Marilyn Stonehouse Movies

This weekly, 60-minute series was based on the true story of one of the FBI's most unusual operatives. Deaf since the age of 18 months, Sue Thomas neither asked for nor received sympathy for her handicap at any time in her life: Indeed, as a youngster she was known to periodically bloody the noses of kids who taunted her in school. As an adult, Thomas became an accomplished pianist, and earned a political science degree from Massachusetts Springfield College. According to the chronology of the TV series, Sue was working as a fingerprint analyst at the FBI when agent Jack Hudson suddenly realized the value of her lip-reading skills. Thus did Sue become an agent herself, specializing in surveillance and deliberately seeking out the most exciting and dangerous assignments. Deaf actress Deanne Bray starred as Sue Thomas, with Yannick Bisson as Jack Hudson and "hearing-ear" dog Levi as himself. Though never shirking in its action and adventure content, Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye was family friendly and upbeat in the best PAX Network tradition. Created by Dave Alan Johnson and Gary R. Johnson, the series premiered October 13, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This crime drama, based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo, follows 20 years in the long reign of powerful Mafia kingpin Don Domenico Clericuzio (Danny Aiello). For years, the Clericuzios have been warring with a rival crime family, the Santadios, which is not helped when Domenico's daughter Rose Marie (Kirstie Alley) decides to marry the son of the head of the Santadio clan. On the night of Rose Marie's wedding, Domenico orders the execution of the entire Santadio family, including his new son-in-law. Rose Marie is pregnant as a result of her brief honeymoon, and her son Dante (Rory Cochrane) grows up to become a hired killer with a bitter hatred of his grandfather. Meanwhile, Pippi De Lena (Joe Mantegna), Domenico's key enforcer who carried out the slaughter of the Santadinos, has been grooming his son Croccifixio (Jason Gedrick) to take over as the Clericuzio's new trigger man. However, after he muffs a crucial execution, Croccifixio is sent to work with the family's operations in Las Vegas, where he becomes involved with starlet Athena Aquitane (Daryl Hannah). Soon Dante makes a risky bid to seize control of the Santadio family's crime empire. Originally produced as a television miniseries, the home video release of The Last Don is 262-min. long and it includes material not used for television broadcast. The video version features adult language and nudity and received an R rating. The Last Don co-stars Robert Wuhl, Penelope Ann Miller, Seymour Cassel, Burt Young, and k.d. lang. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Richard Crenna returns as New York police detective Frank Janek in Murder Times Seven. This time Janek tackles the case of a mass murder. One of the victims was his ex-partner (an occupational hazard for Janek, who in an earlier film had to turn in his own boss on a murder rap). One of the detective's former lovers (Carolyn Kava) unexpectedly provides a vital clue to the killer's identity. Originally titled Murder X 7, this made-for-TV drama first aired October 14, 1991-though there was a warning in the TV Guide listings that the film risked being bumped by the World Series playoffs (coincidentally, it would have been Game Number Seven!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Featuring a heart-warming story, the trademark Jim Henson wit, and beautiful songs, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas originally aired as an HBO special. The story is a spin on the classic "Gift of the Magi," with the impoverished Emmet and his Ma each making a sacrifice in the hopes that it will help them win the yearly talent show, and enough money to buy the other a Christmas gift. Purists, take note: There have been multiple edits of Emmet Otter released over the years, with minor but noticible changes to dialogue, and the addition/removal of scenes featuring Kermit the Frog. ~ All Movie Guide

Caroline and Lloyd (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey) are a married couple constantly at each other's throats, masters at crafting acid-tongued barbs at the other's expense. Indeed, they are so obsessed with belittling each other that they never stop -- not even at gunpoint. Such is the premise of the acerbic comedy The Ref, which shows what happens when this quarrelsome duo is taken hostage. The gunman is Gus (Denis Leary), a thief on the run from the police, who kidnaps the couple as an insurance policy, planning to use their home as a hideout. But their incessant bickering proves more than Gus bargained for, forcing him -- for the sake of his own sanity -- into the unenviable role of peacemaker. To make things even worse for Gus, he discovers that he has taken the couple hostage the night of their big Christmas party, and the guests are already on the way. Not wanting to leave Lloyd and Caroline unattended, Gus opts to attend the party, pretending to be the couple's marriage counselor. This naturally leads to a series of comic confusions, as the hostage crisis and marital tensions head towards their inevitable conclusion. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

This cinematic/literary hybrid fuses motifs from Beat writer William S. Burroughs's novel of the same name with elements of the author's biography and plenty of the cerebral alienation and biomorphic special effects fans of creepy cult director David Cronenberg have come to expect. Bill Lee (Peter Weller) wants to write, but he exterminates bugs to pay the bills. His wife, Joan (Judy Davis), becomes addicted to Bill's bug powder dust, and soon he joins her in a world of unorthodox hallucinogens; he visits the kindly yet sinister Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider) and walks away with his first dose of the black meat -- a narcotic made from the flesh of the giant aquatic Brazilian centipede. Soon, monstrous beetles are whispering conspiracy theories in Bill's ears and his nebbish writer friends Hank (Nicholas Campbell) and Martin (Michael Zelniker) are sleeping with Joan under his nose. When a party trick involving a liquor glass and a gun goes awry, killing Joan, Bill flees to Interzone, a Mediterranean city full of talking insectoid typewriters, double agents, offbeat aesthetes, and plots within plots. As he navigates this paranoid landscape, Bill begins ingesting another drug called mugwump jism and writes fragments that Hank and Martin soon assemble into a novel under the title Naked Lunch. As beat literature aficionados know, Interzone is based on Tangiers -- the city where Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch. The incident in the film in which Hank and Martin appropriate Bill's writing and have it published closely approximates the real-life circumstances of the novel's publication, although it was Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac who helped out the real-life Burroughs. The William Tell incident that kills Bill's wife is also drawn from the author's real life. "William Lee" is both Burroughs' literary stand-in and the name under which he published his first autobiographical novel Junky. Ian Holm, who plays Joan Frost's husband, Tom, would appear in Cronenberg's similarly experimental eXistenZ several years later. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

CIA computer technician John Savage seeks revenge for the terrorist killing of his girlfriend. Threatening to make public his insider's information, Savage forces his reluctant bosses to train him in the art of assassination. He then heads into enemy territory (at least, it was enemy territory back in 1982) on a search-and-destroy mission. There is nothing in The Amateur that we haven't seen elsewhere, but Savage and a solid cast of supporting players Christopher Plummer,Marthe Keller, Arthur Hill, Ed Lauter, Nicholas Campbell, Jan Rubes et. al.-- keep the proceedings lively. Robert Littell co-adapted the film's screenplay from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adam (George Segal) is an English instructor at a U.S. college who hopes to win a professorship and tenure. Tricia (Glenda Jackson) is an English divorcee. They both wind up on a French ski slope at exactly the wrong time, and in the resulting collision, break one another's legs. While they are slinging ever-wittier insults at each other, they are also falling in love. They soon wed, with Tricia joining Adam back in the States. There, it becomes clear that Tricia was not cut out to be a dutiful, meek professor's wife. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide