Kim Schraner Movies
- 2008
Kenny Vs. Spenny writer/creator Kenny Hotz crafts this sitcom centering on a pair of roommates and longtime friends who both work as test subjects at an off-the-wall product testing factory. Peter (Steve Markle) and Ron (Jeff Kassel) are both in their early thirties. They've been friends for years, but these days they share an apartment and work together at Testico, the local product testing facility. Each week the hapless duo is given a new product to test and asked to report back on the side effects. Despite the fact that the side effects of the products being tested are generally ridiculous and consistently negative, Peter and Ron both do their best to carry on with their lives until the next line of products rolls around and the cycle starts all over again. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Markle, Jeff Kassel, (more)
Originally telecast over Canada's CTV network on January 29, 2002, A Killing Spring was a one-shot attempt to revive the popular Joanne Kilbourn Mysteries series (aka Criminal Instincts), starring Wendy Crewson as the ex-police-detective-turned-university-lecturer created by Gail Bowen. Missing from this feature-length whodunit is Joanne Kilbourn's longtime co-star Victor Garber, though Shane Doyle fills in admirably as the "official" representative of the law. In this one, Joanne Kilbourn returns to Lanholm College, where she had once been a professor, when the Dean of Journalism is found dead, evidently the result of autoerotic suffocation during "rough sex." Although she risks losing an important internship, Joanne insists upon investigating the death, and in the process unearths a hotbed of moral depravity and academic backstabbing. Throughout, there is one person who is willing to commit murder rather than allow Joanne to expose his innumerable peccadillos -- and the result, inevitably, is two additional corpses. In the United States, A Killing Spring was picked up by the Lifetime cable channel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wendy Crewson, Shawn Doyle, (more)
- 1999
Originally titled Milgaard, this made-for-TV drama is a disturbingly accurate account of one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in Canadian history. In 1969, 17-year-old hippie David Milgaard (Ian Tracey) is arrested on suspicion for the rape and murder on nursing assistant Gail Miller (Ardith Boxall). Anxious for a quick conviction despite a paucity of conclusive evidence, the authorities in Saskatchewan rush David's trial through, and within less than two months of the murder he is sent to prison for life. As David's mother Joyce (Gabrielle Rose]) and a team of dedicated pro bono attorneys battle to clear her son's name, David goes through hell behind bars--for the next twenty-three years. First telecast in Canada in April of 1999 (though banned from viewing in Saskatchewan, where the events took place), Milgaard was retitled Hard Time: The David Milgaard Story for airing in the US via the Lifetime channel. Since that time, a third title has been bestowed on the film at the behest of David's family: Innocent: The David Milgaard Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Michael Anderson directed this Canadian coming-of-age adventure that generates nostalgia for rural America at the turn of the century. Farmer John Lee (Michael Ontkean) and wife Sarah (Leslie Hope) have two children, Jay Berry (Corey Sevier) and crippled Daisy (Katie Stuart). Hoping to buy a pony, Jay Berry works during the summer at the town's general store, run by Gramps (Wilford Bramley). After a train wreck, circus monkeys escape. Jay Berry spots them and sees an opportunity to earn extra money by collecting the reward. But how can he catch them? Shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Ontkean, Leslie Hope, (more)
