David Gale Movies

This is a relatively early entry in the slice-n-dicer genre that while made in 1976, was not actually released until the early '80s. Like most of the subsequent slasher flicks, the terror begins when a few horny couples head out to a remote location for fun and frolic. Unfortunately, their sexploits are interrupted by a homicidal maniac wearing a mask. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Richard Dreyfuss plays Moses Wine, an ex-Sixties radical who pays the bills as a private eye. Wine is hired to stem a smear campaign against a popular political candidate. Gradually the plot thickens into a murder case, involving a hippie leader whose values, like Wine's, have been severely compromised over the years - and who plans to blow up a major LA freeway as a protest. Susan Anspach provides a great deal of dramatic (and sexual) tension as Wine's boss. Among the minor players are future stars Mandy Patinkin and F. Murray Abraham. The Big Fix was adapted by Roger L. Simon from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lacking any particular plot line, this feminist film focuses on the adventures of Ruby (Julie Christie) who goes to the Yukon to search out her roots -- her father was a gold prospector there -- and also details the experiences of Celeste (Colette Laffont) as she tries to get her male bosses to answer her questions related to banking and money. Observations on the worse aspects of male chauvinism may turn off some viewers, while others will appreciate director Sally Potter's effort to expose bias. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a brilliant medical student who has perfected a green-glowing serum for regenerating life into dead things -- or even parts of dead things. But a corrupt superior, Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), assumes control of West's experiments and winds up, by ghastly necessity, using the stuff on his own severed head and body. West and in-over-his-head co-worker Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) struggle to control the now out-of-control effects of the serum, but the bone-saws and zombies complicate their plans. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

This lackluster attempt at blending equal parts action movie and supernatural thriller ends up sacrificing the merits of both genres. The plot finds baby-faced homicide detective Logan (Lou Diamond Phillips) on the trail of "Pentagram Killer" Patrick Channing (Jeff Kober), negligibly assisted by lots of occult mumbo-jumbo espoused by various doomsaying members of the Catholic Church. Channing is eventually captured and executed, but this turns out to be a big mistake: one of the Satanic powers Channing managed to acquire through ritual sacrifice is the power to transfer his soul into other living bodies, allowing him to roam about incognito and continue his killing spree. There is little overt horror on display, as we usually see only the aftermath of Channing's evil deeds; there is scarcely enough mystery to propel the police-procedural elements either. Worse, the producers apparently decided to toss in a romantic subplot involving Phillips and psychic Tracy Griffith to keep things interesting, but fail to sustain credibility even in this department. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Loosely adapted from H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West -- Re-Animator comes this sequel to one of the wildest, bloodiest, and funniest horror films to ever come down the pipe. Set eight months after the gruesome events of the first film, the follow-up opens with the demented Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) continuing to perfect his "re-agent" formula to regenerate dead tissue with the help of his ever-troubled assistant Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). New characters include suspicious policeman Lt. Chapham (Claude Earl Jones) and Cain's old flame Francesca (Fabiana Udenio). Returning to Miskatonic Hospital after a short stint in the military, West and the reluctant, often unwitting Cain plan to create new life from a patchwork of body parts -- including the heart of Cain's beloved girlfriend. However, things quickly get out of hand thanks to the snooping of Lt. Chapham and the return of the evil decapitated Dr. Hill (David Gale) who wants revenge for his beheading. There's also the problem of West's dozens of oddball creations who want out of the dungeon they are trapped within. It all comes to a head as Cain and West resurrect their "bride" just as Dr. Hill literally flies in to take his vengeance with the help of West's freakish creations. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

Corbin Bernsen, fresh out of LA Law, plays a real-life attorney in Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story. As Dees, Bernsen goes head to head with the Ku Klux Klan in the Alabama of the 1980s. Despite having his name included on the "hit list" of every wacko white supremacist in the Nation, Dees manages to break the back of the KKK is his own particular corner of the world. Line of Fire is elaborately produced and hits all the right emotional buttons, but falls short of perfection thanks to stereotypical villains and excessive melodrama. The film was first telecast on Martin Luther King Day in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A large, dysfunctional family awaits word on a loved one's fate in this domestic drama starring Susan Sarandon as Mag Singer, mother of seven sons. One, Percival (Matt Keeslar) is serving in the Marine Corps, and when news comes that his barracks in the Middle East has been bombed by terrorists, Mag's family assembles at her home, anxious for more information. In the meantime, a series of old wounds are reopened and healed. The prodigious Singers include the father, Patrick (Sam Shepard), unhappily estranged from Mag and prone to bouts of hysterical blindness, and Alfred (Robert Sean Leonard), the responsible, sober eldest, who is engaged to divorced mother Cynthia (Marcia Gay Harden). There's also Simon (Nick Stahl), the intellectual Izzy (Sean Astin), two twins, and guilt-wracked Gideon (Jason London), a track star who outshone Percival athletically, inspiring the latter to join the military. While the Singers deal with minor crises like a neighbor's dog that repeatedly attacks Simon, Percival's fate looms, and Mag deals with her fear by cleaning out the ramshackle garage and drinking Tequila with her daughter-in-law to be, Cynthia, with whom she's surprised to find much in common. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Before the box office success of Varsity Blues (1999) and the critical acclaim of Election (1999), the MTV cable channel created this raunchy campus comedy, the debut feature from MTV Films, the network's motion picture production banner. Josh Miller (Tom Everett Scott) is a studious and responsible pre-med student entering college as a freshman. His wild, hard-partying roommate Cooper Frederickson (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), on the other hand, is a spoiled rich kid who never studies and spends his time getting drunk and ogling co-eds. Before long, Cooper's fun-filled lifestyle has corrupted Josh, and both are on the verge of flunking out of school. That's when they discover a little-used codicil in the college's charter stating that any student whose roommate commits suicide will automatically receive straight A's. Since their third roommate has moved in with his girlfriend, Josh and Cooper set about recruiting the most depressed, suicidal classmate they can find. The prime candidate: Cliff (Lochlyn Munro), a mentally unbalanced wild man. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In his first feature following the success of television's Dawson's Creek, James Van Der Beek stars as Jonathan Moxon, the back-up quarterback on his high-school football team, the West Canaan Coyotes. In West Canaan, the only thing that matters is football, and the man who matters is the one with 22 divisional championships, coach Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight). Mox, as the young "A" student is called, is wrapping up his senior year on his way to Brown University in the shadow of his childhood friend, star quarterback Lance Harbor (Paul Walker). With only five games until the end of the season, Kilmer pushes his players too hard, and Lance suffers a career-ending injury, forcing Mox to play and win the game. Now the starter, Mox must deal with his newfound celebrity; the attentions of Lance's girlfriend, head-cheerleader Darcy (Ali Larter); prevent his friends and fellow players Billy Bob (Ron Lester) and Tweeder (Scott Caan) from self-destructing; prevent Coach Kilmer from crushing everybody; and hold on to his own girlfriend, Lance's sister Jules (Amy Smart). Oh, and Mox must also win the championship and prove himself the hero. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide

In this satirical comedy, a hotly contested high school election becomes a metaphor for the current state of American politics. Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is a popular and well-respected instructor at George Washington Carver High School in Omaha, Nebraska, but lately he's been unhappy in both his personal and professional life, and his anxieties finally come to a head with the school's student elections. Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is running for student body president, and she certainly seems like the sort of girl who would win a high school election -- she's pretty, popular and takes part in all the right extra-curricular activities. In fact, she seems so perfect she's running unopposed, which offends McAllister's sense of democracy (not to mention the fact he doesn't like her very much). So Jim intervenes and persuades Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against Tracy. Paul is not terribly bright and is entirely unqualified to be student president, but as a star of the school's football team (before a leg injury sidelined him), he's popular enough to at least give Tracy a run for her money. Just as the race begins to heat up, a spanner is truly thrown into the works when Paul's sister, Tammy (Jessica Campbell) announces she's also running for office. Publicly, Tammy's platform is that the student elections are ultimately pointless and if she's elected, she'll eliminate them altogether. Privately, Tammy is out for revenge against her brother; it seems Tammy is experimenting with her sexuality, and a recent fling with a bisexual classmate named Lisa (Frankie Ingrassia) ended when Lisa dumped her to start going out with Paul. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Election was directed by Alexander Payne, who won enthusiastic reviews for his debut feature, Citizen Ruth; Payne also co-wrote the screenplay with Jim Taylor. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This comic spoof is spun off from a character that first appeared on The Chris Rock Show, and is written and directed by Louis C.K., one of that show's producers. Lance Crouther stars as Pootie Tang, a crime fighting superhero and recording artist who speaks in an unintelligible gibberish that seems to be a combination of Ebonics and street slang. Despite his communication problem, Pootie is a hero to children, whom he attempts to protect from the evil Dick Lecter (Robert Vaughn), a corporate fat cat out to corrupt America's youth with alcohol, tobacco, and junk food. Pootie also runs up against an artistic imitator (David Cross) and a sleazy recording executive (Andy Richter) Pootie Tang co-stars Chris Rock, Dave Attell, and Bob Costas and Conan O'Brien as themselves. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Multimillion-selling recording artist Britney Spears makes the transition to the big screen with this teen road trip romantic comedy, co-produced by the film branch of the entity that first brought her pop stardom, MTV. Crossroads casts Spears as Lucy, the shy valedictorian of her high school graduating class. On the night of their prom, Lucy and her once-close childhood friends -- the prim and proper Kit (Zoe Saldana) and the tomboyish, five-months-pregnant Mimi (Taryn Manning) -- reunite to dig up a time capsule they buried together as little girls. Mimi's about to make good on her childhood dreams; she's leaving their small Southern town for hopes of fame and fortune in Los Angeles. Though Lucy and Kit are reluctant to join her, they decide to tag along at the last minute, agreeing to be chauffeured by Mimi's just-out-of-jail friend, Ben (Anson Mount). As they trek across the country, plagued by car problems, unsanitary motels, and petty bickering, the three friends reveal meaningful secrets to each other, and Lucy begins to realize that the handsome, reticent Ben might just be the guy for her. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide