Ellen Geer Movies

A young man learns something about making his fantasies into reality from an older man who has already been there in this coming-of-age drama. Cameron (Michael Angarano) is a teenage film buff living in Los Angeles who dreams of making movies himself someday, an ambition that doesn't impress his parents very much. Cameron doesn't have many friends beyond fellow outcast Murphy (Joshua Boyd), and wealthy and popular classmate Brett (Taber Schroeder) takes great pleasure in making Cameron's life miserable. A major film school in L.A. has announced a competition for young filmmakers, but while Cameron has talent and ideas, Brett has the money to buy film stock and rent equipment, and Cameron wonders if he stands any chance at all. One evening, while attending a screening of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil at a revival theater, Cameron sees an elderly man who shouts at the screen about his old pal Orson. Cameron is thus introduced to Flash Madden (Christopher Plummer), who worked as a lighting man during the Golden Age of Hollywood and really did work with some of the most respected names in the business, including Welles. While cranky Flash doesn't much care for Cameron at first, in time he sees a kindred spirit in the movie-mad teenager, and offers his technical know-how and sources of equipment to the would-be director. Flash also introduces Cameron to Mickey Hopkins (M. Emmet Walsh), a former screenwriter who helped script a number of silver-screen classics but is now living in a shabby old folks' home, and in Hopkins, Cameron finds the inspiration for just the sort of movie he wants to make. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A handful of disparate characters, both adults and children, find themselves navigating the tricky waters of intimacy in this award-winning independent comedy drama. Richard (John Hawkes) is a recent divorcé who is alternately exhilarated and terrified with his life and the world around him. While he believes great things are in store for him, he's also become so despondent about his wife's departure that he attempts to set his hand on fire. Richard meets Christine (Miranda July) at the shoe store where he works; Christine likes to paint a picture of herself as a stylish and confident video artist, but in truth she supports herself as a driver with a car service for the elderly, and she'd very much like to meet someone special. As Richard and Christine fumble their way into a relationship, Richard's two sons have issues of their own. Seven-year-old Robby (Brandon Ratcliff) has met someone in an Internet chat room who responds to his naïve and scatological perceptions of sex, while 14-year-old Peter (Miles Thompson) finds himself on the receiving end of unusual and unexpected attention from two girls in his class. Me and You and Everyone We Know was the first feature film written and directed by noted performance artist Miranda July; the picture won prizes in 2005 at the Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A con artist finds family squabbles are getting in the way of a major payday in this sharp blend of comedy and suspense, based on the Argentinean hit Nueve Reinas (aka Nine Queens). Richard Gaddis (John C. Reilly) is a smart-suited confidence man who knows how to run a big con but prefers to pull off a number of small scams over the course of the day, cheating a lot of folks out of a little instead of taking one or two for a lot. One day, while looking for marks at a gambling casino, Gaddis spies Rodrigo (Diego Luna), a fellow grifter with little polish but obvious talent. Gaddis takes Rodrigo under his wing, and after showing him a few tricks, the two begin working as a team. A golden opportunity presents itself when Gaddis learns the whereabouts of an incredibly valuable antique bank note just as an ideal customer is passing through town; Gaddis and Rodrigo quickly try to set up a deal that will separate cash from customer without the note actually changing hands, but the scheme proves complicated enough that others have to be brought in, causing each individual's share of the loot to dwindle. Adding to Gaddis' annoyance is the appearance of his sister Valerie (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who works at the hotel where the deal is to go down and isn't especially happy with her brother and his attempts to get his hands on the family's fortune. Criminal marked the directorial debut of Gregory Jacobs, who previously distinguished himself as a producer and assistant director. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Howard Deutch directed this sequel to the The Odd Couple (1968), originally adapted from the 1965 Broadway comedy by Neil Simon. Thirty years later, Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon) and retired sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) meet at LAX and drive a rental car across the desert to attend the wedding of Oscar's son Brucey (Jonathan Silverman) to Felix's daughter Hannah (Lisa Waltz), but a breakdown leaves them stranded at some distance from the main highways where they are sprayed by a cropduster and hang out with two flirtatious women (Christine Baranski, Jean Smart) in a small-town bar before getting a lift from slow-driving elderly Beaumont (Barnard Hughes), and eventually arriving at the wedding. Composer Alan Silvestri brings in Neal Hefti's original theme from the 1968 film, music also featured in ABC's 1970-75 TV series with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Another Odd Couple sequel is the TV movie The Odd Couple: Together Again (CBS, 1993, repeated July 1997), starring Randall and Klugman; it also involved the wedding of Felix's daughter. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Another "based on an actual event!" TV movie, Murder Between Friends is set in 1980s New Orleans. Two friends become involved in murder when the wife of one of them begins cheating on her spouse. Constructed along the lines of "Rashomon", the script offers two entirely different accounts of the homicide and the events leading up to it. Timothy Busfield heads the cast as the hardworking prosecutor who wants to cut through the bull. When first telecast on January 10, 1994, Murder Between Friends was accompanied by a "viewer discretion" disclaimer; smart move. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This is the third film based on Tom Clancy's high-tech espionage potboilers starring CIA deputy director Jack Ryan. Harrison Ford, returning to the Ryan role after his first go-round in 1992's Patriot Games, is assigned to a delicate anti-drug investigation after a close friend of the President (a Reaganesque Donald Moffat) is murdered by a Colombian drug cartel. When Ryan discovers that the President's wealthy friend was in league with the cartel, the President's devious national security adviser (Harris Yulin) and an ambitious CIA deputy director (Henry Czerny) send a secret paramilitary force into Colombia to wipe out the drug lords. The force is captured and then abandoned by the President's lackeys. It falls to Ryan to enter Colombia and rescue them, aided only by a renegade operative named Clark (Willem Dafoe), with both his life and career on the line. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

In Patriot Games, Harrison Ford plays former CIA agent Jack Ryan, taking over from Alec Baldwin, who had played author Tom Clancy's brainy protagonist in Hunt for Red October. This time around, Ryan foils an attempted assassination, thereby incurring the wrath of a maniacal Irish radical (Sean Bean). After seemingly neutralizing the villains, and deciding to celebrate the occasion with his wife (Anne Archer) and daughter (Thora Birch), everything appears to be back to normal; then all hell breaks loose. Author Tom Clancy himself bemoaned the liberties taken with his novel in the final sequences; the picture scored with audiences, however, and soon inspired a followup, A Clear and Present Danger (1994), also starring Ford. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A mysterious and highly dangerous crystalline entity destroys Omicron Theta, Data's homeworld. Despite this, Captain Picard hopes that the entity can be communicated with. But he'd better hurry: visisting scientist Dr. Kila Marr (Ellen Geer, who has been studying the entity for a long time, is bound and determined to destroy it. Originally broadcast October 19, 1991, "Silicon Avatar" was scripted by Jeri Taylor, from a story by Lawrence V. Conley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Consumed by grief when his father is felled by a heart attack, 11-year-old Obie (Ricky Busker) runs away from his white, upper-class surroundings. He ends up in a particularly dismal Chicago ghetto neighborhood where, after enduring a beating administered by gang members, he is befriended by streetwise black youth Jeremy "Scam" Henderson (Darius McCrary). The two become partners in crime, leading to a deadly situation involving a pair of professional hit men. Just when it seems things can't get any worse, they do. Robert Prosky co-stars as a slimy pawnbroker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Anne Archer stars in the made-for-TV movie A Different Affair--and, surprise, she doesn't play a long-suffering victim. Anne is cast as a chic radio psychologist who has lived alone and liked it since the death of her husband. All this changes when the plot requires that she take in a troublesome 12-year-old foster child, played by Bobby Jacoby. Tony Roberts fills the standard best friend/lover/severest critic role, while other parts are essayed by Stuart Pankin and Alan Fudge. Filmed in 1985, A Different Affair didn't land an airdate until March 24, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On his deathbed, a syndicate hitman confesses that it was he who killed Hunter's mobster father fifteen years earlier. No sooner has Hunter (Fred Dryer) digested this news than he learns that the man who put out the contract was his father's former partner--still very much alive. To prove the culprit's guilt, Hunter must locate a prostitute (Kay Lenz) who has vital information before the homicidal ex-partner can strike again. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on a novel by Alvah Bessie, this accomplished film by his son Dan Bessie handles the love affair between a pilot's widow (Ellen Geer) and a maintenance man (J.E. Freeman) who at first seem mismatched. In the end, they share an affection that does not waiver in the face of tragedy. Although the names and events have been changed, the story is basically about the director's mother and his stepfather. In this fictional rendering of their love for each other, the two marry, but the husband is soon charged with murder and faces a heavy-handed court trial. Novelist Alvah Bessie was himself blacklisted during the McCarthy era. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This romantic, melancholy twist on the Frankenstein formula stars Peter O'Toole as Professor Harry Wolper, a lonely eccentric who has dedicated decades of research to cloning his long-dead wife Lucy from a culture of living tissue. To this end, he enlists the services of likeable Graduate assistant Boris (Vincent Spano), who is initially baffled by the professor's endless rants about God, Science and "The Big Picture." After Wolper posts bills seeking a human egg donor, his wish is granted by the vivacious young Meli (Mariel Hemingway), in whom the professor soon discovers a more willing convert to his grand design... and perhaps a love more immediate and real than the one he lost. Boris eventually manages to come around to "The Big Picture" himself when Wolper points him in the direction of another graduate, Barbara (Virginia Madsen). Despite opting for a platonic relationship to better determine if they are ideally matched, Boris and Barbara soon fall deeply in love, realizing that they are soul-mates as the professor had predicted. Tragedy strikes, however, when a brain hemorrhage renders Barbara comatose, and Wolper's nemesis Dr. Sid Kuhlenbeck (David Ogden Stiers) persuades the university to shut down Harry's private cloning laboratory. Meli forces Wolper to choose between her love and his misplaced longing for his dead wife... and his answer is suddenly made clear when he witnesses Boris's heartfelt determination to bring his own true love back to the land of the living. Written by Jeremy Leven (based on his own novel), this is a flawed but engaging comedy which proves that a well-written story can incorporate traditional science fiction elements as more than a mere plot device and actually enhance the humanity of the characters. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi