Kathleen Doyle Movies

A dissatisfied Manhattan sportswriter finds more than he expected when he searches for the biological mother of his adopted child in Woody Allen's comedy. Writer-director Allen also plays Lenny, a slightly more relaxed incarnation of his usual neurotic screen persona. Lenny is trapped in a bad marriage to high-strung art dealer Amanda (Helena Bonham Carter), but he finds solace in his relationship with his adopted young son. Indeed, he grows so fond of the boy that he decides to track down the boy's real mother, expecting to discover a brilliant professional. Instead, he finds Linda (Mira Sorvino), a ditzy prostitute and porno star who mingles casual vulgarity with disarming innocence. Despite his initial disillusionment, Lenny soon develops a fondness for Linda and decides to play matchmaker, setting her up with a handsome young boxer (Michael Rapaport) who is equally good-hearted and scatterbrained. While the contrast between the free-spirited Linda and the uptight Lenny provides the bulk of the laughs, hints of Allen's more literary humor are also present, particularly in the scenes involving a roaming Greek chorus commenting upon Lenny's fate. Sorvino received a supporting Oscar for her title role in a well-received movie that is nevertheless not at the level of Allen's best-known classics. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Dan (John Larroquette) hopes to curry favor with gossip columnist Dermot Drake, but the scribe is interested only in the garrulous Roz (Marsha Warfield). Meanwhile, Harry wonders why ditzy court stenographer Lisette Hocheiser (Joleen Lutz) is avoiding him, unaware that Lisette has been having some erotic dreams about the Judge of late. Originally slated to air on May 6, 1993, this was the final Night Court episode to be telecast on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a self-involved real estate agent is given fifty hours of community service to do by a judge, he becomes the coach for a basketball team of developmentally challenged adults. In trying to teach them, he learns. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a ballet dancer discovers that she is suffering from cancer and must re-evaluate her life. When she meets up with another young woman who is also ill, the two strike up a friendship. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

For the first time ever, Clair's all-female literary discussion club invites some men to attend. The only one who shows up is Cliff (Bill Cosby), whereupon Clair (Phylicia Rashad) worries that her husband will embarrass himself by exhibiting his ignorance of the book being discussed--but she's in for a big surprise. Meanwhile, the kids spend an eventful night in the shabby apartment of newlyweds Sondra (Sabrina LeBeauf) and Elvin (Geoffrey Owens). Featured among the book-club ladies are future stars Angela Bassett and S. Epatha Merkerson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Never released theatrically, this sex comedy is set in an apartment in Moscow with one bathroom, one kitchen and 31 inhabitants. While this may make the rent affordable for everyone, it's no help when filming inside such a set. A few of the major characters are Vera (Lee Taylor Allen), whose mother Galina (Shelley Winters) is trying to match her up with her alcoholic boss Kiril (Paul Sorvino). Meanwhile, Vera is pretending to carry on a lesbian affair with a neighbor for no reason other than to drive their local gossips up the wall. The lack of privacy and overwrought slapstick make this a hard pill to swallow. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The phenomenal success of the 1977 ABC miniseries Roots all but demanded a sequel to writer Alex Haley's epic story of his African and African-American forebears. Debuting February 18, 1979, Roots: The Next Generations picked up where its predecessor left off, with Haley's slave ancestors winning their freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even so, life for black Americans was wrought with hardship and oppression thanks to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the staunch refusal of the white power structure to pass anti-lynching laws, and the formation of the dreaded Jim Crow laws which legalized racial segregation in the South (and much of the North). Covering the period from 1882 to the mid-1970s, the miniseries first focuses on blacksmith Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), great-grandson of Kunta Kinte (the protagonist of the original Roots), and his family. Meanwhile, reacting to the marriage of his son to a black woman, anal-retentive Southern colonel Warner (Henry Fonda) begins setting the legal wheels in motion to deny blacks like Tom the right to vote and to hold "white" jobs. A few decades later, Tom's son-in-law encourages his fellow blacks to stand firm against the KKK's reign of terror. His labors on behalf of his race are rewarded when his daughter Bertha (Irene Cara) becomes the first descendant of Kunta Kinte to receive a college education. It is Bertha Palmer who weds the equally ambitious Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood), who goes on to serve in WWI and to organize farmers and sharecroppers during the Depression. Simon's son Alex (played at various ages by Kristoff St. John, Damon Evans, and finally James Earl Jones) is just as determined to succeed in a white man's world as his father, and to that end becomes a professional writer after his own service stint in the Coast Guard during WWII. At the height of his professional success (largely due to his having ghost-written the autobiography of Muslim activist Malcolm X), Alex Haley pays a visit to his boyhood hometown -- where, almost by accident, he receives the first clue to his heritage, a clue that will lead him on an odyssey of self-discovery, arriving full circle at Kunta Kinte's birthplace in Africa. Although the miniseries' "money scene" was Haley's nervous interview with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell (Marlon Brando in a superb cameo turn), the climactic episode, in which Haley tearfully embraces the living African descendants of Kunta Kinte, is one of the most unforgettable moments in the history of network television. Running 12 episodes and 14 hours, Roots: The Next Generations concluded on February 25, 1979, playing to huge ratings all along the way and ultimately garnering several Emmy nominations (and one win). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In part three of Good Times' fifth-season opener "The Evans Get Involved" (originally telecast as part two), the Evans children and Willona (Ja'net DuBois) are saddened when ten-year-old Penny (Janet Jackson) and her abusive single mother Mrs. Gordon (Chip Hurd) disappear. Sadness turns to surprise when they discover that Penny is hiding in the Evans apartment. Angrily admitting that she no longer uphold her maternal duties, Penny's mom abandons her -- leading Willona to consider adopting the girl herself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide