Tom Luse Movies

A picture-perfect family moves into an upscale community, impressing the locals and integrating themselves into every aspect of the community until a sudden tragedy forces them to reassess their priorities. Steve (David Duchovny) and Kate Jones (Demi Moore) have everything a happily married couple could ever want: their kids, Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth), are intelligent and attractive, they live in an affluent neighborhood, and their sprawling suburban home is jam-packed with all of the coolest gizmos and gadgets that money can buy. It isn't long before the Joneses have struck up a friendship with their next-door neighbors Larry (Gary Cole) and Summer (Glenne Headly), and become integral components of their community. But take a closer look at the situation and you'll start to see something ominous lurking just beneath the surface. It's only when the Joneses are confronted with an unexpected disaster that they finally discover who they really are beneath the glossy veneer of consumerism. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Peter Masterson's Lost Junction stars Billy Burke as Jimmy McGee, a hitchhiker who becomes involved with Missy Lofton (Neve Campbell) after she offers him a ride. He discovers that her husband's dead body is also along for the ride in the trunk. Jimmy has fallen for Missy and helps her get rid of any trace of the body. Her unstable boyfriend (Charles Powell) and Jimmy's handicapped friend (Jake Busey) round out the cast. Lost Junction was screened at the Santa Monica Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Writer/director Victor Salva returns to his horror roots with this teen-slasher genre flick, one of several 2001 films produced by Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope studio. Gina Philips and Justin Long are siblings Trish and Darry, road tripping home from college across the U.S. and bickering all the way. Menaced by a truck on the highway, the travelers encounter the same vehicle later, and what they believe is a man dumping a human body into a drainage pipe. Investigating, Darry and Trish become the intended prey of an indestructible, supernatural creature hell-bent on eating them, a murderous local myth that is proving to be all too real. As they attempt to escape their bloodthirsty pursuer, the pair discovers that even the local police station is no refuge; they also receive some advice from a knowledgeable psychic (Patricia Belcher). Jeepers Creepers co-stars Eileen Brennan. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

A high school football coach finds himself fighting for stakes much higher than the State Championship in this drama based on actual events. In 1971, a court order forces three high schools in Alexandria, Virginia (two white, one African-American), to integrate their student bodies and faculties for the first time. As a result, Coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton), longtime head coach of the T.C. Williams High School football team, is asked to step down, and Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) is appointed to replace him as the school's first black faculty member. The new coach is hardly welcomed with open arms, either by the school's staff or the students, and the newly integrated team is full of players (both black and white) who have little trust or respect for one another. But Boone is determined to put a winning team on the field -- it's how he approaches the game, and his future depends on it. Against long odds, Boone helps his team overcome distrust and misunderstanding of their coach (and each other) as they become a gridiron force to be reckoned with. Remember the Titans also features Nicole Ari Parker, Kate Bosworth, and Jerry Brandt, and was produced by action-film kingpin Jerry Bruckheimer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Scripter Robert W. Lenski adapted G.D. Gearino's novel What the Deaf-Mute Heard for this Hallmark Hall of Fame comedy. It was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, by director John Kent Harrison. During the '40s, single mother Helen (Bernadette Peters) boards a bus for Barrington, Georgia, with her 10-year-old son Sammy (Frankie Muniz). She tells him not to say a word. The two are separated when she exits the bus and is carried away, leaving the sleeping Sammy to travel to Barrington by himself. Because Sammy won't speak, bus-station manager Norm assumes he's mute and deaf. Norm gives Sammy a cot in the back of the station, and he's fed by widower Norm's friend Lucille (Judith Ivey), owner of the adjacent cafe.

Years pass, but the grown Sammy (Matthew Modine), working as a handyman, still remains silent. Well-to-do widow Tynan (Claire Bloom) orders him about when she has him clean porch furniture. Her snobbish son Tolliver (Jake Weber), who steals church money, treats Sammy with contempt. Tolliver's sister Tallasse (Anne Bobby) likes Sammy, and she confides in Sammy, thinking he can't hear what she's saying. Her father and Sammy's mother, they learn, both loved the Weill-Gershwin song, My Ship. Throughout Barrington, the locals have learned to trust Sammy, but eventually, joyful junkman Thacker (James Earl Jones) stumbles onto Sammy's secret. Bernadette Peters is heard singing My Ship during the closing credits. What the Deaf Man Heard first aired November 23, 1997 on CBS. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi