A couple's worst nightmare becomes a reality as they find themselves behind bars with their children are taken away from them in this made-for-TV drama, inspired by a true story. Brenda and Scott Kniffen (Viginia Madsen and Jeffrey Nordling) are asked by friends to testify as character witnesses at a child custody hearing. After The Kniffens take the stand, a relation of their friends, who was upset by the testimony, tells authorities that Brenda and Scott are guilty of beating their young sons, molesting them sexually, and taking pornographic photographs of them. While there is no truth to the accusations, a prosecutor determined to prove he's tough on child abuse takes on the case, and his staff badgers Brandon Kniffen (Cory Dorkin) and his brother Brian (Ryan Wilson) into giving damaging statements and testifying against their parents in court. Brenda and Scott spend the next twelve years behind bars, fighting their case as best they can as they try to prove their innocence and become reunited with their children. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This CBS TV movie was based on the 1994 book Jenny Cockell: Across Time and Death -- which in turn was allegedly inspired by a true story. Upon finding out that she is pregnant again, contemporary American architect Jenny Cockell (Jane Seymour) begins experiencing bizarre dreams, in which she is transported back to the Ireland of 1930. Despite the skepticism of her husband Doug (Clancy Brown), Jenny becomes convinced that she is the reincarnation of a troubled Irishwoman named Mary Sutton (also played by Jane Seymour), who died in childbirth. The only way that Jenny can uncover the truth -- and assuage her fears that she will suffer the same fate when her child is born -- is by contacting Mary Sutton's now-elderly children. Thus, Jenny makes the long journey to Ireland, there to possibly confirm her suspicions with Mary's oldest child, Sonny Sutton (played by 89-year-old Hume Cronyn). Yesterday's Children originally aired on October 15, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

He was a poor carpenter who never traveled further than 50 miles from his home and died at the age of 33, but his teachings changed the world and he's still followed by hundreds of millions of people around the world, 2,000 years after his death. Jesus, originally produced as a television mini-series, offers a glimpse of the human side of the messiah, as well as recounting the story of his life and martyrdom. Jeremy Sisto stars as Jesus, with Jacqueline Bisset as Mary, Armin Mueller-Stahl as Joseph, Gary Oldman as Pontius Pilate, and Debra Messing as Mary Magdalene. The home video release is expanded from the broadcast edition, featuring material that was cut for time purposes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In her TV-movie acting debut, singer Amy Grant is cast as Maryann Lowery, a blind music teacher. When her conservatory classroom is presumptively taken over by arrogant New Age pianist Gregory Pavan (D.W. Moffett), Maryann, unimpressed by the man's celebrity, is outraged -- until Pavan enthusiastically declares that Maryann has what it takes to become a world-renowned concert cellist. As the two temperamental musicians become romantically involved, Maryann's sensitive widowed neighbor Oliver Comstock (Keith Carradine), who has always worshipped her from afar, quietly despairs. It will take a sight-restoring operation before Maryann's eyes are (literally) opened to her true and lasting love. Also known as Music From the Heart, A Song From the Heart premiered September 26, 1999 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jeff (William L. Petersen) and Marty (Gary Cole) are two businessmen who are sent to the Philippines for a project. The two men share a growing disenchantment with their professional lives and the responsibilities of adulthood, so they impulsively go on a drug and alcohol-fueled bender in search of the lost freedom and joie de vivre of youth. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this Carl Reiner-directed romantic comedy, Bette Midler stars as a movie star named Lilly, who has had a fairly successful career which is now on the downturn. Years after a terrible divorce, she meets up again with her ex-husband Dan (Dennis Farina) at the wedding of their daughter Molly (Paula Marshall). Molly is marrying a young and promising politician, Keith Marks (Jamie Denton), and the wedding is a formal affair. Lilly and Dan have each remarried, and each despise the other's new spouse. Dan has taken up with the young bombshell who ruined the marriage, Rowena (Gail O'Grady). Lilly is wedded to their former marriage counselor, Alan (David Rasche), a psychobabble-spouting shrink. Lilly and Dan engage in a huge shouting match at the reception, and they are shooed outside, where their argument leads to a passionate reunion in a sports car. Impulsively, they run away together. Keith, seeking damage control to avert a possible political scandal, enlists Molly's help, and she hires a papparazi photographer, Joey (Danny Nucci), who has spent several years stalking Lilly with his camera and selling candid photos to celebrity magazines. Molly and Joey find Molly's parents at a hotel, but Lilly locks them in a room together so that she and Dan can have one old last romantic evening. Molly and Joey find themselves uncomfortably attracted to each other, leading to more romantic trouble. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Greg Davis (Michael Reilly Burke) was 12 years old when his childhood sweetheart Karen Carlson disappeared while en route to his home. 17 years later, Greg, now a schoolteacher, is astonished by the sudden appearance of an enigmatic young woman (Melissa Gilbert) who claims to be the long-missing Karen. The woman's vivid recollections of abduction, and the fact that she knows many of Karen's innermost secrets, convince Greg that she's the genuine article. But Karen's father Warren (Ronny Cox) and detective James Walker (Leon Russom) are not so easily persuaded--and when Karen begins to behave in a bizarre, erratic fashion, the possibility arises that she may not be whom she claims to be...and that her past is far more sinister than anyone could imagine. Alternating between a full-color "present" and black-and-white vignettes of "the past", the made-for-TV Childhood Sweetheart? debuted March 18, 1997, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide