Jane McGregor Movies

Inspired by a play that has been presented dozens of times to middle- and high-school students throughout the United States, Bang, Bang, You're Dead ponders the possible reasons that outwardly "normal" teenagers periodically resort to Columbine-style violence. The focus here is on Trevor Adams (Ben Foster), an intelligent but hypersensitive high schooler whose troubled past has designated him "at risk." Feeling persecuted by those stronger and more popular than himself, Trevor has already run afoul of classmates and teachers alike by making death threats against the school football team. Now he has aligned himself with a group of fellow "outsiders" who call themselves the Trogs. Indulging in prankery that runs the gamut from merely irritating to potentially dangerous, Trevor and the Trogs plan an all-out deadly assault against their so-called enemies. Although the script points out that peer pressure and bullying has gone beyond the point of harmlessness in today's society, it is careful not to blame any one person or group for what ultimately happens to Trevor; even Trevor himself is shown to be comprised of equal parts villain and victim. First screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, Bang, Bang, You're Dead formally premiered October 13, 2002, over the Showtime cable network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The family drama Flower & Garnet is the feature-length debut from Canadian filmmaker Keith Behrman. Ten years after the death of the family matriarch, the widower and her two children are still coming to terms with their lives. Daughter Flower (Jane McGregor) gets pregnant and moves out. Her younger brother, Garnet (Colin Roberts), is an odd child who has trouble connecting with father Ed (Callum Keith Rennie). One of Ed's former girlfriends, and a gun, are key to the plot. Flower & Garnet was screened at the Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Starla Grady (Jane McGregor), the most popular girl at Splendona High School in Splendona, TX, is on top of the world. That is, at least, until foreign-exchange student Genevieve LePlouff (Piper Perabo) moves in with Starla's family. Starla's parents had hoped that Genevieve's tutoring would help raise Starla's French grade, which had dropped dangerously low. At first, like Starla's other followers, Genevieve seems in awe of her charmed existence. However, when Genevieve's story of misfortune and lost love is featured in the school newspaper, Starla feels the winds begin to change. Before she knows it, Genevieve has stolen all of her best friends, her boyfriend, her position on the cheerleading squad, and her status as the most popular girl in school. Starla, not one to go down without a fight, sets out to expose Genevieve as the lying backstabber she truly is. Slap Her...She's French is directed by veteran thirtysomething actress Melanie Mayron. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Thirty-three years after the demise of The Patty Duke Show, you'll be glad to know that Patty Lane is still seeing the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights, and that her identical cousin Cathy still prefers the minuet and crepe suzette, judging from the evidence presented in this made-for-TV movie. Patty Duke once again plays both Patty and Cathy; these days, Patty is a drama teacher at her old high school, and while she's still sees her old boyfriend Richard (Eddie Applegate), they got married after high school and have since divorced; they have a grown son and a granddaughter. Cathy, on the other hand, is a widow with a teenage son, currently living in Scotland. When the two cousins meet again at a family reunion, they join forces to do battle with Patty's arch-enemy Sue Ellen (Cindy Williams), who plans to buy Brooklyn Heights High School, tear it down and put in a strip mall. Also reprising their roles from the original TV series are William Schallert and Jean Byron as Patty's parents. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"What if they're right?" screamed the ad copy for the TV movie Y2K, referring to the millions of otherwise rational, level-headed people who lived in mortal terror that virtually every computer in the world would malfunction on December 31, 1999, because of an imbedded inability to "read" the year 2000. As it turned out, of course, "they" were wrong, and no worldwide technical meltdown occurred: but the producers of this film, which originally aired November 21, 1999, on NBC, were clearly not above exploiting everyone's panic over things to come to make a few bucks. In traditional disaster-flick fashion, the film offers a multitude of subplots with several different sets of main characters, all of whose lives will be profoundly altered by the cataclysmic events of Y2K. Likewise adhering to tradition is the notion that only one man is capable of saving the world from plunging into a computerized abyss. That man is MIT-trained "systems failure" expert Nick Cromwell (Ken Olin), who on the eve of the new millennium races against time to prevent a nuclear disaster in New York City -- one that threatens to dwarf a similar reactor meltdown that occurred a scant few hours earlier in Sweden. To juice up the suspense, the script contrives to place Cromwell's wife Kelly (Jane McGregor) and daughter Alix (Kate Vernon) in jeopardy while dad is off being a hero. The film's level of credibility reaches a crest when Jay Leno makes a cameo appearance as himself. Seen from the vantage point of the post-9/11, post-Hurricane Katrina era, Y2K seems as quaint and naïve as a 1908 Biograph one-reeler -- perhaps even more so. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide