Rick Nathanson Movies

A seemingly insignificant act may cause the fabric of history to unravel in this sci-fi adventure. Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) owns and operates a successful firm known as Time Safari. Thanks to time travel technology developed by Hatton's employee Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), Time Safari allows big game hunters to journey back to prehistoric days and shoot living, breathing dinosaurs. Rand picks out the dinosaur in question, who is soon to die, and creates a floating walkway for the hunters, so the impact of their presence will not be felt by the land around them. But on one expedition, things go horribly wrong when a nervous hunter steps off the walkway and crushes a butterfly, a tiny act that proves to have massive consequences over the course of several million years. As the earth's climate and animal life begin to mutate due to this shift in natural history, Time Safari's leading hunting guide, Travis Ryer (Edward Burns), works beside Rand in a desperate attempt to halt the "ripples of time" before modern civilization completely collapses. A Sound of Thunder was based on a classic short story by pioneering science fiction author Ray Bradbury. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Like John Woo and Ringo Lam before him, noted Hong Kong action director Tsui Hark made his American filmmaking debut with a thriller starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. For this film, Hark also had the privilege of guiding basketball star Dennis Rodman through his first dramatic role. American anti-terrorist agent Jack Quinn (Van Damme) has retired from duty, content to stay with his pregnant wife at his seaside hideaway. However, the CIA lure him back into duty for one last mission: wiping out crazed international terrorist Stavros (Mickey Rourke). Quinn flies to Antwerp to ambush Stavros, but his plan fails; Quinn is captured and imprisoned in "The Colony," a prison camp for spies "too valuable to kill and too dangerous to set free." To further torture Quinn, Stavros kidnaps Quinn's wife; after she gives birth to their son, Stavros keeps him captive, surrounded by land mines and wild animals. Quinn escapes and makes plans to rescue his wife and child, but he can't do it alone, so he seeks the help of Yaz (Rodman), a top-level underground arms merchant with a tendency towards flamboyant body modification. Rodman also appears with R&B vocalist Crystal Waters on the song "Just a Freak" which appears on the film's soundtrack. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The brief but eventful life of actor and martial arts trailblazer Bruce Lee is portrayed in this drama, based on a biography written by his widow Linda Lee Caldwell. Lee is introduced to the study of martial arts as a child living in Hong Kong by his father (Ric Young); the father dreamed that a demonic armored dragon would take his son from him, and wanted young Bruce to be able to protect himself. Bruce continues his training as he grows to adulthood, and after the cocky teenaged Lee (Jason Scott Lee, no relation to Bruce) seriously injures a prominent British citizen while fighting a gang of troublemakers at a dance, he's sent to San Francisco. While working as a dishwasher, Bruce begins to study philosophy, and in time develops a personal martial arts discipline, Jeet Kune-Do, which blends Kung Fu fighting techniques with lessons gained from his philosophical research. Bruce decides to open a martial arts academy on the advice of his fiancée Linda (Lauren Holly); Linda and Bruce encounter resistance as a mixed-race couple, especially from Linda's mother Vivian (Michael Learned), and Bruce earns the enmity of traditional Chinese martial arts experts for his new style. But after a strong showing in several public tournaments, Bruce's fighting skill and charisma attracts the attention of TV producer Bill Krieger (Robert Wagner). Bruce is cast as Kato, the karate-trained sidekick on the series The Green Hornet, and while the show is short-lived in America, it's a huge success in Asia, leading to a series of films based around Bruce's remarkable fighting skills. Sadly, shortly before the release of the film that would make him a major screen star in the United States, Enter The Dragon, a mysterious brain disorder sends Lee into a coma that soon kills him. In a tragedy with eerie timing, Bruce Lee's real-life son Brandon Lee died shortly before this film was released, the result of an accidental shooting while completing the picture The Crow. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The final cinematic abomination from the late John Derek and his legendary non-actress wife Bo Derek turns out to be their worst collaboration ever, beating out even Bolero for sheer incomprehensible awfulness and ranking as one of the silliest monstrosities ever committed to film. Though no recognizable plot exists, the central premise seems to involve Bo's ongoing obsession with finding a suitable replacement body for the soul of her late husband (a sleepwalking Anthony Quinn), who killed himself after learning that a bum ticker would prevent him from having constant sex with her. The most likely candidate seems to be a handsome but oily thief (Leo Damian), but Bo can't seem to bring herself to murder him outright; fortunately, he kicks the bucket on his own. Lacking both the rampant nudity and laugh-out-loud campiness of John & Bo's previous erotic anti-masterpieces, there is literally nothing to recommend this film, even to bad-movie aficionados. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In Halloween 5, one of the less successful of the series of sequels to the original Halloween, the infamous Michael Myers (Donald Shanks), returns to stalk his niece and kill her. Jamie (Danielle Harris) is hospitalized and unable to speak because of her trauma during Michael's last killing spree. She has visions of where Michael will appear and kill again and he intends to stop her. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is working with Jamie to help her find Michael and lock him away. But, there is also another mysterious stranger following Michael. Halloween 5 is a routine slasher film and adds little that hasn't been done before in this series. But, it has its moments and has a gory, flashy ending that will be remembered. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, this drama stars Amber O'Shea as Aimee Dubuca De Rivery, a French girl sold into slavery, where she is purchased by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

In 1979, The Runaways were scheduled to star in a low-budget comedy about an all-female rock band called "We're All Crazy Now." The group broke up before shooting began, but guitarist and singer Joan Jett agreed to star in the film, with three actresses standing in for her departed bandmates. The plug was pulled on the project halfway through shooting, but in 1984, after Jett had become a major star as a solo act, producers were looking for a way to make use of the footage from the uncompleted film. Alan Sacks, who was a producer and writer for the television shows Welcome Back, Kotter and Chico and the Man, took on the project, and the result was this one-of-a-kind cinematic crazy-quilt. Dubeat-E-O (Ray Sharkey) is a perpetually wired film director who is working on a movie about Joan Jett. However, he's borrowed money from a notorious gangster to finance the project, and now his "investor" has announced Dubeat-E-O must have the final cut of the movie finished in thirty-one hours - or else. Dubeat-E-O holes up in his shabby studio with his editor, Benny (Derf Scratch), and Sharon (Nora Gaye), a woman who happened along by mistake, and we're treated to a mind-bending collage of Dubeat-E-O's rants, still photos, footage of Jett and the fake Runaways (among them Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith), performances by The Mentors and Joanna Went, random images of sex and violence, and much, much more. Meanwhile, Sachs and a group of friends (including El Duce of The Mentors) offer a running commentary on the film in progress. Tex and the Horseheads and Social Distortion are also featured prominently on the soundtrack; Jett would make her proper acting debut in 1987, in the drama Light Of Day. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide