Linda Rae Favila Movies
John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers star in the spy thriller From Paris With Love for District B13's helmer Pierre Morel and EuropaCorp. The Luc Besson/Adi Hasak-penned tale revolves around the entwining paths of an American spy and an embassy worker during a tumultuous time in Paris. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, (more)
- 2009
- PG
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John Travolta and Robin Williams team up in the Walt Disney Company's Old Dogs, a family comedy that pairs the two as close business partners whose lives are thrown into disarray when twin seven-year-olds are put into their care. Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, co-stars, along with the couple's daughter, Ella, who makes her big-screen debut here. Wild Hogs helmer Walter Becker directs a script by Evolution scribes David Diamond and David Weissman, with producing duties going to Andrew Panay, Peter Abrams, and Robert Levy. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Robin Williams, (more)
A mismatched group of bored suburbanites longing to escape the stress of their daily lives and embrace the freedom of the open road finds that it takes more than polished chrome and leather jackets to truly experience the biker lifestyle in this revved-up road comedy starring John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy. Upon trading the comfort of their couches for the thunderous rumble of two-wheeled street machines, these four adventurous riders cross paths with the notorious Del Fuegos -- an authentic biker gang that doesn't take kindly to the weekend warrior type. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Allen, John Travolta, (more)
Adam Shankman's adaptation of the stage musical Hairspray, itself an adaptation of the non-musical John Waters film of the same name, stars Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad, an overweight high-school student whose only dream is to be on a local Baltimore teen dance program. While her father (Christopher Walken) tells her to follow her dreams, her mother Edna (John Travolta in drag) reminds her that she doesn't look like the girls on that show. After impressing the show's host (James Marsden), Tracy earns a coveted spot on the program, but when she becomes a popular addition to the cast, she earns the wrath of the prettiest girl in school -- a girl whose mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) just happens to operate the local television station. Tracy's visit to detention hall opens her eyes to the racial tension on the show, as does the budding relationship between her best friend (Amanda Bynes) and an African-American boy named Seaweed (Elijah Kelley). Thus empowered, Tracy attempts to integrate the races on her favorite program. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, (more)
Todd Robinson's Lonely Hearts features John Travolta and James Gandolfini as Elmer C. Robinson and Charles Hildebrandt, a pair of homicide detectives who are on the trail of lovers on a crime spree. The evil duo of Ray Fernandez (Jared Leto) and Martha Beck (Salma Hayek) take advantage of elderly widows, stealing as much money as they can after gaining the victim's confidence, and then murdering their mark. Robinson becomes drawn into the case too deeply in order to help him confront his feelings, as his wife has recently killed herself. The story is based on the real life "Lonely Hearts" killers of the late '40s, the infamous couple whom the director's grandfather played a large part in bringing to justice. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, James Gandolfini, (more)
Underworld hipster Chili Palmer is back in the entertainment business in this sequel to the 1995 hit Get Shorty, which like the first film is based on a novel by Elmore Leonard. Gangster-turned-movie producer Chili (once again played by John Travolta) has grown tired of the screen trade, especially after his latest project turned out to be a box-office flop. Chili is looking for new horizons and thinks he may have found his niche when his close friend Tommy Athens (James Woods), a fellow mobster who runs an independent record label, is murdered by Russian gangsters. Chili takes over Athens' record company, Nothing to Lose Records, and begins courting Tommy's girlfriend, Edie (Uma Thurman). Edie is an experienced hand in record production, and together she and Chili spot what would seem to be the ideal act for their label -- Linda Moon (Christina Milian), a beautiful young woman with a powerhouse voice. Linda is stuck, however, in a going-nowhere R&B trio managed by the monumentally sleazy Raji (Vince Vaughn). Chili isn't much concerned about Linda's contract with Raji, but Raji certainly is, and the manager soon takes out a contract on Chili with the same Russian hoods who killed Tommy. Soon Chili is facing all the action he can handle between the Russian gunmen, a music mogul named Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) who wants Chili to stay out of the business, and Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer), a successful hip-hop producer who wants Chili to pay him the 300,000 dollars he is owed by Tommy. Be Cool also features appearances by The Rock as a gay Samoan bodyguard, Andre Benjamin (aka Andre 3000 from the hip-hop duo Outkast) as a rapper who isn't very good with a gun, and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Uma Thurman, (more)
Bobby Long (John Travolta) is a washed up former literature professor with a voracious drinking habit. He lives in a rundown house in New Orleans with Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht of The Recruit), his former star pupil, also an alcoholic. Lawson is allegedly writing a novel about Bobby. Their depressive little corner of the world is disrupted when Lorraine, the beloved eccentric singer who owns their house, dies. Her teenage daughter, Pursy (Scarlett Johansson), who hasn't seen her mother in years, arrives in town too late for the funeral, and crashes at the house. Afraid of being thrown out on the street, Bobby convinces Lawson to tell Pursy that the house has been left to all three of them. Pursy, having little else to do, decides to move in, and starts cleaning up the place, making it her own. Lawson is involved with Georgianna (Deborah Kara Unger), who works at the local bar, but he quickly develops a crush on the comely Pursy. The cantankerous Bobby seems determined to drive the girl away. As Pursy settles into the diverse little community, all of Lorraine's old friends tell her how much she looks like her mother, and she begins to uncover some startling truths about her family history. A Love Song for Bobby Long is based on the novel Off Magazine Street, by Ronald Everett Capps. It was adapted for the screen and directed by Shainee Gabel, who co-directed the documentary Anthem. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Scarlett Johansson, (more)
An everyday hero recalls his life as he's forced to look death in the eye in this adventure drama. Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix) is a young firefighter who is a member of Ladder Company 49, led by Capt. Kennedy (John Travolta), a tough but compassionate man who looks upon his fellow firefighters as a family. While battling a blaze, Morrison finds himself trapped inside a burning building, and as Kennedy and his men try to find a way to rescue him, Morrison looks back on his life and how he came to choose such a dangerous career. Ladder 49 also features Jacinda Barrett and Brooke Hamlin as, respectively, Morrison's wife and daughter. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta, (more)
The disappearance of a military leader and the death of four of his men leads two investigators to wade through a morass of deceptions and half-truths in search of the facts in this thriller. Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) is the leader of an elite team of U.S. Army Special Forces operatives known as the Army Rangers; West is known as a highly effective officer, but one with a short temper and aggressive attitude who is not well liked by his soldiers. During a seemingly routine training exercise in Panama, a hurricane sweeps in, and four of West's six men are dead, while West himself seems to have vanished. Eager to get the facts behind what happened, Col. Bill Styles (Tim Daly) assigns Capt. Julia Osborne (Connie Nielsen) to investigate. However, Osborne is having a hard time getting the two survivors to talk, so Styles brings in Tom Hardy (John Travolta), a former Army Ranger who served under West and became a first-class interrogator; Hardy later became a DEA agent, but left law enforcement after allegations of corruption. Hardy interviews Dunbar (Brian Van Holt), who claims that the four soldiers had been murdered, and West was killed in retaliation. Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), the other survivor (whose father is a powerful officer) has a very different story of how the five men turned up dead, and it's up to Hardy and Osborne to determine who is telling the truth -- or if anyone is saying exactly what happened. Basic marked the first time John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson appeared in the same film together since their breakthrough roles in Pulp Fiction. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Connie Nielsen, (more)
Director Dominic Sena follows up his stylish action film Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) with this high-tech thriller. John Travolta stars as Gabriel Shear, a charismatic spy who plots to steal a multi-billion-dollar fortune in illegal government funds. In order to make his scheme work, however, Gabriel needs some help from a computer hacker, which is where Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) comes in. Stanley has been paroled from prison after serving a lengthy sentence for penetrating the FBI's cyber-surveillance operations. Issued a restraining order that keeps him away from computers and living penniless in a trailer park, Stanley wants only to be reunited with his daughter Holly, who's in the custody of his ex-wife, now remarried to a pornographer. Gabriel and his partner Ginger (Halle Berry) offer Stanley the chance to get his child back in exchange for his help, but the hacker soon realizes he's a pawn in a larger operation than the high-tech bank heist he thought he was perpetrating. In the meantime, a dedicated federal agent (Don Cheadle), the same man who once arrested Stanley, is trying to expose Gabriel's operation. Swordfish also stars Sam Shepard and Zach Grenier. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, (more)
This irreverent comedy focuses on a group of nine single people in their thirties who've gotten into the habit of hitting the same three bars in Los Angeles every weekend; most of them are looking for love, but that's the last thing any of them are likely to find. The cast includes Tom Arnold, Scott Baio, Kelly Preston, Sally Kellerman, and Charlene Tilton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
While lots of people dream of winning the lottery, one man hatches a more ambitious plan than just buying a ticket and hoping for the best in this satiric comedy. Russ Richards (John Travolta), a weatherman on a local TV station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sells snowmobiles on the side, but both careers are in a rut thanks to an unusually warm winter. Russ's girlfriend Crystal (Lisa Kudrow) appears on the State Lottery's weekly televised drawing, pulling the numbered balls out of the rotating bin. With the help of a few of his less scrupulous friends - among them sleazy strip joint proprietor Gig (Tim Roth), small time hood Dale The Thug (Michael Rappaport), and Crystal's sleazy cousin Walter (Michael Moore) - Russ figures out a way to rig the drawing and have Crystal pull numbers that they happen to own. However, Russ discovers that making the scheme work and keeping everyone quiet about it is more trouble than it's worth. The supporting cast includes Chris Kattan, Ed O'Neill, and Bill Pullman; Nora Ephron, who previously worked with Travolta on the comedy hit Michael, directed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Lisa Kudrow, (more)
A murder on a military base unearths a netherworld of corruption in this thriller based on the novel by Nelson DeMille. General Joe Campbell (James Cromwell) is a respected military leader with a flawless reputation; he's due to retire from the Army soon and is headed for a Vice-Presidential nomination. However, Campbell finds himself in both a personal and political crisis when his daughter is brutally murdered. Captain Elizabeth Campbell (Leslie Stefanson) was beautiful, intelligent, disciplined, and well-regarded, the very model of an ideal female officer; she was also stationed at the same base as her father. Paul Brenner (John Travolta), a warrant officer of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, is assigned to look into the case alongside CID officer Sara Sunhill (Madeleine Stowe). Brenner and Sunhill were once romantically involved, complicating an assignment that soon offers more than enough complications of its own. Brenner and Sunhill come to realize that, for all her accomplishments, Elizabeth carried a lifetime of emotional scars from emotional abuse and sexual harassment, and that, despite the General's reputation, his relationship with his daughter was not always a happy or healthy one. It also seems possible that the General's second-in-command, General George Fowler (Clarence Williams III), a likely candidate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, may also be implicated in the crime. The General's Daughter was the second feature film for director Simon West; his full-length debut was Con Air (1997), after a long string of successful television commercials and music videos. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe, (more)
- 1992
In this made-for-cable actioner a good-hearted social worker embarks upon a one-man crusade to save Miami teens from getting further involved with a gang of crack dealers. The social worker does this in large part to ease his own guilt at having been responsible for the death of his own son back when he was drinking heavily. To save the teen, he pretends to be a dealer and infiltrates the gang. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
- PG
A live-action rendering of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, this time we follow the exploits of the two Cold War "no-goodniks", Boris and Natasha. Sent from their beloved Pottsylvania by their "Fearless Leader", their job is to try to capture a missing time-reversing microchip. Espionage films being what they are, however, "Fearless Leader" has something nasty up his sleeve. Big-name stars and guest appearances keep this one going. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
Michael Ritchie's The Couch Trip follows a long line of Hollywood films (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Disorderly Orderly) in which the psychos are seen as saner than the psychiatrists. Charles Grodin plays Dr. George Maitlin, a pompous radio self-help guru, who is having his own personal mental breakdown. Maitlin's lawyer puts in a call to a Cicero, IL, mental facility and the telephone is answered by schizophrenic mental patient John Burns (Dan Aykroyd). Thinking Burns is a crony of Maitlin, Burns is offered the job of replacing Maitlin during his recovery. Of course, Burns accepts the job. Immediately jetted to Los Angeles, Burns meets panhandler Donald Becker (Walter Matthau) at the airport. While wearing the garb of a priest, Becker sounds off against the madness of societal conventions; Burns takes to him immediately and they become fast friends. When Burns assumes command of the airwaves in Maitlin's place, his words of wisdom are so obvious and commonsensical that he is an overnight sensation. Meanwhile, in London, where Maitlin is convalescing, he gets wind of Burns' success. With renewed vigor and outrage, Maitlin leaves his recovery room and hops on a plane back to Los Angeles in an effort to recover his radio show. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dan Aykroyd, Walter Matthau, (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)
- 1987
- R
Set in a small town in Texas, a young man begins to lose interest in his sex-brained girlfriend and begins falling for her mother instead. This romantic comedy-drama features C. Thomas Howell, Ann-Margret, Kelly Preston and Charles Durning. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann-Margret, C. Thomas Howell, (more)
