Christine Sacani Movies
- 2008
- PG13
- Add The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 to QueueAdd The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 to top of Queue
The 2008 sequel to the female buddy film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants constitutes an adaptation of Ann Brashares' novel Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood. Like the premier installment, this picture explores the seriocomic events that unfold one summer in the lives of four temporarily estranged friends as an extremely special pair of jeans works its way from one girl to the next. In one subplot, Lena (Alexis Bledel) travels to Providence, RI, and enrolls in a painting course; in another, Bridget (Blake Lively) embarks on an archaeological excavation in Greece; in a third, Carmen (America Ferrera) works on the backstage crew for a Vermont-based theater festival; and in the fourth, Tibby remains in New York and enrolls in summer courses. Sanaa Hamri, best known for her Prince and Mariah Carey music videos, directs; Elizabeth Chandler, who co-scripted the first film, adapts the Brashares book. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, (more)
An engaged young couple finds their lifetime of happiness unexpectedly compromised by a pushy minister who insists they successfully complete his comprehensive marriage-prep course before exchanging wedding vows in a matrimonial comedy starring John Krasinski, Mandy Moore, and Robin Williams. Sadie Jones (Moore) has always longed to marry the man of her dreams in her family church. Though she found her lifetime companion in Ben Murphy (Krasinski), Sadie is distressed to learn that St. Augustine's has only one wedding slot available over the next two years. While Sadie and Ben do qualify for the slot, charismatic St. Augustine's minister Reverend Frank (Williams) won't wed the couple until they agree to attend his two-week prenuptial course. Now, as their wedding date draws near, Sadie and Ben must attend every one of Reverend Frank's exhausting classes and complete a series of rigorous homework assignments designed specifically to test their dedication to one another and ensure that their union will have a sound foundation. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, (more)
- 2005
- PG
- Add The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to QueueAdd The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to top of Queue
Ann Brashares' best-selling novel for young adults comes to the big screen in this engaging comedy drama. Carmen (America Ferrera), Bridget (Blake Lively), Lena (Alexis Bledel), and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) are four teenage girls who have been close friends since they were babies (and even before -- their mothers all knew each other from attending the same prenatal exercise class). However, fate has dictated that for the first time ever the young women will be spending their summer apart -- Carmen will be visiting her father, whom she hasn't seen in years, Lena will be visiting her grandparents in Greece, Bridget is attending a soccer camp in Mexico, while Tibby is stuck working at a discount store. A few days before Carmen, Lena, and Bridget leave, the four go shopping, and while at a thrift shop they discover an unusual pair of blue jeans that, despite the fact they're all of different height and weight, fits all four women perfectly. The girls buy the jeans and pledge to each look after them for a week at a time, hoping they'll bring one another good luck as the girls deal with a variety of new life experiences, both good and bad. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, (more)
Marking their first theatrical-release feature since 1995's It Takes Two, the Olsen twins bring their adventures back to the big screen with New York Minute. Billed as a sort of Ferris Bueller's Day Off for tweens, the plot involves the escapades of two enterprising Long Island girls, Roxy (Mary-Kate Olsen) and Jane (Ashley Olsen), as they decide to dupe their parents and spend a day on the island of Manhattan. It seems the high-minded Jane has a speech to give to a scholarship committee, while the punky Roxy wants to meet her favorite rock band. When Jane's planner gets swiped, however, the girls find themselves embroiled in a political scandal involving a high-powered senator (Andrea Martin), as their high school's truant officer (Eugene Levy) doggedly pursues them. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ashley Olsen, Mary-Kate Olsen, (more)
Created by author/entertainer Kay Thompson in 1955, precocious six-year-old Eloise, who lived in the Plaza Hotel with her long-suffering nanny, her dog Weenie, and her turtle Skipperdee, was the heroine of several delightful children's books written by Thompson and whimsically illustrated by Hilary Knight. The charm of the "Eloise" books has proven elusive whenever the property is adapted for another media, as witness a disastrous musical version which aired live on Playhouse 90 in 1956. On this occasion, Eloise came off as a spoiled obstreperous brat, which was as much the fault of the child actress cast in the role (Evelyn Rudie) as the adapters. Disney decided to give little Eloise another chance 47 years later with the location-filmed Eloise at the Plaza, a two-hour movie presentation of ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney anthology. This time around, Sofia Vassilieva played the title role, with Julie Andrews as Eloise's nanny (something of a full-circle for Andrews, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a rather different nanny in the 1964 Disney theatrical feature Mary Poppins). The plot finds Eloise insisting upon attending a debutante ball at the Plaza and further conniving to have a runaway foreign prince (Denis Akiyama) -- who isn't much older than she is -- as her escort. Our heroine also mends fences between a reluctant teenage deb and the girl's pushy mother. Jeffrey Tambor is typecast as the Plaza's supercilious concierge Mr. Salomone, whose dithering efforts to keep Eloise from nosing into other people's business avail him not one bit. Hilary Knight appears in a cameo role as himself. Eloise at the Plaza first aired April 27, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Andrews, Christine Baranski, (more)
Angela Bassett plays the title role in this meticulously detailed biography of pioneering civil rights activist Rosa McCauley Parks. Even as a child, Rosa stands separate from her fellow African-Americans; instead of being shipped off to a shabby public school, she is enrolled in a private classroom run by Quakers, who encourage the girl to transcend the severe limitations of legalized segregation in her home state of Alabama. In her late teens, Rosa marries barber Raymond Parks (Peter Francis James), a politically savvy and outspoken proponent of equal rights for all. For many years suffering in silence as the iniquities of the South's Jim Crow laws consign her to second-class-citizen status, Rosa finally joins the local branch of the NAACP with the encouragement of her childhood friend Rebecca "Johnnie" Carr (Tonea Stewart) -- much to the dismay of husband Raymond, who feels that the organization is ineffective in its ongoing battle against the white power structure. Rosa's personal struggle against institutionalized racism reaches its zenith on the night of December 1, 1955, when, bone-weary after a long day's work as a seamstress at a Montgomery department store, she refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man -- and is promptly arrested. Thus are the wheels set in motion for the first major Civil Rights demonstration of the 1950s, with Rosa rising to heroic status in the eyes of her people, an event that also profoundly alters the life of local religious leader Martin Luther King Jr. (played by the Reverend's son, Dexter Scott King). Mostly filmed on location in Alabama, The Rosa Parks Story features Cicely Tyson as Rosa's strong-willed mother Leona and Mrs. Parks' longtime friend Rebecca Daniels Carr in a cameo role. The film was shown as part of CBS' celebration of Black History Month on February 24, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angela Bassett, Peter Francis James, (more)
- 2000
Robert Mantegna stars as tough Boston private eye Spencer in this made-for-cable adaptation of the Robert B. Parker novel Thin Air. It all begins when Lila St. Claire (Yancy Butler, the new bride of police detective Frank Belson (David Ferry), is kidnapped by Latino ganglord Luis DeLeon (Jon Seda). As a personal favor to Belson, Spencer agrees to burrow into the barrio in hopes of rescuing Lila. In so doing, Spencer is made privy to more unsavory aspects of Beantown's Latino subculture--and also learns more than he cares to know about Lila's clouded past. Thin Air was originally telecast by the A&E network on September 12, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Mantegna, Marcia Gay Harden, (more)
- 2000
Max Hanson (Jonathan Jackson), a popular high school student with considerable artistic and athletic talent, finds himself under pressure from everyone--especially his parents--to focus exclusively on art and to give up ice hockey. The only person who apparently harbors no judgmental attitudes towards Max is a teenage girl named Molly (Carly Pope), with whom he falls in love. Unfortunately, Molly is "into" wild parties and drugs--and before long, so is Max. As he sinks deeper and deeper into the morass of heroin addiction, Max seems to be beyond redemption . . . and far beyond the influence of his caring but domineering mother Sophie (JoBeth Williams). Posing a number of tough questions, but wisely offering no easy answers, the made-for-TV Trapped in a Purple Haze originally aired on April 17, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jonathan Jackson, JoBeth Williams, (more)
- 1998
- Add My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story to QueueAdd My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story to top of Queue
One of the most sensational crime stories of the 1950s was the murder trial of Cleveland doctor Sam Sheppard, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Though he protested his innocence and insisted that he'd seen a "curly-haired man" leaving his house on the night of the crime, Sheppard was condemned in the court of public opinion long before the judge handed out his sentence. (This true story served as the basis for the long-running TV series The Fugitive.) Years later, Sheppard was released from prison after it was determined that he hadn't had a fair trial, but his name was never officially cleared. Forty years after the death of his mother, Sheppard's son Sam Reese made it his mission in life to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that his father was innocent. In this TV movie adaptation of the younger Sheppard's autobiographical book, Peter Strauss is seen as Dr. Sam Sheppard, and Henry Czerny as Sam Reese. My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story made its CBS network bow on November 17, 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Strauss, Henry Czerny, (more)
Given up for adoption in infancy, 34-year-old Barbara Ann Williams (Gloria Reuben) launches a desperate search for her biological mother when she is diagnosed with a severe medical condition. Painfully assembling the pieces of her fragmented life, Barbara learns that her mom, a white woman named Gerry Cummins (Anne Bancroft) had been raped by a black man in 1961. With the social barriers of the time banning her from keeping a mixed-race baby, and her own religious convictions prohibiting her from having an abortion, Gerry farmed out her daughter for adoption. Barbara's first home was with black foster mother Corinne Burrell (Lynn Whitfield), but she ultimately wound up adopted by a dysfunctional white family in Wisconsin, with Annalise Jurgenson (Alice Krige) as her "official" mother. Thereafter, Barbara's life would be tainted with the onus of being a loser and an "outsider", no matter where she turned. With all this in mind, it seems incredible to even imagine that Barbara's lifelong misery will be purged by a happy denoument. Produced for the CBS network, the fact-based TV movie Deep In My Heart originally aired February 14, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
It has been 20 years since Federal agent Dane Corvin (Richard Chamberlain) left his home town of Raven Island -- and also 20 years since Dane's fiancée Helen (Karen Allen), a talented sculptor, bitterly broke off their engagement when he was forced to arrest her brother for poaching. Now Corvin has returned, hoping to somehow, some way win back Helen's love. As it turns out, however, Helen herself is harboring a secret that Dane may not be able to forgive. Some lovely location footage of the Pacific Northwest makes this adaptation of Evan Maxwell's novel seem more compelling that it truly is. All the Winters That Have Been originally aired over CBS on September 21, 1997, posting the eighth highest rating of its broadcast week. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Chamberlain, Karen Allen, (more)
- 1997
In this two-part suspenser inspired by Ken Follett's bestselling novel, university pscyhobiologist Jenny Ferrami (Kelly McGillis), in the process of studying a possible link between genetics and criminal behavior, stumbles upon a secret cloning experiment conducted by a major company. Figuring prominently in the proceedings is likeable law student Steve Logan (Jason Gedrick), who may or may not be the identical twin of a serial rapist. . .or possibly two rapists! It turns out that there are far more human "duplicates" in the world than Jenny could ever have imagined--and as she tracks down these clones to convince the public that there is dirty work afoot, sinister forces, tied in with a powerful triumverate, conspire to silence Jenny for keeps. Originally telecast by CBS, Ken Follett's The Third Twin first aired on November 9 and 11, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kelly McGillis, Jason Gedrick, (more)
Just in case the title didn't spill the beans, this made-for-TV nail-biter was based on a novel by Steve Martini. In the midst of a bitter child-custody battle with her former husband, Jack (Richard Masur), Laurel Vega (Patricia Richardson) is accused of murdering Jack's new, pregnant wife, Melanie (Allison Mackie). Although he knows Laurel is innocent, Jack lies to the police, using his clout as a senator to rid himself of Laurel once and for all. She, in turn, could clear herself in a minute by revealing the name of the real murderer -- but she can't without ruining the life of her 16-year-old son, Danny (Eric Michael Cole). Caught in the middle of this intrigue is Paul Madriani (Brian Dennehy), Laurel's defense attorney -- and, incidentally, her brother-in-law. With more twists and turns than a mountain trail, the two-part, four-hour Steve Martini's Undue Influence pleased the crowd when it first aired over CBS on September 15, and 17, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Dennehy, Patricia Richardson, (more)
Yuppie couple Denise Harris (Alyssa Milano) and Roger Lewis (Cameron Bancroft) get it in their wee little heads to head off to Alaska, there to work a gold mine some 75 miles away from civilization, At first, Denise and Roger revel in their exotic new surroundings, but before long the weather goes from cold to really cold, the supplies run out, and all contact with the outside world is cut off. Are the two city-dwellers prepared to endure the ordeal of making their way back to town or will they end up a pair of frozen Yuppie-sickles? In one of the big dramatic moments, the starving Denise and Roger seriously consider eating their pet dog; one suspects that this idea is borne of jealousy, since the dog gives the film's best performance. Lensed on location in British Columbia, the made-for-TV To Brave Alaska originally aired November 3, 1996, on ABC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alyssa Milano, Cameron Bancroft, (more)
- 1996
Actress Heather Locklear publicly stated that she hoped her bravura performance in the made-for-TV drama Shattered Mind would be a "career turner." Having endured an unhappy childhood from which she still carries unsavory secrets, young wife and mother Suzy (Locklear) goes completely around the bend after the death of her father. With her husband and two daughters looking on in helpless horror, the schizophrenic Suzy suddenly develops several alternate personalities--including a prostitute named Ginger, a frightened little girl named Bonnie, a haughty well-educated woman named Victoria, and even an abusive male teenager named D.J.! Though not exactly of Sybil caliber, Shattered Mind did manage to gain critical plaudits for star Locklear when it was first aired by NBC on May 27, 1996. Since that time, the film has been rerun on cable under the title The Terror Inside. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Two strangers are brought together by a powerful quirk of nature in this drama. Eugene (Michael Nickles) is a man in his thirties looking for a new meaning in his life. He thinks he may have found something when he discovers a mysterious wind tunnel in the desert that will carry the human voice for an unusual distance -- and he finds himself talking to Jackie (Heather Graham), a beautiful twentysomething who lives over 500 miles away. As Eugene and Jackie get to know each other without seeing one another, they find themselves caught up in the mysterious magic of the wind currents, said to have beneficial spiritual energies by Native Americans living in the desert. Desert Winds was written, directed, and produced by leading man Michael Nickles; pop singer Adam Ant also appears in a small role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heather Graham, Jessica Hamilton, (more)
In this drama, 12-year-old Gregory decides he prefers living with his foster parents and so launches his own custody battle to get away from his birth parents. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bill Smitrovich, (more)
In this futuristic action drama directed by Lewis Teague, Frank Warren (Rutger Hauer) is a man accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of gems. In prison, all the inmates wear collars which are electronically joined to those of an unknown partner. The collars will explode if either partner gets more than 300 feet away from the other. Warren is determined to escape, however, and finds that his partner is Tracy Riggs (Mimi Rogers). They plan and execute an elaborate escape and head off to search for the stolen diamonds. But members of Warren's former gang pursue them. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Mimi Rogers, (more)
