Mimi Bensinger Movies
- 2002
Novelist, professor, and scholar Robert H. Liberman makes his directorial debut with the showbiz comedy Green Lights. Bob Beeman (John Fitzgibbon) is a location scout for the major film studio Everest Pictures in New York City. He struggles to work beneath his brother in-law, Wendell (Joel Leffert), who's also the CEO of the company. Looking for a location in upstate Ithaca for the big-budget movie "Virgin Blood," Bob finds himself surrounded by small-town folk who think he's a big-time movie producer. Different acts pitch their talents to him, and he ends up getting really impressed with the musical "Julio," the work of composer/writer team Jimmy (Daniel Dresner) and Alex (Shawn Randall). Everest Pictures wants nothing to do with it, so Bob sets out to produce it himself with his newfound friends. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John FitzGibbon, Daniel Dresner, (more)
- 2000
Traces of blood found in an apartment belonging to a separated couple (Tessa Ghylin, Michael C. Williams) suggest that the couple's missing baby may have met with foul play. The investigation is stymied when each parent claims that the other has the infant. The D.A.'s office takes over when the police find the body of the child, who has apparently starved to death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
This episode seems to have had its roots in the Susan Smith infanticide case. It all begins when young mother Leah Coleman (Elizabeth Hanly Rice) claims that her baby was kidnapped while she was in a confessional. Detective Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) dutifully helps the woman retrace the events leading up to the disappearance. His action will eventually enable the woman's attorney to offer an offbeat defense in court. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Absolutely convinced that her father is being railroaded by a revenge-seeking Hungarian communist government, Lange handles Mueller-Stahl's defense, expertly blowing huge holes in prosecuting attorney Frederic Forrest's case. But in doing her own research, Lange discovers that her father has spent a lifetime paying off a blackmailer. Why? In contrast to the fervency of his earlier Z, Costa-Gavras refuses to make things easy by proselytizing in The Music Box (nor does screenwriter Joe Esterhas indulge in his usual right-between-the-eyes fervency). Everything in the film is offered on the same calm, collected level, making the ultimate horror of the story all the more effective. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jessica Lange, Armin Mueller-Stahl, (more)
Can an independent, contemporary woman find happiness with a guy who sells pickles? Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) is an attractive, intelligent Jewish woman in her early 30s. She has a good job and a nice apartment on the Upper West Side, and she values her independence; she often visits her grandmother Bubbie (Reiz Bozyk), who lives on the Lower East Side and wants Isabelle to meet a nice Jewish man and settle down. Bubbie goes so far as to obtain the services of Hannah Mandelbaum (Sylvia Miles), a matchmaker who finds the "perfect" man for Isabelle: a pickle salesman named Sam Posner (Peter Riegert). Isabelle thinks Sam is a nice enough guy, but she has a hard time imagining herself spending her life with the pickle man, and she isn't sure if she wants to pursue the relationship. However, Sam is taken with Isabelle and goes out of his way to change her mind. Crossing Delancy was directed by Joan Micklin Silver, whose breakthrough film Hester Street also examined Jewish culture on the Lower East Side, albeit from the vantage point of the 1890s. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amy Irving, Reizl Bozyk, (more)
Set in Iowa, Betrayed stars Debra Winger as an FBI agent who infiltrates a Klanlike white supremacist organization. Allegedly a woman of intelligence and perception, Winger throws caution and logic to the winds when she falls in love with local farmer Tom Berenger. Much to her surprise Berenger turns out to be the most rabid racist of all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Debra Winger, Tom Berenger, (more)
