Jim Goodwin Movies

First seen over the Showtime cable network on June 29, 2001, On the Edge is a compendium of three short science-fiction films, each with a decidedly feminist slant. The first segment, directed by Helen Mirren, is "Happy Birthday," in which a straight-A student (Sidney Tamilia Poitier) seeks recourse after she is "quota'd out" of graduate school. Next up is "The Other Side," directed by Mary Stuart Masterson, wherein a scientific genius (Anthony LaPaglia) clones himself upon learning that he has inoperable cancer -- only to find himself and his clone as two points in a romantic triangle. Closing out the program is writer/director Anne Heche's "Reaching Normal," the tale of a bored housewife (Andie McDowell) and her "telepathic twin," an eccentric college professor (Paul Rudd). The best of the batch is "Happy Birthday"; the other two stories are distressingly predictable. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A man returns to the past to improve his present time and instead messes it up in this old-fashioned science fiction B movie. The film begins in the year 2073; Nicholas Sinclair, like his other time-travel researchers is dying from a virus. He returns via time warp to 1973 to bring back a defective robot probe. The trouble begins when his colleagues send a probe after him. In the revised present most of the world is being overrun by robots while the human population is being wiped out by a virus. Nicholas is a soldier in the guerrilla army that battles the robots. His wife Natasha is also in the army. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In the first episode of a two-part story, Patricia Neal guest stars as Julie Sanderson, a terminally ill widow. On the threshold of death, Julia asks Charles (Michael Landon) to find good homes for her three children. In his efforts to honor Julia's wishes, Charles is faced with the depressing likelihood that the Sanderson kids will have to be split up. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Now calling himself "Bill Martin", Kimble (David Janssen) arrives in a town where several women have fallen victim to a serial killer. A local vigilante committee, by nature suspicious of all outsiders, immediately assumes that Kimble is responsible for the killing spree. Joanne Mercer (June Harding), a mentally challenged girl shunned by the community, takes pity and Kimble and allows him to hide in her cellar--little imagining that the real murderer is likewise hiding only a few feet away. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi