Stacy Grant Movies
Executive producer Mick Garris, the driving force behind the Masters of Horror series on Showtime, writes and directs this episode, Chocolate. Garris is best known for directing several Stephen King adaptations, including the made-for-TV versions of The Stand and The Shining, but here he is working from his own short story. Henry Thomas stars as Jamie, a repressed, recently divorced lab technician. At work in the lab with his aging rocker co-worker, Wally (Matt Frewer), Jamie designs artificial flavorings to simulate the foods he craves, but won't allow himself to eat. One night, he has what seems to be a powerful hallucination, in which he tastes expensive fine chocolate. He goes to see Wally's band play, and seems to temporarily lose his hearing. While driving home, he has a vivid visual episode that almost results in a car wreck. He picks up a girl (Leah Graham) at the supermarket, and they really hit it off, but he has another episode at the most inopportune time, ruining their budding romance. As these episodes increase in their frequency and duration, Jamie begins to realize that he's sharing the experiences of Catherine (Lucie Laurier), a beautiful young woman who lives in another city. Jamie believes there must be a reason for his connection to Catherine, and after witnessing a particularly violent and disturbing scene, he decides to track her down. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Thomas
- 2003
While escorting a convoy of Commonwealth mercantile vessels, Dylan (Kevin Sorbo) encounters a Nietzechean slip-scout. This forces him into a deadly race against the hated Dragans to prevent the slip-scout from mapping the entire slipstream. Complicating matters is Dylan's Nietzchean counterpart, Galton (Christopher Heyerdahl), an enigmatic sort whose loyalties and motives are never quite what they seem. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2000
While on a vacation in the Pacific Northwest, widower Nick Conway (Kyle McLachlan) and his son Dennis (Joseph Cross) are involved in a car accident. Dennis is rushed to the hospital in a strange, remote village called Springdale, where all the residents seem unusually youthful and attractive. As he slowly falls in love with the nurse caring for Dennis, Nick comes to the realization that the town harbors a secret fountain of youth--and that there is ultimately a terrible price to pay for being eternally young. Based on a novel by Clifford Irving, The Spring aired January 16, 2000 on NBC, reportedly as the pilot for a never-produced weekly series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Cross, Kyle MacLachlan, (more)
Jackie Chan has often played a fish out of water, but he's rarely found himself so far upstream as in this comic adventure, in which he puts his fighting skills to the test in the Old West of the 1850s. Lo Fong (Roger Yuan), onetime captain of the Chinese Imperial Guard, has traded upholding the law for smuggling opium. Needing some operating capital, Lo Fong kidnaps the Emperor's daughter, Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), and takes her to America. When the Emperor sends his best men to find her, Chon Wang (Chan), one of the Emperor's less distinguished guards, insists on joining them; he feels at fault for Lo Fong's capturing the Princess, and he wants to make amends. However, while the rescue party scours the West, Chon Wang gets separated from the group and soon becomes lost. When he crosses paths with Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), a bright but arrogant train robber, the two become unlikely allies. While Shanghai Noon was billed as Jackie Chan's follow-up to Rush Hour, his first successful American-made feature, it was actually filmed in Canada, as was Chan's breakthrough film in America, the Hong Kong-backed Rumble in the Bronx. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, (more)
- 1999
- R
In this sequel to the 1994 horror cult item, nearly 20 years after his father, a mass murderer named Morty, committed suicide in front of his mother and himself, Mike Hawthorne (Gordon Currie) invites several of his friends to his family's old cabin in the woods for a Halloween party. While playing a game in which guests are supposed to confess and confront their worst fears, Mike attempts to conjure up the spirit of his late father. Mike is more successful than he imagined when he discovers that Morty's malevolent soul inhabits a wooden Indian in the cabin. The statue comes to life, and Morty's bloodthirsty habits begin anew. The Fear: Resurrection was also released on video under the title The Fear: Halloween Night. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gordon Currie, Stacy Grant, (more)
The wooden monster that terrorized a group of psychiatric patients in The Fear returns in this terrifying sequel starring Gordon Carrie, Brendan Beiser, Stacy Grant, and Betsy Palmer. This film was the feature-length directorial debut of Chris Angel, who won an Academy award for his short film Mr. October. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Newly arrived in the town of Cedar Island, perennial misfit Picasso Dewlap (Robert Burke) has trouble making friends, even when he joins his junior-high basketball team. But Picasso's stock with his peers rises considerably when he recruits a rather hirsute young "man" with remarkable hoop skills to play on the team. It so happens that Picasso's pal, Ed Tibbetts (Trevor Jones), is actually a Sasquatch, or "Bigfoot"--but that hardly matters so long as the team keeps racking up wins. Eventually growing homesick for his family back in the woods, Ed escapes on the eve of the championship game--forcing Picasso to make a fateful decision. Adapted by Brian Daly from his own novel, the made-for-cable Big & Hairy originally aired November 30, 1998, on the Showtime network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Burke, Trevor Jones, (more)
In this combination caper comedy and offbeat romance, Emily (Alicia Silverstone) is a wealthy but petulant young woman desperate to get the attention of her millionaire father, Alexander Hope (Jack Thompson). In fact, she's so desperate that she decides to stage her own kidnapping; she sends a ransom note, ties herself up, and locks herself in the trunk of her BMW, waiting for daddy to come to the rescue; however, Emily's timing is a bit off, because ten minutes later, hunky car thief Vincent (Benicio Del Toro) steals the BMW with Emily still in it. Vincent and his partner in crime, Greg (Harry Connick Jr.), eventually discover the car's trunk has an unexpected surprise. When Emily is unable to convince them to help her with her scheme, she becomes a problem the carjackers can't get rid of, especially after Alexander refuses to pay her ransom, and his creepy right-hand man, Raymond (Christopher Walken), heads out to find her. Of course, losing 200,000 dollars in mob money is not making Vincent's life any easier, nor is having the emotionally problematic Emily fall in love with him. Excess Baggage was the first feature from Alicia Silverstone's production company First Kiss. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alicia Silverstone, Benicio Del Toro, (more)
- 1996
One of several ABC TV movies released under the umbrella appellation "Crimes of Passion", She Woke Up Pregnant is based on a true story. Several months after undergoing oral surgery requiring her to be sedated, Connie Loftus (Michele Greene) discovers that she's pregnant. This outrages her husband Tom (William R. Moses), who has had a vasectomy and is in no way capable of producing sperm. It turns out that Connie was but one of several unsuspecting women who have been assaulted in their sleep by rapacious dentist Dr. Roger Nolten (Joe Penny). Unfortunately, Connie's efforts to prosecute Nolten are stymied when he insists that he and Connie had been consentual lovers--and there's nothing she can do to prove otherwise! An intrepid female cop named Susan Saroyan (Lynda Carter) figures into the outcome of this compelling tale of trust betrayed and a woman's battle against the "good ol' boy" network. She Woke Up Pregnant was first telecast April 28, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
