Anthony Santa Croce Movies
- 2001
In this made-for-cable action-drama, Oliver Sloan (Parker Stevenson) is the son of a Las Vegas resort magnate whose showplace hotel has just been given its grand re-opening. However, Sloan's board of directors is not happy with the hotel's profitability, and he knows he's about to be replaced. One evening, a fire breaks out on the 20th floor of the hotel; it soon becomes evident that the sprinkler systems in the hotel are not working, and Sloan begins to suspect that the fire did not happen by accident. Meanwhile, a number of guests are trapped as the fire rages out of control, including Jim (Meat Loaf), an engineer working for the hotel who tries to figure out a route to safety for himself and the guests, and Evans (William McNamara), a TV reporter who begins broadcasting live from the burning building. Trapped also features Callum Keith Rennie and Suki Kaiser. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Parker Stevenson, Meat Loaf, (more)
- 1999
- PG13
This made-for-television docudrama that aired on March 28, 1999 on NBC, relates the story of an actual event that occurred during World War II, but is centered around the lives of fictional characters. On July 17, 1944 at a U.S. naval base near San Francisco, a ship exploded causing the deaths of 323 men and injuring another 390. Just over 200 of the dead and another 200 of the injured were African-American Navy personnel. The story begins with the events that led up to the tragedy, with the second half of the film describing the actions of the men who refused to report back to work the next day after the explosion. Initially, 250 of the men refused to return, fearing another catastrophe. When base officers threatened to charge them with mutiny, 200 returned to work. The 50 who refused to return were given dishonorable discharges, in addition to 15 years of hard labor from the mutiny convictions. Eventually, the sentences were reduced to 4 years, but no official governmental acknowledgment of wrongdoing has ever been made. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Jai White, David Ramsey, (more)
- 1996
"How Far Would You Go to Save Your Sister's Life?" This was the question posed by the original ad copy for the made-for-TV drama A Case for Life--and the answer would seem to be "to the highest courts of the land", or at least that's how far Los Angeles lawyer Liz Hammett (Mel Harris) is prepared to go. A staunch pro-choice advocate, Liz discovers that her sister Kelly Porter (Valerie Bertinelli) is pregnant--a potential fatal situation, inasmuch as Kelly suffers from a rare medical condition requiring a delicate surgical procedure that will put both herself and her unborn child in jeopardy should she allow the baby to go to term. As dedicated to the pro-life movement as Liz is to the "other side", Kelly is determined to have her baby, and hang the consequences. It soon develops that Kelly is one against many, when even her doctor, her husband and her otherwise pro-life parents recommend an abortion. But Kelly sticks to her guns--and so does Liz, who initiates a lawsuit to force Kelly to abort immediately. Ultimately, the battle between the siblings becomes a national cause celebre, with virtually everyone in the country taking sides. A Cause for Life made its ABC network debut on February 18, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Kellie Martin stars as a teen wrongly accused of setting a deadly arson fire in this made-for-television drama. Martin plays Billie Calhoun, a girl who has been held in a juvenile detention facility since being accused of killing her mother and sister in a fire. Up for a possible early release on her 18th birthday, Billie is again denied her freedom. Steadfastly denying any involvement and determined to find out the truth on her own, Billie escapes from the center. Out on her own, she disguises herself and befriends a young cop named Matt Samoni (Antonio Sabato Jr), and together they set out to uncover the truth. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1994
- PG
This family-oriented holiday drama takes place in Alabama in 1957 and centers upon the heartwarming relationship between a lonely white boy and his black nanny. When she returns South to be with her family for Christmas, her young charge follows her, creating all kinds of complications. Singer Natalie Cole makes her feature-film debut as the nanny. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
- PG13
In the film adapted from a book by Frederic Brown, a music composer (Randy Quaid) receives an invitation to score an upcoming science-fiction film. When the piece is accidentally broadcast on the radio, it encourages a rather pedestrian invasion force from Mars. The legion of green men instead cause havoc around the globe just by having fun, and it is the composer's duty to send them packing. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randy Quaid, Margaret Colin, (more)
- 1988
- R
A young Ohio man moves to Los Angeles in search of a career and a girlfriend in this romantic comedy, whose action centers on the '80s singles scene. Eddy (David Packer) heads to California after his cousin, Skip (Scott McGinnis), promises him a job in the ad biz, but Eddy ends up with the unenviable task of handing out flyers on the beach. Turning his focus from the professional to the romantic, Eddy joins a video dating service and endures a series of inaccurate match-ups that drive him to adopt wilder and wilder guises for his video ads. Along the way, he meets Peggy Kellogg (Bridget Fonda), an employee of the dating service, but she's always got her boyfriend on her arm. Frustrated over Peggy's inaccessibility and the dead-end job he's unfairly been stuck with, Eddy finally decides to take a gamble -- to be himself in the yuppie fantasia of L.A. The soundtrack to You Can't Hurry Love features singer Phil Collins' cover of the '60s song from which the film takes its name. Kristy McNichol, Charles Grodin, and Sally Kellerman all appear in cameo roles. Kellerman previously appeared in writer/director Richard Martini's previous outing as a screenwriter, Three for the Road. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Packer, Scott McGinnis, (more)
- 1984
Aimed primarily at American football fans, this dramatized biography of Paul Bryant, a celebrated football coach nicknamed the "Bear," focuses on the man's early career as a player and his later work as a coach in the locker rooms and on the field with his own players -- in Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama. While the Bear's personality is clearly brought forward in Gary Busey's interpretation -- he is alternately caring and verbally abusive, depending on the situation at hand -- the people who must have meant a lot to him in his life outside of football are underwritten here, and a sense of unfolding drama -- outside of his career and the football field -- is missing. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cynthia Leake, Harry Dean Stanton, (more)
Sort of a triple-threat Bad Seed with a more overtly violent streak, this film tells the tale of trio of cherubic youngsters whose births all coincided with a solar eclipse, which somehow initiated a kind of time-release evil reaction that reaches its climax on the kids' tenth birthday, causing them to transform into miniature homicidal psychopaths. These darling little tykes then proceed to beat dad's brains out with a baseball bat, gun down their teacher, and otherwise beat, stab and strangle anyone who even looks cross-eyed at them. They also seem to be strangely fond of leering at naked teenage girls... or maybe that's just the director's favorite pastime. Produced in 1980, this proto-slasher opus was shelved for six years, then released to video to capitalize on the already-waning trend of Friday the 13th sequels and their hellish offspring. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susan Strasberg, José Ferrer, (more)
Director Jeff Lieberman followed his horror-science fiction film Blue Sunshine with this effort, which rehashes many of the themes explored in Wes Craven's seminal horror work The Hills Have Eyes. The plot concerns a teenage land owner who heads for the mountains of Oregon with a deed to his new property and an RV full of young friends only to discover (to their extreme peril) that words on paper mean less than nothing up there... or, in the words of horticulture-loving park ranger George Kennedy, "Those mountains can't read, son." By nightfall, the youths learn the gravity of this warning, as they are set upon by a hulking Mongoloid in a knit cap and pilot's glasses who seems capable of being in two places at once. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
This lively film was made to cash in on the roller skating craze that swept Southern California in the late '70s. The story centers upon a poor-little-rich-girl runaway who heads for the Venice boardwalk to join the other hipsters on wheels. She and her new friends then team up to keep an avaricious developer from razing the local roller rink and putting a shopping mall in its stead. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Jim Bray, (more)
