Patricia Gaul Movies
- 1996
Having endured four consecutive night shifts, Greene (Anthony Edwards) reluctantly tackles night number five with only a skeleton crew -- and an inordinately large influx of patients. Among those passing through the doors of the crowded ER are an abusive husband whose wife has retaliated in a violent fashion, a lap dancer, a teenager who has swallowed antifreeze, and a young girl who was injured in a car accident that Greene had witnessed while grabbing a sandwich at a nearby restaurant. At the end of it all, Carter (Noah Wyle) can only express admiration for Greene's handling of a near-impossible job -- not to mention a last-minute innovation in patient care. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Based on a true story, the made-for-television movie Runaway Father is about a husband who fakes his death so he can abandon his family. After surviving 20 years of poverty, his wife discovers he is still alive, and she sues him to collect 17 years of back child support. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donna Mills, Jack Scalia, (more)
Based on a best-selling novel from Danielle Steele, this made-for-television melodrama tells the sad story of a highly successful businessman whose idyllic life is destroyed when his new bride dies of cancer, leaving him with her daughter. To make matters worse, his late wife's ex-husband shows up demanding custody of the child. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Emile Ardolino directed this treacly sequel to Three Men and a Baby. The middle-aged trio of doting fathers -- Peter the architect (Tom Selleck), Michael the cartoonist (Steve Guttenberg) and Jack the actor (Ted Danson) -- have returned, sublimating their swinging bachelor instincts in order to raise 5-year-old Mary (Robin Weisman). The child of Jack and Sylvia (Nancy Travis), Mary was abandoned by Sylvia in the foyer of the boys' apartment house in the first film. In five years, Mary has grown from a diaper-filling infant to a cute kid who insists that the guys sing rap songs to her before she goes to bed. Sylvia now also lives with the bachelors as she pursues a promising Broadway career. Peter, Michael, and Jack dote on the moppet and parenthood has rarely seemed more idyllic. But Sylvia once again disrupts their placid existence. Accepting the marriage proposal of British director and surly cad Edward (Christopher Cazenove), she announces that she and Mary are going to move to England, leaving the boys high and dry. When it turns out that Edward is secretly planning to ship Mary away to a boarding school after the marriage, the three guys race frantically to disrupt Sylvia's wedding. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, (more)
Thanks to a mix-up at birth, two sets of twins are separated and grow up in radically different social circles. The four baby girls grow up to be Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin-and Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin. One of the Midlers is a ruthless New York CEO, while one of the Tomlins is her air-headed "save the whales" business partner. Thousands of miles away in a Southern industrial town, a blue-collar Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin work for a company that the white-collar Midler plans to devour in a hostile takeover. The "poor" Midler and Tomlin head to New York to argue against the takeover, inevitably getting mixed up with the "rich" Midler and Tomlin. Three of the four twins team up to save the small-town company, while CEO Midler remains as nastily greedy as ever. Clear enough? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, (more)
- 1987
Murder Ordained is the true story of a crime of passion in Emporia, Kansas. Terry Kinney plays the reverend Tom Bird, whose wife Sandy (Annabella Price) was found dead in 1983. At first, it seems as though Sandy was killed in a car accident. But highway patrolman John Rule (Keith Carradine) has a different theory: Rule believes that Bird murdered his wife out of love for his mistress (JoBeth Williams). A second killing in another Kansas county serves to confirm Rule's hypothesis. Filmed on location, the two-part Murder Ordained was originally telecast May 3 and 5, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keith Carradine, JoBeth Williams, (more)
In a gender-reversed version of his previous hit Pretty in Pink, John Hughes retreads all-too- familiar ground in Some Kind of Wonderful, the story of a sensitive, young would-be artist, Keith (Eric Stoltz), who vies for the affection of his high school's popularity queen, Amanda (Lea Thompson), seemingly out of some deep-rooted insecurity regarding his social ineptitude. He enlists the help of his butch best friend and fellow misfit, Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), unaware that she secretly pines for him. While she goads him to give up his pointless pursuit of Amanda, he encounters one other small obstacle -- Amanda's rich bully of a boyfriend, Hardy (Craig Sheffer), who threatens Keith with a face rearrangement. Undeterred, Keith decides he will, by any means necessary, escort his dream girl to the prom -- but not before he buys her expensive jewelry with the money from his college fund in order to impress her. (Hughes expects the audience to side with Keith when his father protests.) Some Kind of Wonderful is pure fantasy, but the plot is too tired and flawed for it to be completely satisfactory escapism. Still, the performances are all-around good and the ending is slightly more likeable than its predecessor's. Hughes decided to use the original Pretty in Pink ending, which had been dropped from the original after poor audience response at the advance screenings. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Stoltz, Mary Stuart Masterson, (more)
- 1986
Based on a true story, this made-for-television drama chronicles a woman's fight for justice within the legal system. John Larroquette (Night Court) stars as Douglas Forbes, a husband who is wrongly accused of being a serial rapist. Targeted by a prosecutor who is determined to put someone behind bars for the crimes, Douglas goes on trial, is convicted, and sent to jail. Refusing to give up on her husband, Douglas' determined wife Martha (Lindsay Wagner), will not rest until her husband's name is cleared of the erroneous charges and he is freed from jail. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lindsay Wagner, John Larroquette, (more)
Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado is a fond hark back to the all-star, big-budget westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. The various plotlines converge at the town of Silverado, held in thrall by crooked sheriff Brian Dennehy and his behemoth "deputies." The four disparate heroes--Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Scott Glenn and Danny Glover--prepare to do battle against Dennehy for personal reasons ranging from mercenary to altruistic. Sidelines characters include duplicitous, dandified gambler Jeff Goldblum, frontier widow Rosanna Arquette and gimlet-eyed saloon owner Linda Hunt. The film is stolen hands-down by Kevin Costner, playing an irresponsible young gunslinger who never speaks when hootin' and hollerin' will do. A classic, High Noon-style showdown caps this rousing retro western. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, (more)
Filled with enough cameos to keep film buffs entertained, this otherwise routine action-comedy by John Landis boasts Michelle Pfeiffer as one of its major attractions. She plays Diana, a woman prone to having affairs with some very dangerous men, and Jeff Goldblum is Ed Okin, an aerospace engineer whose lot is thrown in with Diana's when the woman is caught in a bind at the airport. The beautiful Diana is an airhead on the scale of the Hindenberg, her only concerns are clothes and men -- which she either most attractively wears or wears out, depending. While Ed is at the airport one day trying to sort out his life, Diana arrives with six smuggled emeralds in tow and is immediately welcomed by several hired assassins. Fear and expediency propel her into Ed's car, and the two are off on a series of narrow escapes that has them pursued by everyone from Iranians to baddies played by well-known international directors (Roger Vadim) or singers (David Bowie) or comedians (Dan Aykroyd). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, (more)
- 1985
The messages referred to in the title are those conveyed on a Ouija board. The heroine (Kathleen Beller) conjures up these messages, which indicate that her future happiness is gravely in doubt. In point of fact, the words she spells out on the board are I-AM-GOING-TO-KILL-YOU. A mystery figure from the woman's past intends to fulfill this prophecy--with a dagger. Material like this only works if the producers have faith in it; Deadly Messages appears to have been made by people who found the premise amusing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Burt Lancaster is eminently hissable as a tabloid publisher in the made-for-TV Scandal Sheet. The current target of Lancaster's smears is alcoholic actor Robert Urich, who is on the verge of making a comeback through the auspices of his movie-star wife Lauren Hutton. Ruthlessly going after Urich merely for the purpose of selling newspapers, Lancaster "persuades" impoverished reporter Pamela Reed, the best friend of Urich and Hutton, to help him wield the hatchet. Sublimely trashy, Scandal Sheet is held together by the despicably dynamic performance of Burt Lancaster. The film was of course made long before tabloid publishers were being lauded as "news analysts" on TV talk shows. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this rather routine adaptation of the French hit, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, Richard (Tom Hanks) is a bicycling violinist who is innocently drawn into a nasty struggle for control of the CIA. Cooper (Dabney Coleman) is the unscrupulous current head honcho of the notorious U.S. agency, Ross (Charles Durning) is his nemesis, and Maddy (Lori Singer) works for Cooper. After Richard the violinist is forced into the picture, Maddy fights off an attraction to the rather dull man, and complications introduce enough gadgetry to fill a James Bond movie, almost. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Lori Singer, (more)
Arthur Hiller directed this satiric look at contemporary urban high schools, examining disillusioned teachers who try to regain their idealism. Nick Nolte stars as Alex, a teacher at John Fitzgerald Kennedy High School, who was once an idealistic teacher but whose main concern now is sobering up before the next class session. The high school is headed by ineffective principal Mr. Horn (William Schallert) and an imperious vice-principal named Roger (Judd Hirsch). When a recent graduate of the high school sues the school because it graduated him illiterate, Alex finds himself in conflict with the hard-nosed school superintendent Dr. Burke (Lee Grant). The high school heats up even more when Alex falls in love with Lisa (JoBeth Williams), the attractive lawyer who was once one of Alex's honor students. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nick Nolte, JoBeth Williams, (more)
Embraced by the Baby Boomer generation and spawning countless imitators, the sophomore film of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan was a successful comedy-drama with a best selling soundtrack of Motown hits. Kevin Kline and Glenn Close star as Harold and Sarah Cooper, a couple whose marital troubles are put on hold while they host an unhappy reunion of former college pals gathered for the funeral of one of their own, a suicide victim named Alex. As the weekend unfolds, the friends catch up with each other, play the music of their youth, reminisce, smoke marijuana, and pair off with each other in unexpected combinations. Included are Michael (Jeff Goldblum), a smarmy journalist; Sam (Tom Berenger), a TV star; Karen (JoBeth Williams), unhappily married and pining for Sam; Nick (William Hurt), a drug-addicted Vietnam vet; and Meg (Mary Kay Place), a single career woman who wants a child. Joining the group is Alex's bizarre girlfriend Chloe (Meg Tilly), who finds new love with Nick. As they learn to deal with the truth about the loss of idealism in their lives and Alex's sad demise, the friends find their bond still intact, while the marriage of Harold and Sarah is healed in an unusual way that's in sync with the era of their youth. Cut from the release of The Big Chill (1983) was the brief appearance of young actor Kevin Costner as Alex. Kasdan promised Costner a role in his next picture, which turned out to be a star-making part in Silverado (1985). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, (more)
- 1983
Quincy (Jack Klugman) is an unwilling key player in an elaborate vengeance scheme concocted by arrogant paralegal Carl Norman (Jeff Pomerantz). After the 7-year-old granddaughter of law professor Henry Hillman (Lew Ayres) is kidnapped in broad daylight, Norman calmly walks into police headquarters and confesses to the crime, further demanding to be put on trial immediately. Using the flaws in the legal system to his advantage, Norman is supremely confident that he will not only be acquitted for the crime, but that he will be able to collect the ransom for the girl without running the risk of a future arrest--thanks to that all-too-familiar loophole known as "Double Jeopardy". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
