Bruce Altman Movies

Combining elements of A Christmas Carol and Rain Man (1988), this modern-day parable of greed and redemption was crafted with generous helpings of sentimentality by director Mike Nicholas. Harrison Ford stars as Henry Turner, a slick, ruthless corporate attorney willing to spin any falsehood to win a case. A bully to his teenage daughter Rachel (Mikki Allen), Henry also cheats on his wife Sarah (Annette Bening) and treats everyone from the maid to his assistant with cruel selfishness. Stepping out to a local mini-market for a pack of cigarettes late one night, Henry accidentally interrupts a burglary and is shot in the head by a stick-up artist. After a long coma, Henry survives only to find that he has no memory and must re-learn everything from reading to tying his shoes. Reborn as a friendly, childlike innocent, Henry charms his therapist (Bill Nunn) and reconnects with his wife and daughter, only to uncover some secrets about how truly appalling he once was. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Law & Order's first two-part episode begins with an assault on the owner of a candy store. Following the trail of clues, Greevey (George Dzundza) and Logan (Chris Noth) end up at the door of prominent gangster boss Frank Masucci (Charles Cioffi). The so-called "Dandy Don" has long eluded prosecution, but attorneys Stone (Michael Moriarty) and Robinette (Richard Brooks) believe that they at last have enough evidence to put Masucci away for life. Alas, the lawyers have placed all their eggs in a single "basket" -- namely, Masucci's mercurial brother-in-law Harv Beigel (Bruce Altman). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

David Mamet's award-winning play about a group of desperate real estate agents comes to the big screen from director James Foley. In a role created specifically for the movie, Alec Baldwin appears as a sales motivator, informing the group of hard-luck salesmen that they must compete in a sales contest where the losers will be fired. The agents work their same tired leads, until one hatches a scheme to burglarize the office, steal the leads, and sell them to a rival. Featuring a cast that includes Al Pacino as the office's sales leader, Jack Lemmon as an elderly loser, Alan Arkin and Ed Harris as frustrated salesmen, Kevin Spacey as the harassed office manager, and Jonathan Pryce as a client, Glengarry Glen Ross is, at its core, a character study about a group of men whose time has passed. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

A young man (Matt Dillon) is trying to go in with his friends on a bowling-alley investment, but finds that his finances are too strapped to attempt the venture. To curb his outlays, he begins arranging a marriage for his ex-wife (Annabella Sciorra) so he can end the alimony payments which keep him in debt. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

The title character, a manic depressive prone to very irrational behavior (Richard Gere), is hospitalized for treatment. While there, the psychiatrist responsible for his rehabilitation (Lena Olin) becomes involved with him and cannot stand to allow his check-out. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

It's 1958, and the producers of the quiz show 21 have a problem. Their current champ, Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), has a phenomenal memory and a broad range of knowledge. He's also a pudgy loudmouth with a grating personality, so Herbert is encouraged to "take a dive" and allow Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a handsome and charming college professor, to become the show's new champion. Audiences like Van Doren, and he's certainly not averse to the money he's winning, but the ethics of the situation begin to trouble him, especially when the show's producers begin to give him the questions in advance. Director Robert Redford and writer Paul Attanasio paint a telling portrait of how the network heads and advertising men who manipulated the quiz shows were also able to manipulate the responsibility for the scandal away from themselves. While on the surface a story about the scandal itself, Quiz Show is just as importantly about a turning point in the 1950s when TV and advertising began to change American character and culture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Ron Howard's drama follows a beleaguered reporter during a hectic 24 hours at a New York City tabloid. Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, a metro editor for the struggling New York Sun. Hackett is being wooed by the Sentinel, a more upscale paper, but he's addicted to the adrenaline-stimulating, breakneck pace of the Sun's newsroom, much to the consternation of his pregnant wife Martha (Marisa Tomei. Hackett is currently pursuing a story of two minority youths who have been arrested for the murders of two men. He learns that the police think that the killings may be a mob hit. In the court of public opinion, however, the innocent suspects are being judged as guilty, and the police may bow to the pressure. As Hackett and his staff desperately work all the story's angles to find the truth, several other dramas unfold. Top editor Bernie (Robert Duvall) learns that he has prostate cancer, and tough publisher Alicia (Glenn Close) wonders if her lack of popularity is due to her cost-cutting, her personality, or the fact that she's a woman. In their only collaboration, screenwriter David Koepp co-wrote the script with his brother Stephen Koepp, a senior editor at Time magazine. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In the opening episode of Touched by an Angel's second season, Heavenly caseworker Monica (Roma Downey) receives orders from On High to submit to an interview with Callie Martin (Dinah Manoff), who is contemptuously skeptical about angelic encounters. Monica tells Callie about her most recent assignment, wherein embittered heart-transplant surgeon Joe Pachorek (Gerald McRaney) was obliged to operate on Ethan Parker (Douglas Roberts)--the man who had killed Joe's children in a drunken-driving accident. Not only must Pachorek find it within himself to forgive Parker, but Callie must also learn a sobering lesson about making snap judgments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A mother mourning her son's suicide finds herself thrown into a sexual tailspin when she finds herself attracted to women in this romantic comedy. The comedy comes in as she tries to court a stripper in a local gay bar. Unfortunately the stripper has other things in mind for the bereaved mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Nicholas Hytner (The Crucible) directed this Wendy Wasserstein screenplay, adapted from Stephen McCauley's novel, about the romantic mismatch of a gay man and a young pregnant woman. When literary agent Sidney Miller (Alan Alda) and his wife Constance (Allison Janney) have a dinner party, Constance's social-worker stepsister Nina Borowski (Jennifer Aniston) attends without her lawyer boyfriend Vince McBride (John Pankow). Also present are gay schoolteacher George Hanson (Paul Rudd) and his lover, Dr. Robert Joley (Tim Daly). George learns from Nina that he's being dumped by Robert, a scene ensues, and Nina then invites George to stay in the spare room of her Brooklyn apartment. Nina still has sex with boyfriend Vince, but during late-night talks, she begins to bond with her gay roommate. Nina and George take dance lessons at the local senior citizen's community center, and Gershwin's "You Were Meant for Me" sets the tone for romance as the two become soul mates. Unfortunately, shortly after their love blooms, Nina learns she's pregnant by Vince, who is no longer the object of her affections. Instead of telling the unwanted Vince right away, Nina asks George to join her in raising the child. George stays on, but in the months that follow, he also begins to see men again. Robert takes him along to a Connecticut conference where drama critic Rodney Fraser (Nigel Hawthorne) has Paul James (Amo Gulinello) in tow. George and Paul have an instant attraction, and this prompts everyone involved to reassess their emotional commitments. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A teenaged boy in desperate need of a father figure finds one in a place no one should ever have to look in this controversial drama. Howie (Paul Franklin Dano) is a 15-year-old who has been emotionally at sea ever since the death of his mother in an auto accident several years before. Howie's father Marty (Bruce Altman) is also having trouble dealing with the loss, and distracts himself with empty sex while avoiding authorities attempting to prosecute him for using unsafe materials in his building contracting business. Howie falls in with a group of homeless delinquents his own age, becoming especially close to streetwise Gary (Billy Kay). In time, Howie begins to wonder if his feelings for Gary go past ordinary friendship, but the issue of his sexuality is forced into a very different light after Gary persuades Howie to join him in robbing the home of middle-aged former Marine Big John Harrigan (Brian Cox). It doesn't take long for Big John to track down the culprits after Howie and Gary steal several guns from his house, but Howie learns that Big John and Gary have met before -- Gary sometimes works as a male prostitute, and Big John, whose tastes run to boys in their early teens, is a regular customer. When Gary runs away to California, Big John proposes that Howie work off their debt by having sex with him; while Howie is hardly comfortable with this arrangement, he has nowhere else to go after his father ends up in jail, and he finds an unexpected degree of emotional support in his relationship with the curiously compassionate pedophile, who comes to understand just how badly Howie needs help. L.I.E. (the title stands for "Long Island Expressway") premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Roger Michell follows up the hit romantic comedy Notting Hill (1999) with this thought-provoking thriller. Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson star, respectively, as Gavin Banek and Doyle Gibson, two New York men whose lives become accidentally intertwined in a Good Friday fender bender on the FDR Drive. Late for a crucial appointment, hotshot lawyer Gavin tosses Doyle a blank check and leaves the scene, while Doyle, whose car is inoperable, is late for a court-appointed custody hearing. A recovering alcoholic, Doyle's tardiness doesn't sit well with the judge, who - sick of waiting for Gipson - grants custody to Doyle's ex-wife in Doyle's absence. The situation worsens when it becomes evident that Doyle has an equally important file belonging to Gavin, which proves that an elderly man gave Banek's firm power-of-attorney over his foundation. So begins an escalating war of words and deeds between the two men. Soon, egged on by an associate (Toni Collette), Gavin hires a "fixer" (Dylan Baker) to destroy Doyle's credit, forcing Doyle to fire back with some cunning moves of his own. Changing Lanes co-stars William Hurt, Sydney Pollack, and Toni Collette. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A trio of troubled suburbanites attempts to come to grips with the personal issues that surface following the tragic death of one of their own in this introspective adolescent drama from L.I.E. screenwriter/director (Michael Cuesta). In the months following the death of Jacob's (Conor Donovan) likeable, athletic twin brother, Rudy (also Donovan), Jacob and friends Malee (Zoe Weizenbaum) and Leonard (Jesse Camacho) struggle to make sense of the unfortunate youth's fiery demise at the hands of local bullies. As Jacob quickly loses himself to revenge fantasies and sets into motion a series of destructive plans designed to destroy the kids responsible for his brother's death, Malee focuses her attention on a dejected patient of her psychotherapist mother, and obese Leonard struggles about weight and health issues with his equally obese mother. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide