Kevin Inch Movies

This made-for-cable prequel to the popular 1997 comedy film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion was written by the same person who penned the original film, and stars Katherine Heigl and Alex Breckenridge respectively as Romy White and Michele Weinberger, the roles originated by Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino. Set in the decade before High School Reunion, Romy and Michele: In the Beginning finds our fresh-out-of-high-school heroines scrimping and saving to escape their hometown of Tucson, Arizona and land with both feet in Hollywood. It takes several years, but Romy and Michele finally arrive in La-La-Land, where in emulation of their favorite movie Pretty Woman they naively try to secure work as hookers! Fortunately they are rescued before "the worst" can happen by their new friend Donna (Alexandra Billings), who despite "her" name and appearance is actually a man in the process of becoming a woman. About to go on vacation, Donna allows the girls to live in his posh apartment, where they begin formulating their next scheme to get ahead in Tinseltown: namely, to gain access to the Ozone, the coolest nightclub in town. Along the way, the ladies meets their stud-muffin next door neighbor Taylor Bradley (Scott Vickaryous)--who, because of their association with Donna, assumes that Romy and Michele are female impersonators--and must contend with the velvety viciousness of nasty socialite Linda Fashiobella (Kelly Brook). Oh, and Paula Abdul shows up too. Romy and Michele: In the Beginning was first telecast by the ABC Family channel on May 30, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pride Weekend is coming up. Emmett (Peter Paige) plans to join the parade with legendary drag queen Godiva, who is suffering from AIDS. When Godiva passes away on the eve of the parade, Emmett is understandably distraught, and he isn't sure how to best honor her memory. Deb (Sharon Gless), who calls it "The High Homo Holidays," is marching with her PFLAG group and is upset, as always, that Michael (Hal Sparks) won't march beside her. He's worried about being seen by somebody from his job, but Deb's guilt trip gets him to agree to march. Then he finds out that a group of people from work is going to the parade to check out "the freaks," and he changes his mind again. Lindsay (Thea Gill) is less than thrilled when Leda (Nancy Sakovich), Mel's (Michelle Clunie) old girlfriend from her wilder days, shows up for the parade, reminisces about old times, and gets Mel to drag out the motorcycle she's had stashed away in the garage. Ted (Scott Lowell) wants to experience a little sexual freedom, but he's surprised when a hot young stud (Lee Rumohr) picks him up at Woody's and fulfills his wish. When Justin (Randy Harrison) accompanies Emmett to the AIDS hospice where Godiva died, he runs into a familiar and very unwelcome face. Brian (Gale Harold) works on a gay-themed wine cooler campaign for a homophobic CEO (Rodger Barton). ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A weekend vacation at a California seaside resort turns out to be business as usual for Monk (Tony Shalhoub), Sharona (Bitty Schramm) and Benjy (Max Morrow). The trouble begins when Benjy witnesses a murder--or does he? All existing evidence suggests that Benjy was either lying or hallucinating...especially when the "victim" shows up alive and well. But Monk smells a rat: Even by his own obsessive-compulsive standards, the alleged murder scene was way too clean for its own good! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The pun-ny title of this episode refers to a fellow named Clay (Victor Browne), who is a former boyfriend of Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano). Coming back into Phoebe's life, the highly untrustworthy Clay also brings along a heap of trouble for the Halliwell girls, in the form of a cursed Egyptian urn. Elsewhere, Piper (Holly Marie Combs) learns the hard way that affairs of the heart cannot be controlled by witchcraft, while Prue (Shannen Doherty) tries to undo the damage caused by warlock Rex -- and to save the auction house from going on the block itself. Cristine Rose makes her first series appearance as hard-nosed businesswoman Claire Price. ~ All Movie Guide

Winnetka, IL, was the unlikely setting for the semi-serialized 60-minute drama series Sisters, which made its NBC debut on May 11, 1991. The stories revolved around the endless trials and tribulations of the Reed sisters, four highly individualized women who were brought back together in adulthood by the death of their father. Swoosie Kurtz played Alex Reed, the oldest sister, who in the earliest episodes was the wife of philandering plastic surgeon Dr. Wade Halsey (David Dukes). In the course of the series, Alex would divorce Halsey, survive breast cancer, become a popular local TV talk show host, and wed a second time to her show's main sponsor, store owner (and future mayor of Winnetka!) Big Al Barker (Robert Klein). Alex's troubled daughter, Reed Halsey, was played by three different actresses: Kathy Wagner in season one, Ashley Judd in seasons two, three, and four, and Noelle Parker in the sixth and final season. Patricia Kalember was seen as Georgie Reed, a part-time real-estate agent wed to chronically unemployed nightclub singer John Whitsig (Garrett M. Brown); the couple had two sons, Trevor (Ryan Francis) and Evan (Dustin Berkovitz), the latter a leukemia survivor. Sela Ward co-starred as Teddy Reid, initially the most irresponsible of the sisters and a chronic alcoholic, who pulled herself together long enough to establish a successful career as a fashion designer. Her husbands included Mitch Margolis (Ed Marinaro), the father of Teddy's daughter, Cat (Heather McAdam); police detective James Falconer (George Clooney), who was killed only a few hours after the wedding; and Dr. Gabriel Sorenson (Stephen Collins), who had saved Teddy's life after she was beaten by a carjacker. Julianne Phillips was cast as Frankie Reed, the youngest sister, who began the series as a market analyst and eventually became the owner of the sisters' favorite hangout, the Sweet Sixteen Maltshop.

Early in the series, Frankie married Teddy's ex-husband, Mitch, and when the couple was unable to conceive, Georgie offered to be surrogate mother -- thereby setting up one of several outrageously improbable plot twists that would become a Sisters trademark. After breaking up with Mitch, Frankie had a brief fling with a young boxer named Lucky (John Wesley Shipp), then left Illinois to pursue new career vistas in Japan at the end of season five. Also in the cast was Elizabeth Hoffman as the sisters' widowed mother, Beatrice, who like Teddy suffered occasional bouts with the bottle. Beatrice's second husband was Judge Truman Ventnor (Philip Sterling), who after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's opted to commit suicide -- with the assistance of his stepdaughter, Alex. Later in the series, it was established that the Reed girls had a hitherto unknown half-sister, the product of a lengthy affair between their late father and his loyal nurse. In season five, Jo Anderson joined the cast as the girls' "mystery" sibling Dr. Charlotte "Charley" Bennett, a role taken over in season six by Sheila Kelley. Every so often, the series' main characters would indulge in a "thinkback" sequence, in which they would interact with their younger selves. This was but one of the many quirky dramatic touches that set Sisters apart from the standard "sibling angst" series of the period; other examples included the series' occasional forays into such hot-potato topical issues as racism, homosexuality, the AIDs crisis, and repressed-memory syndrome. After six seasons, Sisters ended with a heavily plotted, surprise-studded final episode on May 4, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide