Lee Curreri Movies

Class and economics muddy the investigation of a homicide in this thriller from director Josh Sternfeld. When a child is found murdered in the small town of Hilliard, police detective Noah Cordin (Nick Stahl) is assigned to investigate the case. The victim's mother, Allison Connor (Laura Benanti), is a wealthy and well-connected member of the County Board of Commissioners, so Cordin is under pressure to find the killer as soon as possible, but working with rookie officer Leslie Spencer (Rachel Nichols), he isn't finding many substantial clues. One of the few pieces of evidence suggests the culprit may have been from the nearby town of Caswell. Cordin was born and raised in Caswell and knows its history well -- while Hilliard is a prosperous suburban community, Caswell is a working-class town fallen on hard times, and its survival is dependent on a proposed factory coming into town. As Cordin spends more and more time in Caswell, he becomes a target for the resentment the locals feel toward their wealthier neighbors, and a tense situation becomes potentially explosive when word begins to circulate that Connor may use her influence to keep the new employer out of Caswell unless someone comes forward to identity who killed her son. Meskada (named for the county that contains both Hilliard and Caswell) also stars Norman Reedus, Kellan Lutz, Jonathan Tucker, and Grace Gummer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Dante's classic poem The Divine Comedy gets a modern update in this edgy indie from writer/director Matthew Harrison. Set in New York City, Tami Reynolds plays a lovelorn woman who follows Kris Park as they set off in search of paradise. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Christopher Newley (Lee Curreri) is the bubble boy and aspiring songwriter who falls in love with rock star Alley Daniels (Tawny Kitaen) in this maudlin drama. He is visited by both Alley and the oily personal manager and show-business sleaze Jean-Claude (Simon Andreu) after his letters to the star are answered. Lloyd Bochner and May Heatherly play Christopher's concerned parents. The boy risks everything when he vows to escape the prison of his controlled environment. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Cancelled by NBC after two seasons in the spring of 1983, the musical drama series Fame was nonetheless extremely popular amongst American teenagers and with fans all over the rest of the world. Accordingly, its producers decided to keep the property alive with a third season 24 new episodes, filmed for off-network syndication. Virtually the entire cast of the NBC Fame was retained for the syndicated version, except for Lori Singer as cello student Julie Miller; it was explained that Julie had decided to leave school to get married. And while the popular Erica Gimpel was seen in the first handful of syndicated episodes as ambitious singer-dancer Coco Hernandez, she too had exited the show by the middle of its third season, her character having dropped out to pursue her professional career (oddly enough, Gimpel continues to receive billing throughout the season). Also, this is Lee Curreri's last year as Bruno Martelli. New to the cast are Cynthia Gibb as energetic drama major Holly Laird, and Billy Hufsey as cocksure dance student Christopher Donlon; also, chubby tuba player Dwight (David Greenlee), previously a recurring character, is now one of the regulars. And, since it was decided that the series needed a strong adult menace, Ken Swofford was hired to play Quentin Morloch, new vice principal at New York's High School of the Performing Arts. A self-important, anal-retentive "rules are rules" type, Morloch will spend much of his screen time cooking up methods to instill his own brand of discipline on the kids, often denying them the opportunity to show off their talents (which is rather like not allowing students in an industrial arts class to make cabinets!). Episodes like "Hail to the Chief" and "Rules" are prime examples of Morloch's blinkered approach to education; indeed, he would not come to fully understand that his students were uniquely gifted and not just a bunch of noisy kids until he was on the brink of leaving the series two years later. The first of the "syndie" episodes is the two-part "I'm Gonna Learn How to Fly", in which arrogant keyboard student Bruno faces the possibility of leaving school when his dad dies. Later episodes this season include "Consequences" wherein the students are put in charge of the school to teach them a lesson about responsibility; "Break Dance", a contemporary West Side Story in which Christopher mediates a turf battle between two street gangs; "Lisa's Song", a semi-fantasy in which Holly makes contact with the ghost of a disgruntled former student; and "Sheer Will", which finds ebullient would-be comic Danny (Carlo Imperato) coming to grips with the fact that he has been diagnosed with leukemia. Of the series' many guest stars this season, Chorus Line principal Donna McKechnie is cast as Holly's mother in "Stages", impressionist George Kirby is featured as a former nightclub headliner turned wino in "Catch a Falling Star", blind actor-composer Tom Sullivan plays a substitute teacher who falls for dance instructor Lydia (Debbie Allen) in "A Friend in Need"; Melissa Manchester shows up as a once-famous torch singer who is afraid to return to performing in "Home Again", and veteran gangster-movie heavy Lawrence Tierney shows up in "The Deal", which turns out to be nothing more nor less than an old Mickey Rooney "Let's raise money by putting on show!" musical. And as in the previous season, highlights from the real-life musical tours undertaken by the cast members are featured in a brace of special episodes: "The Kids from 'Fame' in Israel" and "'Fame' Looks at Music 83" (with Irene Cara). In addition to accumulating even more local stations and a bigger audience than it had ever enjoyed as a network series, Fame earned yet another Emmy award, this one going to film editor Howard Brock. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though Fame declared "I'm gonna live forever" in its theme song, the NBC musical drama series barely squeaked through its first season. Fortunately, the network decided to renew the show for a second year in response to the enthusiastic support of millions of teenaged fans. The popularity of "The Kids from 'Fame' amongst their peer group was firmly established when several of the series' regulars went on a worldwide tour--especially when the episode telecast March 3, 1983, "The Kids from 'Fame' Live" (excerpted from their appearance in the UK) posted the second season's best ratings. All of the cast members from Season One are back for Season Two, with the exceptions of P.R. Paul as student Montgomery MacNeil, and Michael Thoma, who had played Mr. Crandall, beloved drama teacher at New York's High School of Performing Arts. Actor Thoma died in September of 1982, a fact reflected in the episode "A Tough Act to Follow", in which the students and faculty members must come to grips with Mr. Crandall's sudden and unexpected demise. Morgan Stevens joins the cast this season as Crandall's replacement, David Reardon. The season opens with the episode "And the Winner Is. . .", in which music student Bruno (David Curreri) is placed in the position of auditioning fellow students for one of his own plays--then gets in trouble by casting himself in the lead. In subsequent episodes, neurotic "Renaissance girl" Doris (Valerie Landsburg) finds herself falling in love with Bruno; the kids champion the cause of school secretary Mrs. Berg (Ann Nolan) when she is replaced with a computer; self-involved school diva Coco (Erica Gimpel) comes out of herself when she befriends a student with a learning disability; and dancing student Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray) is tempted to quit school to accept a professional job. And while the series manages to maintain its fairly realistic veneer, the episode "Not in Kansas Anymore", in which Doris dreams that she and her fellow students have morphed into the characters from "The Wizard of Oz" (with teachers Lydia [Debbie Allen] and Miss Sherwood [Carol Mayo Jenkins] respectively cast as the "Good" and "Bad" witches, serves as a portent for the more exaggerated Fame episodes to come. Among the guest stars showing up this year are Bruno Kirby as Doris' draft-dodging brother, Arte Johnson as a TV commercial actor whom the students accuse of squandering his talent, Jimmy Osmond as a student who (chastely!) sleeps with his tutor Julie (Lori Singer), future Cosby Show regular Malcolm-Jamal Warner as a member of an inner-city boys' choir, and Nancy Cartwright now best known as the voice of Bart Simpson, as a student from an "more academically prestigious" school who falls in love with nerdish tuba-playing scholar Dwight (David Greenlee). Although Fame collected its fifth Emmy this season (for Debbie Allen's choreography), the series was toast as far as NBC was concerned, failing to make a dent in the ratings despite the fervent following of millions of teenaged fans. However, the series was a huge hit abroad, and this more than anything else was the motivating factor for MGM to continue production on the series, not for the NBC network but for off-network syndication beginning in the fall of 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Fame is set at New York's High School of Performing Arts, where talented teens train for show-business careers. The film concentrates on five of the most gifted students: singer Irene Cara, actors Paul McCrane and Barry Miller, dancer Gene Anthony Ray, and musician Lee Currieri. More so than the subsequent TV series Fame, the film emphasizes the importance of keeping up one's academic achievements in this specialized school. The faculty includes no-nonsense English teacher Ann Meara, erudite musical instructor Albert Hague, and martinet dance teacher Debbie Allen. Of the film's cast, Ray, Currieri, Allen and Hague were carried over to the TV version of Fame, which premiered in 1981. The score for the film version of Fame was honored with an Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide