Esperanza Catubig
- 2004
After 25 years of marriage, our heroine Rose (Christine Lathi), the book editor for the "LA Chronicle", is in for a shock. Her husband Nathan (Brian Kerwin), who is also her boss at the "Chronicle", has fallen in love with his much-younger assistant Mindy (Abby Brammell). Humiliating as it is when Nathan files for divorce, it is absolutely unbearable for Rose when she is fired and Mindy is given her job! As she struggles overcome these personal devastations, Rose is reacquainted with Hal (Bryan Brown), a freewheeling novelist with whom she had been in love before she met Nathan--and whom she had rejected because of his "unreliability." All of the main characters are played by different actors in the film's many flashback sequences. Adapted from the book by Elizabeth Buchan, the made-for-TV Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman was first broadcast by CBS on September 26, 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Frequent Star Trek actor and director Jonathan Frakes gets behind the camera again for this teen-sci-fi/action-drama in the Back to the Future (1985) mold. Jesse Bradford stars as Zak Gibbs, a teenager who discovers the latest invention to spring from the mind of his scientist father (Robin Thomas) and a research team that includes his dad's eccentric colleague Dr. Earl Dopler (French Stewart). It seems that they have developed a wristwatch that manipulates "hypertime," speeding up the passage of regular time 25 times for the wearer and those near him, making it appear that the rest of the world has become essentially "frozen" in time. Zak is delighted with the ability that he initially treats as the ultimate gag and superpower, until the National Security Agency begins pursuing both him and the device, intending to confiscate it for nefarious political purposes. Clockwatchers (2002) co-stars Michael Biehn, Paula Garces, and Julia Sweeney. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jesse Bradford
A father and daughter confront their problems with both family and race issues in the independent drama Dumbarton Bridge. John Shed (Tom Wright) is a Vietnam veteran who scrapes together a living working at the salt ponds in a small town south of San Francisco. Though John is black, he has few black friends and lives with his white girlfriend, Belinda (Daphne Ashbrook). While stationed in Vietnam, John had an affair with a local woman and fathered a child. To his surprise, one day his daughter, now grown and named Ming (Esperanza Catubig), appears at his door to pay an extended visit. John is at best disinterested and at worst hostile towards his daughter, and when Belinda asks Ming to stay with them, the tension becomes so great that Belinda moves out. After a prolonged period of difficulty, John and Ming realize they have difficulty coming to terms with each other because they've never come to terms with their own ethnicity. John takes a step toward self-acceptance by joining a support group for black men, while Ming begins to resolve her own issues when she becomes romantically involved with a Vietnamese-American social worker. The debut feature from writer/director Charles Koppelman, Dumbarton Bridge features a score of vintage jazz classics assembled by legendary producer Orrin Keepnews. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Wright, Esperanza Catubig, (more)
