Artie Mandelberg Movies

Oscar winner Holly Hunter made her TV series debut in the gritty semi-fantasy Saving Grace. Hunter was cast as Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko, who after the death of her sister in the Murrah Building bombing of 1995 had turned her back on God and taken the first step down the road to self-destruction. Drowning her problems in booze and clouding her neuroses in cigarette smoke, Grace also degraded herself with a long line of dead-end romances, most recently with her married partner Ham Dewey (Kenny Johnson). Late one night, while driving drunk, Grace was involved in a terrible car crash. She was plucked from certain death by the enigmatic Earl (Leon Rippy) a "last chance" angel who had been giving the unenviable task of helping Grace find redemption before it was too late. Far from grateful, Grace constantly groused about Earl's unorthodox methods and the fact that she no longer had control over her own life; but little by little, our hard-bitten heroine began to turn her life around, beginning with her affectionate treatment of her late sister's troubled son, Clay (Dylan Minnette). Even so, it was hard for Grace to convince her co-workers that an angel had entered her life -- all except for forensic specialist Rhetta Rodriguez (Laura San Giacomo), a deeply religious woman who was estranged from her family because of her unwillingness to "judge" anyone. Besides Grace, the only other person able to see Earl was death-row inmate Leon Cooley (Bokeem Woodbine), who likewise had precious little time to save his own soul. Rounding out the regulars were Detective Butch Ada (Bailey Chase), former college athlete and one of Grace's discarded lovers; and Detective Bobby Stillwater (Gregory Norman Cruz), a devoted family man with a burning desire to make the world a better place (though he didn't quite know how). Saving Grace premiered July 23, 2007, on the TNT cable channel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ordered by the courts to allow her ex-husband to take their five-year-old son Andrew home for the weekend, young mother Gail (Park Overall) has her worst fears realized when both father and son completely disappear. Despite the insensitivity and outright bungling of the authorities, Gail never gives up hope that, someday, she and Andrew will be reunited. Finally, after five long and agonizing years, her former husband surrenders the boy and sends him home. But instead of the happy, carefree Andrew whom she remembers, Gail is confronted with a sullen, embittered ten-year-old, still smarting from half a lifetime of unspeakable abuse. Based on a true story, When Andrew Came Home (filmed under the title Taming Andrew) chronicles Gail's heroic efforts to "reach" her battered son and convince him that he is now in the arms of those who love him, and will never do him any harm. The made-for-cable film premiered October 30, 2000 on the Lifetime network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sociopathic Rae Phillips (Kate Vernon) lives only to avenge the past wrong in her life that made her the monster she is today. Stealing the identity of a woman named Kelly Richards, our "heroine" persuades Kelly's wealthy Southern in-laws that she is the genuine article, and is invited to move in with them permanently. What follows is a steady progression of lies, betrayals and suspicious "suicides", the like of which give a whole new meaning to the phrase "blood relative." Filmed on location in North Carolina, the surprisingly sanguine cable movie The Sister-in-Law made its first USA network appearance on July 12, 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a childhood spat drove brothers Wilder (Arliss Howard) and Wallace (Dennis Quaid) apart, they went their separate ways, until a chance meeting brought them back together again. Gifted with a psychic ability to spark fires, Wilder supresses his gift, marries the lovely Vida (Debra Winger), and attempts to lead a normal life. However, he runs into his brother, who is using his powers to work as a carnival attraction, and their reunion leads to disaster when the brothers begin to compete for Vida's attention. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The Blue Moon's latest client is Nora Cooper (Karen Landry), who is looking for the husband to whom she was married for only five days--and who has been missing for ten years. Searching for the absent hubby, David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) enter the rarefied world of poolrooms, sharks and hustlers. And as a bonus, the episode offers another "tumble-on" unbilled role for C. Thomas Howell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is the only Moonlighting episode in which neither Cybill Shepherd nor Bruce Willis appear. Instead, the focus is on nerdish detective Bert Viola (Curtis Armstrong), who has gone into a deep blue funk over an imagined slight from Blue Moon secretary Agnes Dipesto (Allyce Beasley). In the course of a very long night in which Bert is required to guard an "experimental grapefruit", he dreams of his future with Agnes, in sequences inspired by Rudolph Valentino's silent "Shiek" pictures and the 1940s classic Casablanca (in which "As Time Goes By" is replaced by "Chopsticks"!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Larry Cohen's pseudo-biography of J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) was virtually howled off the screens upon its release in 1977. Today, with the cross-dressing Hoover so much a matter of historical record that even Oliver Stone didn't bother to make too much of a point of it in Nixon, the Cohen film plays more like a dramatic re-enactment rather than the puerile paranoid fantasy it appeared to be at the time. Unfortunately, Cohen's method is part exploitation and part historical tableau. On the one hand, Cohen dramatizes historical moments in Hoover's momentous life story -- the shooting of John Dillinger in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater, his first arrest -- with a deadening solemnity (even abandoning the backlot facsimiles to shoot on the actual historical locations). On the other hand, Cohen relishes his scenes of Hoover's homosexuality and his propensity for sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey, replaying tapes of the amorous liaisons of high government officials -- the decadently homosexual Hoover built his political power base by getting all the dirt he could on the government's movers and shakers -- particularly their sexual liaisons -- and blackmailing them for their support when he could not get it in any other way. A true schizophrenic masterwork in its time, the film is now muted by a reality more incredible than Cohen ever imagined in his wildest dreams. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide