Carl Gabriel Yorke Movies
- 1998
Materializing on Earth 147, the Sliders find themselves smack in the middle of a Kromagg weapons test. Captured and threatened with torture, the three travelers are rescued by superior officer Kromanus (Stephen Macht), whose life Maggie (Kari Wuhrer) had saved earlier. Magnanimously, Kromanus puts the captives under light house arrest, allowing them to move about with relative freedom. This turns out to be a mixed blessing when the Sliders are swept up in a fierce military power struggle, and Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) becomes a "dead man walking" when he uncovers the horrible truth about the Kromaggs' future plans for the human race. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1998
The four Sliders arrive on an Alternate Earth ruled by the Stompers, a high-tech Nazilike organization dedicated to "Racial Repatriation" (the leader is Governor Shick--as in "Schickelgruber", a.k.a. Hitler). As a black man, Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) is unable to elude detection, and is soon shipped off to what is euphemistically called a Detention Camp. In their efforts to save Remmy, the other Sliders can find no one willing to break ranks with the powers-that-be: everyone adores the Stompers for revitalizing the economy by creating faceless android workers called "Eddies"--who, as Remmy learns to his horror, aren't quite the soulless machines they appear to be. (Incidentally, this is series regular Cleavant Derricks' favorite Sliders episode.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
"Houston, we have a problem." Those words were immortalized during the tense days of the Apollo 13 lunar mission crisis, and the suspense, fear, and excitement of those days are captured in Ron Howard's epic recreation of the 1970 crisis. When the commander of the original mission Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise), bows out due to possible exposure to measles, astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) leads command module pilot Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and lunar module driver Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) on what is slated as NASA's third lunar landing mission. All goes smoothly until the craft is halfway through its mission, when an exploding oxygen tank threatens the crew's oxygen and power supplies. As the courageous astronauts face the dilemma of either suffocating or freezing to death, Mattingly and Mission Control leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) struggle to find a way to bring the crew back home, all the while knowing that the spacemen face probable death once the battered ship reenters the Earth's atmosphere. Even though the outcome, in which all three astronauts miraculously survived, is historical fact, the film derives suspense from the situation itself and from the actions of the heroic astronauts and the men on the ground. Howard's taut direction, a solid ensemble of players, and eye-opening special effects all add to the overall impact of the film, which has been hailed as one of Hollywood's best historical dramas. In 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 116 minutes in order to meet the technical requirements of the large-screen format. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, (more)
A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can transfer the information from her address book into a software program that will store the information on her PC. Unknown to Terry, one of the employees of the store is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), known in the press as "The Address Book Killer," who likes to steal other people's address books and murder all the people listed within, including the book's owner. Terry accidentally leaves her book behind at the store, and Karl lifts it, but as he drives to her house to strike her off the list first, he is injured in a serious accident and taken to a hospital. While Karl is being given a CAT scan, lightning strikes the building and Karl is transformed into a series of electrical impulses that can travel as computer code from one system to another, or as current through power lines. Soon Terry begins to suspect something is wrong as her friends succumb to attacks by microwave ovens, hot-air blowers, and other household objects. Terry and her computer-savvy son, Josh (Wil Horneff), realize that they're at risk after Karl appears in Josh's virtual reality games; it's up to Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey), a brilliant hacker-turned-computer maintenance technician, to isolate and destroy the Karl virus before it can kill again. The film's soundtrack features such hip-hop stars as D-Nice and Too Short, Schoolly-D, Grandmaster Slice, and Kool Moe Dee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Allen, Chris Mulkey, (more)
- 1993
Christmas may be a little late for Lt. Fancy (James McDaniel), who faces the wrath of Borough Commander Haverill (James Handy) -- until Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) unexpectedly come to the rescue. Elsewhere, the Yuletide season is rudely interrupted by the kidnapping of a wealthy young girl, and by Janice's (Amy Brenneman) ever-deepening involvement with the Mob. Things aren't quite so bleak for Martinez (Nicholas Turturro), who receives a very special gift. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Marshall Herskovitz directed this tearjerking schizophrenic combination of The Wonder Years and To Kill a Mockingbird. It is 1972, and John Leary (Danny De Vito) and his two sons Jack (Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.) and Dylan (Miko Hughes) have just moved to Oakland, California. John is a television celebrity who has been fired from one station after another, appearing now on a cheap local station as the Saturday night host of a horror-film showcase. But John spends most of the time drinking and grieving over the loss of his wife, who was recently killed in an accident. The children try to adapt to their new school, and the family tries to adapt to the collection of kooks that populate their neighborhood. Foremost among them is Norman Strick (Gary Sinise), a sinister neo-Nazi who lives across the street. When Strick circulates a petition for the local white-supremacist candidate, John gets drunk and attacks him on his television show. As a result, Strick takes his revenge by abducting one of John's children. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny DeVito, Robert J. Steinmiller, (more)
- 1993
Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) draws what seems to be the easiest duty of the week: tracking down the Academy Award statuette stolen from a veteran screenwriter. Meanwhile, Sipowicz's colleagues investigate the brutal slaying of a wealthy family, and Janice (Amy Brenneman) is again ordered to infiltrate the Mob. This last turn of events doesn't sit well with Kelly (David Caruso), who has a bitter confrontation with Janice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
