Jane Daly Movies
The third entry in Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible film series involves super Impossible Mission Forces (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) being forced back into the field just when he was planning on marrying his girlfriend, Julia (Michelle Monaghan). The agency asks Hunt to save an operative (Keri Russell) he trained after weapons dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) kidnaps her. With the help of his field team -- played by Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and Maggie Q -- Hunt achieves his goal, but becomes involved in a web of double-crosses that leave him wondering if he can trust his superiors (Billy Crudup and Laurence Fishburne). Eventually Davian threatens Julia's life in order to get away with his evil plan. Simon Pegg appears as an IMF tech expert. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, (more)
The story of two average women who refused to be silenced and intimidated by the company who manufactured their silicone implants is detailed in this inspirational docudrama starring Mary McDonnell and Gail O' Grady. Sybil Goldrich (McDonnell) was a wealthy California who was devastated to be diagnosed with breast cancer, and Kathleen Anneken (O'Grady) was a typical middle-class mother from Kansas who had always been unhappy with her breast size. Despite their disparate backgrounds and social statuses, both women would soon be drawn together by the tragic circumstances surrounding their decision to receive breast implants. Ignored, mistreated, and disregarded by silicone specialists Dow Corning after they received their implants and fell gravely ill, Goldrich and Anneken became united in their efforts to take their case to the FDA. While proving Down Corning was responsible for their many ailments was a near impossible task, getting their story out to the public was simply a matter of using every opportunity they had to state their case publicly. In the end it was one lawyer who possessed the incriminating evidence needed to bring Down Corning down, and ensure that their cries weren't silenced by the stifling greenback gag of big business. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gail O'Grady, Mary McDonnell, (more)
Ross' (George Clooney) one-night stand with a girl (Lisa Darr) whom he picked up in a bar threatens to turn into tragedy when she is stricken with an epileptic seizure and rushed to the ER. The staff can't shake the notion that Ross was somehow responsible for this, and he hardly helps matters by revealing that he doesn't even know the girl's name. In other developments, Carter (Noah Wyle) loses Benton's (Eriq La Salle) lecture notes when his apartment building catches fire; and Jeanie (Gloria Reuben) and Greene (Anthony Edwards) experience new romantic adventures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The tragic and true story of a family dealing with AIDS is re-told in this heart-wrenching made-for-cable drama. Amy Madigan and Dennis Boutsikaris star as Roxy and Vinnie Ventola, a successful television screenwriting couple. After struggling to become pregnant and finally conceiving a child, the couple learns that their newborn has AIDS. Soon afterward, the two parents are also diagnosed with the fatal virus. The film follows the family as they struggle to deal with the social, spiritual and physical tolls that the disease exacts on its sufferers. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amy Madigan, Dennis Boutsikaris, (more)
Disowned by her wealthy family, a determined young woman moves to San Francisco and tries to become a famous singer and to find lasting love. This sudsy drama chronicles her decade-long struggle. Through it all, she finds romance with an old flame. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Based on a true story, the made-for-television movie Runaway Father is about a husband who fakes his death so he can abandon his family. After surviving 20 years of poverty, his wife discovers he is still alive, and she sues him to collect 17 years of back child support. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donna Mills, Jack Scalia, (more)
Miracle Landing is a quickly but carefully made TV movie dramatizing an actual near-disaster in the air. The tale begins with Aloha Airline's Flight 737 making a routine trip between Hilo and Honolulu. As the plane reaches an altitude of 24,000 feet, the top portion of the fuselage suddenly strips off, depressurizing the cabin and exposing the passengers to flying debris and deadly winds. The film then concentrates on the cool professionalism of the flight attendants and 3-person crew, as they calm down the 89 passengers and bring the severely damaged plane for a safe landing. Miracle Landing is cut-and-dried for the most part, but isolated moments are impossible to forget--notably a shot of an anguished passenger with a shard of metal grotesquely fused to his face! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
While on a dangerous shuttlecraft mission, Data is kidnapped by hobby-obsessed space trader Kivas Fajo (Saul Rubinek), who wants to add the android to his personal collection. To cover his tracks, Fajo destroys the shuttle, leading the Enterprise crew to sadly conclude that Data is dead. Suppressing their grief, the crew sets about to complete Data's mission, while the "deceased" android attempts to outwit his captor. First telecast May 12, 1990, "The Most Toys" was written by Shari Goodhartz. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
James Farentino plays the chief of a big-city underground narcotics unit. When a drug buy goes awry, a shotgun blows away one of Farentino's best men--and closest friends. As the once-harmonious drug unit disintegrates into recriminations and guilt, Farentino becomes more and more withdrawn, until he's of little further value to the force. A chance for redemption for everyone arrives in the form of another big-time drug bust. In the Line of Duty: A Cop for the Killing was based on a true story, as were all the In the Line of Duty films produced for television in the late 1980s--early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
It's been two weeks since David (Bruce Willis) has seen Maddie (Cybill Shepherd), his partner at the Blue Moon Detective Agency--and his lover, or so he'd been led to believe. With no one else around, David teams with the obsequious Bert Viola (Curtis Armstrong) for his latest case, involving another missing person. This time, David's quarry is a reluctant groom who left his bride waiting at the altar several years earlier--a situation that unfortunately strikes extremely close to home for our hero. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Amy Medford (Jenny Agutter) is a dutiful housewife of the early 1900s. But when her husband objects to a wife with a career, Amy leaves her husband and comfortable lifestyle. She goes on to devote her life to teaching sight-and-hearing-impaired students at a tradition-bound special school. This film betrays its Disney-studio origins with an audience-rousing action climax, in which Amy's students take on a team of "normal" kids at a football game. Amy was produced by onetime Hollywood leading man Jerome Courtland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jenny Agutter, Barry Newman, (more)
In a society in which major league sporting events have replaced Sunday worship as the religion of choice, North Dallas Forty appears like a desecration at the altar. In this film, directed by Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz), the National Football League is revealed to be more about the money than the game. Nick Nolte is North Dallas Bulls pass-catcher Phillip Elliott, whose cynicism and independent spirit is looked upon as troublesome by team coaches Johnson (Charles Durning) and Strothers (G.D. Spradlin) and team owner Conrad Hunter (Steve Forrest). Elliot, at the end of his career and wise to the way players are bought and sold like cattle, goes through the games pumped up on painkillers conveniently provided by the management. His teammates include savvy quarterback Maxwell (Mac Davis) and lunk-headed defensive lineman Jo Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson), who deal with the impersonality and back-biting of the game through off-field diversions. When the Bulls management benches Elliot after manipulating him to help train a fellow teammate, Elliot has to decide whether there is more to life than the game that he loves. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, (more)
Adapted for the screen by novelist Joseph Wambaugh himself, The Black Marble stars Robert Foxworth as a burned-out, hard-drinking cop who is teamed with idealistic lady officer Paula Prentiss. These two polar opposites wade their way through a seamy urban world of corruption and hopelessness. The film is peppered with supporting players, of which include Harry Dean Stanton, James Woods, John Hancock and Barbara Babcock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Foxworth, Paula Prentiss, (more)
This dark, brooding low-budget effort opens in Vietnam, where young infantryman Andy Brooks (Richard Backus) is struck down by a sniper's bullet. At the same time in Andy's hometown, his poor mother is uttering a desperate prayer for Andy to come home... and shortly thereafter, he does. Despite Mrs. Brooks' exultation at her son's safe return, it becomes apparent to the rest of the family that there's something terribly wrong with Andy; he won't do much more than sit in a chair, staring blankly at the walls of his room... that is, until nightfall, when he prowls the town in search of human blood, which he extracts from his victims through a syringe and injects into his own veins. The first horror effort from director Bob Clark, who followed with Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things! and the effective thriller Black Christmas, this haunting film (released as The Veteran in 1972) functions as a Vietnam-era variant on the classic story of "The Monkey's Paw" and was one of the first films of the genre to address the stateside reactions to the horrors of that war. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

- 1972
- PG
- Add Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things to QueueAdd Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things to top of Queue
In Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, an above average slasher/horror film, a group of amateurs decide to experiment with witchcraft with deadly results. This film has a small cult following, due to some extent to the fact that one of the lead characters is played by writer and makeup effects artist Alan Ormsby. Ormsby gives one of the three or four most obnoxious screen performances in history as Alan, the leader of a troupe of actors who try out a voodoo ritual on a corpse only to find out that it has worked on all the corpses in the graveyard. The acting is terrible and the special effects are obvious and cheap, but the film somehow manages to overcome all of this and be quite entertaining, but only for those with strong stomachs. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide



















